Tips For Hunting When The Corn's Still In

[stanze464]

My dad and I are getting ready to come up for our annual pheasant hunting trip. Last year when we came up there was still a lot of corn in, but this year it looks like there will be even more. We did okay last year, but had a touch time because of all the crops. Does anyone have any tips/strategies for hunting these situations? We will be hunting all public land around the Watertown area.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You!

 

[wisturkeyhunter]

I'm far from an expert but I was just at webster which is pretty close and our small group had no trouble finding roosters. The key seemed to be thick cover near beans. We could find birds there all day long usually small pockets of them. I don't think pheasants like spending time in beans unless they are feeding just not enough overhead cover to make them feel secure. Closer towards dark cover near corn would produce. Just understand that you might not find much for birds throughout the middle of the afternoon and be ready when they leave the crops later I think you'll be fine.

 

[Downtown Bang!]

Closer towards dark cover near corn would produce.

^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^

Hunt good roosting grass right adjacent to standing corn during the last hour of the day. Action can be fast and furious. Seems like they hold better too when they are trying to settle in for the night. In years when the harvest is going well I'll try to hunt near cut corn during the day but at prime time I still try to find standing corn next to CRP.

Something else that has worked OK for me is to target willows and other brushy/woody cover located in water ways or creek bottoms. On warmer days especially. The roosters like the shade and I think its cooler there than in the corn.

Another option is to just plain cover as much ground as you effeciently can and increase your odds of running into a stray rooster that way.

DB

 

[moellermd]

The birds I did manage to get last week were all in grass waterways next to beans. It seemed that the birds would just run into the corn as we approached but did not think the beans were enough cover and would fly.