The Tale of Two Hunts

This is my first trip of hunting Western Ks on opening weekend . I generally hold back because a prefer to hunt in a smaller group . I am grateful for the invite any time asked to go and have someone share there hunting grounds with me.

So here is how opening day went it initially was anticipated that there would be the 3 of us pictured and likely 3 other hunters . I counted 14 of us as we stretched out across the cover , it was a nice social event , a fair amount to coordinate for the the hunt planner . It was safe as far as I could tell I know 14 people Make a bit more noise than 2 or three hunters on the same page . Saturday we harvested 13 Roosters hunting straight threw the day with a roadside feild lunch and hunting last bit of shooting light .

Sunday hunted with the 3 of us pictured and occasional blocker from the landowner who took the picture .
We slipped in and out of cover kept pretty quite and cordinated with hand signals when dogs got on birds .
Results pictured above 3 man limit by early afternoon, and lots of good dog work ( my favorite part ) .

Anybody else have a similar story larger group/ smaller group ?

Thanks to the Gracious land owners who let us hunt their property and our host
 
I'm always appreciative of an invite to hunt private land, (and I'm blessed to have access to some really good stuff to hunt on my own) and used to do one big group hunt. 8 to 14 guys, corporate thing. It's just not my style. If it takes someone with a white board and a marker, or a drum major directing color me uninterested. :) I'll attend and go thru the motions, my preference is to either hunt alone, or with one or 2 other guys (each with their own dogs). We are hunting separately, but together. We call it a blender affect. Most often, the guy that's the stealthiest does best, and if everyone is in stealth mode everyone wins.

That's a nice brace of dogs you've got there A Brit, a Shorthair, and a DD?
 
The pictures is a bit fuzzy but the black dog is a GSP , we had 2 Brits and 5 shorthairs trading out duties , each of us running a dog a piece in stealth mode . My Britt is used to hand signals and my buddies shorthairs one 5 and one 9 work well at handling pheasants .
 
wow! a limit each. good going.
 
I hunt alone probably 75% of the time, with 1 or 2 friends the other 24.9% and I do (or did until COVID got me) 1 large group hunt per year and as much as I love hunting solo, I love the occasional group hunt just as much. For one thing, it feels a lot more traditional and old-school Kansas to me. I also like how you end up hunting with a people who run the gambit of the hunting spectrum, from very dedicated hunters to teenage kids out for a weekend with their Dads. I love hunting with multiple generations of hunters from the same family, I love being on family ground, or hearing people tell me the stories of how their families came to live in Kansas, especially western Kansas. Something about it is just so social, and clannish and fun.

Also, I honestly think big group marches are more effective in western Kansas. I know I've hunted some row crop behind good dogs and just run birds around in circles. There's nothing quite like walking stubble and realizing just how many birds are in a 1/4 section that just would have given you the slip if they could.
 
I agree about how fun it is to visit with landowners and the different generations, who owned the land before , we hunt a farm the family that and they still farm stuff that been farmed with teams of Mules .A lot of history and agree that’s the fun in it .
 
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