Tips and Pointers

M

Mikediesel87

New member
Hi my name is mike and i am very new to pheasant hunting. Me and my father always elk hunt so i don't know much about pheasant. I'm not asking for any locations, but want to know how much time to spend in 1 field and also some things to look for like is it better to walk the fence line or the middle of the field. Just anything you might think of that would help a new pheasant hunter bag a pheasant without giving to much away.

I went out to Morgan county and Washington county and walked some wia's but i felt like i wasn't spending enough time walking the fields and just don't know what to look for. I live in northglenn area and it's quite a drive for me to go out there and not know what to look for.

everything i know about elk hunting i learned from my father but this is one area he doesn't know about so any tips would be great thanks for your time.
 
Read a lot! Stay in heavier cover adjacent to row crops. Since you do not have a dog, besides getting one. Us silence and stealth to favor. Walk zig-zag, stop often and listen and wait. Birds will allow you to walk by. If you stop, they can't hear you, and become nervous and flush. Shoot ahead of the bird, he's long! no vitals in the back. If you het one, run to the location, again without a dog, they are tennacious about life, run, route down into the grass even if mortally wounded. Also use heavier shot with out a dog, #5's or #4's to ensure penatration and a killing shot. Almost all upland game use the edge, that cover which bordered by some other activity. Like row crop/native pasture, tree line surrounded by CRP pasture, etc. Use terain as your friend, for instance, a 20 yard strip of CRP, in a hayed field, linerally across a section of ground, next to a corn field. That is cover with the slow stalk, and single hunter can use. Massive CRP fields need to be segmented and worked seperately, and pushed with the action where you "force" the birds at the end into a blocked position, where they have to fly, like an open road boundry, a plowed field. Always push forward pronto if birds are flushing wild, a few will wait till the end, and afford shots. Always look for the way other hnters work a field, be counter-intuitve to that work it in reverse. If you see hens after a sweep in crp, turn and push toward the next corner on that direction, roosters will sometimes run in a different angle to the other corner. It's good for us all to review these solo ideas. Makes us better. Thanks for the refresher. Remember to use big game stealth, no slammed car doors, pheasants are a true big game quarry, using sound as a early alarm. If you persist in this sport, you will deinitely need a dog! You might also hook up with other pheasant hunters here to team up,share expenses, and get more experience. The the late season pheasant is a difficult bird to handle, some of the lure is hands on experience. If you see a bird react to a situation, likelyhood all other birds will do it do! All of this is intelligence for the next hunt.
 
Thanks for the info I will definitely use this information on my next bird hunt. I have found out in my recent bird hunts that pheasants are a elusive creature.
 
One other point is to try and hunt into the wind as the pheasants will (sometimes) hold longer. Work faster downwind as they will move faster ahead of you.
 
Also, be prepared for them to pop up anywhere, even within 100 yards of where you started. I have had several occasions where they have circled back behind me on the way out, only to discover that they had run into the area that I had walked through 30 min before.

Other stuff, late season pheasants are very savvy. As others have mentioned be very quiet and work thick cover. Most people are lazy, as a result, birds will hide in an area at the far end of a big CRP field, where few people go if they walk to the middle of a field and haven't flushed a bird.

Finally, an acquaintance of mine is fond of saying "guns don't kill pheasants, legs kill pheasants" meaning that you should be prepared to do a lot of walking.

:cheers:
 
they seem to want to bunch together in the late season.little brushy corners adjacent to cut grain fields especially if there's a little cat tail patch/shallow wet land kind of area.for some reason it always seems they're closer to the road than they are out in the middle of a large piece of crp,maybe they just run in the middle and flush on the edges.
off the subject but i shot 2 roosters once about 1 hr apart and both birds crops were packed full of red and black grasshoppers,wierd.
 
Try reading Modern Pheasant Hunting by Steve Grooms. Lots of really good information. Plus I think he may have updated it recently.....
 
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