Trego, Graham, Ness, Gove Co. - 6 Day Hunt

W

whitewater

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3 guys struggled on the phez all week. We killed 6 in 6 days. The 1st 2 days we did not kill any. We hit many of the WIHA in the counties listed. We hunted the same areas last year and between 2 of us, killed 11.
The quail in the area was up substantially from what we saw last year. 4 coveys last year vs. 10 found this year.
Ducks too this year is way down. we got our limit each trip last year. This year we only bagged 2 or 3 per hunt.
I'll be back in 2 weeks to give it another shot.
 
Success

Bad shooting? or very few opportunities? That area usually seems to hold alot of birds but shooting only 6 birds in 6 days sounds pretty discouraging.

Hope the season gets better.
 
I personally did my part. I shot 4 of the 6 birds.There were a few missed chances by my buddies. One guy who had never been phez hunting shot 0 phez. He had a couple blown chances due to heavy clothing issues but in general, never seemed to be in the right place.
There were honestly very few opportunities. There also seemed to be a high number of hens. There were atleast 2 plots that we jumped maybe 8 or 10 hens out of and no roosters. I thought it was going to be great because there wasn't much standing crops in the area. Also, on Thanksgiving Day and the following Fri., there were alot of hunters running around. I believe we hunted plots that had already been worked over.
I'll be back from the 13th - 18th to give another go. Hopefully the hunting pressure will be low.
 
Usually after Thanksgiving the hunting pressure slacks off quite a bit. Hopefully you will see and have a few more opportunties the next time out.;)
 
We hunted Gove and Lane with similar results. In Lane, most of the crops are harvested. Gove was pretty wet and maybe only 40-50 pct harvested. The birds were wild and getting up 100 yards ahead, even in very tall grass and thick cover. the birds must have taken a beating on opening weekend because we saw 10 hens for every rooster. I haven't seen the ratio so poor this early in the season before.
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Maybe the crops and weather have something to do with it. I hunted south of there and it seemed the roosters where either bunched up or running ahead of the hens. I would work a field about halfway, get out and hit the other end and work it back towards where i started. Got some good points doing that.
 
Gove and Lane

Did you hunt in all directions of Lane and Gove or only certain areas of those particular counties? Do you guys think that they are just hanging out in the food all day because the weather is so mild or are they just not there? It's truly amazing how we can go from expecting the most abundant pheas populations since the early 80s to the reality of not harvesting a bird a day per person only a few weeks into the season.

I am easily confused but something just doesn't add up.

I am heading out for Kansas next week and it will be my third time this year so I will let y'all know what I find. Hunting in Kansas relaxes me whether I am finding birds or not. There is just something amazing about the "big country" that I find intoxicating.
 
I spent opening weekend in that area with my dad. He hunted out there in '82. I told him it was supposed to be the best since then. He laughed. We weren't overly impressed.
 
I've been going to Kansas for about the last ten years or so. One thing we always notice is during a good year--for us anyway ('04, '05, '07, '08) we see lots of birds while driving from one field to the next. I think we saw two this year. After this year and if I go back, I will pay no attention to the KDWP upland report. Now, you can blame it on the crops, but we did way better last year in the heat with the dogs locked up. Saw more and shot more. There were more crops in last year than this year. Hard for me to figure it out. You're right. Something doesn't make sense and it's not because you confuse easily.
 
akp said:
I've been going to Kansas for about the last ten years or so. One thing we always notice is during a good year--for us anyway ('04, '05, '07, '08) we see lots of birds while driving from one field to the next. I think we saw two this year.
Click to expand...

We hunted a different part of the state (SW corner) but noticed the same thing. A lot fewer birds to be seen while driving around. In the actually hunting, some fields were about the same as last year, and some were worse. It was the warmest conditions we've ever hunted in though and the birds were running like crazy and even the hens were flushing wild. Another thing we were struck by was the smaller numbers of hunters. Very obvious at the morning breakfast stop and confirmed by the hotel clerk. On the other hand, we had a great time and will go again before the season is out.
 
we hunted a good sized portion of Gove. In Lane, we hunted the north 60 percent of the county. We got different stories from farmers. Some said that they hadn't seen many birds. Some said that there were a lot of birds. Hotel owners and other people said that there were more birds than they had seen in several years. One thing for sure is that we saw only 3 or 4 birds each day while driving to hunting places. In prior years (excluding last year) we would see 30-50 birds per day along the roads. "Highest bird numbers in years" is complete BS.
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medical marijuana
 
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I believe the birds were there. They were there last year. Where would they go? The few standing milo fields we hunted next to had plenty of birds cackling in them. I would guess that the amount of hunting pressure scattered the birds and caused so many to jump well ahead of us. Has it been your experience that once all the crops are in that the hunting gets considerably better?
 
I agree that they were there last year. We did well even though the conditions during the '08 opener were awful. Like I told you before, we did see lots of birds in a couple of areas, just seemed to be very spotty. I wondered about hail damage in some of the areas. Like I said earlier, it doesn't do any good to try to figure it out. If you enjoy hunting pheasants, then get out there and hunt.
 
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I believe the KDWP reports are more about tourism $ than the truth. I'm not saying there aren't birds out there, but not the best in recent memory. Just look at deer hunting and the commercialism that has spawned...
 
Standing milo

In my experience I have found that birds hold in standing milo like they were all Hugh Hefners hanging at the Playboy mansion. Their surroundings are so beautiful, or should I say so bountiful that they have no reason to leave. We had hunted some real birdy spots just a mile down the road from a standing field of milo and found nothing. We then watched the combines rolling and even with most of the field left to harvest they were flusing as many as 20-30birds everytime they went to turn around.

I would guess that it doesn't take too long before those birds find their way to the standing crops and they just don't leave until there isn't a single crop standing. I agree with the previously stated observations in that if the bird numbers were significantly higher than recent years you would think you would see them on the gravel sometime during the day.

During my six days hunting in Kansas this year I haven't seen more than a handful of birds out on the roads and that surprises me.
 
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