Today’s results

Was it salami, onion and mustard? That's what my buddy always made for pheasant hunting and trout fishing adventures.
 
PeteRevvv said:
Birds everywhere. Spots that had few birds last year but not enough to hunt now have good numbers and are producing. Spots with high numbers have huge covies that just explode left and right. 3 hunters, no dog this year, hunting ditches and we've filled out with 9 each day, hours early before sunset the first two days. Few hunters on roads or walkins but preserves and family fields have biggest groups we've ever seen. Many farmers have far less paid hunters coming and have been offering ground to hunt on the weekdays.

Came across one field of corn being combined near Frankfort. Was about 40 rows left of half a quarter so about a half mile long. We stopped to watch and he waved us over and pointed to the rows he was going to run. We booked it to the other end in the truck and blocked. Most birds lifted up and went back in the corn behind him but he was slowing down and letting them get ahead of the combine. A few got up and we got 1 or 2. He point the next rows and we booked it to the other end and got a couple more. He was down to 2 separate strips of 8 rows and got a flat tire. We made him a sandwich and brought it out to the combine. He told us to walk them so we cleaned out the rest with the perfect setup for the three of us and got 6 birds in the "private land" type experience for the cost of a sandwich.
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Just out of curiosity, if you’re hunting ditches “right of ways” on average how many miles a day were you walking? Or were you doing the drive/jump out and shoot method?
 
benelli-banger said:
See many hens? I helped out a farmer friend yesterday...17 guys, with family 20...3-4 dogs, 3 of them mine. When 17 hunters arrive with no dogs, they don’t realize they’re hunting planted birds....😆
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Have done the “outfitter” deal multiple times courtesy of different companies we do business with. I knew going in exactly what to expect and always looked at it more as a chance to catch up with friends from our industry and socialize and have a good time and such. Have heard all the stories of we release birds early so they are all wild blah, blah, blah. Yet always a set of tire tracks going along the corn or the cover we are hunting and the flush rate is about 95% roosters. Not hard to put those pieces of the puzzle together. Again not knocking it at all as everyone has different expectations but for me comparing that to the hunting me and my buddy do on our trip is apples to oranges.
These next two weeks can’t go quick enough for us to head out there. Looking forward to it!!!
 
Bottom line, having helped a few farmers out as a source of dog power, the hunters may be ignorant to what’s going on, but they’re having fun!! Not my cup of tea, but that’s not the point...
 
UplandBird said:
Just out of curiosity, if you’re hunting ditches “right of ways” on average how many miles a day were you walking? Or were you doing the drive/jump out and shoot method?
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... drive, jump out and shoot?....who taught you that?.... drive, get out and walk to the corner and back but what you described isn't hunting....
 
... rolled in yesterday and now looking out the door at one nasty SD day...yer normal day is our worst weather day (PA).... my 10 days begins so...wind of day and snow in eye, here we go...
.... well, one more cup of coffee....
 
Good Boy! said:
... drive, jump out and shoot?....who taught you that?.... drive, get out and walk to the corner and back but what you described isn't hunting....
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That's called road hunting & people have been doing it successfully, legally, safely, & having fun for thousands of years.
It's not my cup of tea anymore. My dog gets very little benefit from it & consequently I don't enjoy it.
And it's become a bit difficult to do legally, with the 220-yd safety zones around homes, livestock, etc. But the law's the law.
It's a perfectly valid way to kill some time. And there are some people (disabled, for example), & maybe their dogs too, for whom it's really their only opportunity to hunt.
 
I sure wish I was with you versus at my work computer though ^^^ enjoy and you will get some nice hunting days in those 10 days, use some crappy time to drive and scout land
 
Sweet, not dissing the disabled
Do as the Romans....
My mind is in PA where some do this with deer.... so again not trying to throw shade, I just need the exercise
 
benelli-banger said:
Bottom line, having helped a few farmers out as a source of dog power, the hunters may be ignorant to what’s going on, but they’re having fun!! Not my cup of tea, but that’s not the point...
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Agree completely. We will be supplying dog power for a day on a similar type of hunt while we are out there to help the landowner out.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
That's called road hunting & people have been doing it successfully, legally, safely, & having fun for thousands of years.
It's not my cup of tea anymore. My dog gets very little benefit from it & consequently I don't enjoy it.
And it's become a bit difficult to do legally, with the 220-yd safety zones around homes, livestock, etc. But the law's the law.
It's a perfectly valid way to kill some time. And there are some people (disabled, for example), & maybe their dogs too, for whom it's really their only opportunity to hunt.
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It depends on what state you are in. In North Dakota it is illegal to hunt the ditches (roadway) when the land is posted on both sides
 
benelli-banger said:
See many hens? I helped out a farmer friend yesterday...17 guys, with family 20...3-4 dogs, 3 of them mine. When 17 hunters arrive with no dogs, they don’t realize they’re hunting planted birds....😆
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Yes saw plenty of Hens. Some passes through corn fields that's all we saw. This was my 13th season hunting in SD at the same farmer's farm. These are not pen raised. Last year 15 of us got 15 birds the first day and single digits for the next 2. 3 or 4 guys get their limit in a couple hours and that's fine but if a large group has success it's pen raised birds??
 
Good Boy! said:
... drive, jump out and shoot?....who taught you that?.... drive, get out and walk to the corner and back but what you described isn't hunting....
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I absolutely agree with you, what I described isn’t hunting and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people do it. That’s why I ask, if someone is getting multiple limits every day out of the right of ways, they’re either walking LOTS of miles or jumping out and shooting them.
I have two dogs, so I prefer to walk fields, but I was just curious how many miles two people would have to walk to both get limits from right of ways.
 
Good Boy! said:
Sweet, not dissing the disabled
Do as the Romans....
My mind is in PA where some do this with deer.... so again not trying to throw shade, I just need the exercise
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I get it. I think that happens w/ deer in just about every state, legal or not. But by & large they don't even bother leaving the comfort of their truck. South Dakota & Iowa I can speak of from experience. Bullets & slugs flying all over the place.
 
Fallfreak said:
Yes saw plenty of Hens. Some passes through corn fields that's all we saw. This was my 13th season hunting in SD at the same farmer's farm. These are not pen raised. Last year 15 of us got 15 birds the first day and single digits for the next 2. 3 or 4 guys get their limit in a couple hours and that's fine but if a large group has success it's pen raised birds??
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Not always, obviously, but lots of that goes on. Pen raised or not, lots of work for two dogs! Good thing it wasn’t hot...
 
The way we usually hunt the roadsides (with 2 hunters) is we let hunter 1 out of the truck and he starts walking the roadside, hunter 2 drives the truck up the road 1/4 to 1/2 mile and parks on the side of the road. The truck acts as a blocker for the hunter 1. Hunter 2 (the driver) gets out of the truck and starts walking the road side. When hunter 1 reaches the truck he drives 1/4 to 1/2 mile and parks. Repeat until both have a limit or get too tired to continue.
 
If my only option was to hunt in a big group I would, but thankfully there are options! I hate hunting in groups larger than 4 total, and I prefer hunting solo, with another guy somewhere in the vicinity, maybe within a mile or whatever...been doing that 3 of the last 4 days👍✌️🥳
 
We had our traditional Opening Day family get together on Saturday. 14 guns. I enjoy the camaraderie and seeing folks that I don't see much for the rest of the year, but when I'm trying to keep everyone in line and explaining concepts that go over heads, I yearn for the hunts with just me and Sage.

The farmer was able to strip the corn, which made things much easier, but the numbers were higher than I've seen in a long while. It was a good day.
 

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