Trip Report - WaKeeney, Hill City to Norton

Z

Zbirdman

New member
Spent extended weekend hunting WIA areas from Wakeeney to Hill City to Norton.

With regard to all of the info on Kansas having the best pheasant population in 20 years and advice that I received from Kansas officials, all I can think of now is "Economic Stimulus Package"...... meaning they just want my Gas, Hotel and Food money that comes with the "attempt" at hunting Kansas pheasant.

Drove many miles, hunted many areas, walked many miles, wore my dog out....... saw 3 roosters per day!!!!

We (the dog an I) found incredibly good looking country everywhere, just no birds.

To be fair, here are some factors that may have contributed to my results:

1. Crops still standing around most of the places I happen to pick to hunt. Could be a million birds in those standing fields of milo and corn. Did hear a lot of roosters cackling in the fields at the end of the day near sunset.
2. Hunted alone, so no blocking.
3. Only one young dog.
4. 70 degree temps
5. WIA may be private land, but they are really just like public land, since everyone can hunt there. Don't get me wrong, however, as I really do appreciate the fact that so much WIA land is available.

With crops down and some snow on the ground or, at least, some colder weather, I do believe the results good be much better.

I did flush 5 different coveys of quail with 20 to 30 birds in each covy, so if one was hunting quail, it would be pretty good.

Once the frustration wears off, and I hear that the crops are all down and the weather is colder, I may go back for one last attempt in KS.

By the way, in my annual ND trip, sometimes the crops are up, sometimes they are down. When the crops are up, we see 1,500 to 3,000 birds per day. When the crops are down, we see 150 to 300 birds per day. That means, when the crops are up, we only see about 10% of the birds that are actually there.

Since, including hens, I did see about 30 total birds in KS, if that same ratio holds true, I would expect to see about 300 birds once all the crops come down. That would be ok with me.
 
Planning a trip myself

I am also looking to hunt in Kansas for the first time this year and wondering if you have any other pointers to help us have a successful hunting trip.
Me and 3 other friends are heading out to Kansas in mid Dec. I am assuming most if not all crops will be out by then. We will be hunting WIA for the most part. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
 
Too bad about not seeing very many pheasants, but that is great news you saw such big coveys of quail.
What was the Walk-in like around Norton? Did you get the impression it would be good there when all the milo is harvested?:confused:
 
INbirdhunter said:
I am also looking to hunt in Kansas for the first time this year and wondering if you have any other pointers to help us have a successful hunting trip.
Me and 3 other friends are heading out to Kansas in mid Dec. I am assuming most if not all crops will be out by then. We will be hunting WIA for the most part. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

I am not sure you really want to take advice from me, considering my lack of success last weekend, but......

By mid December, my guess is that you will have much better luck just because;
- crops should be out
- temp should be colder
- may even have some snow on the ground
- bird should be grouped up
- less competition with other hunters
- standing crops early did preserve many birds
- hopefully, you will have more people and more experienced dog (s)

I would hunt the heaviest grass cover and/or tree row-shelter belts near stubble grain fields, as well as, actually in the grain fields.

Blocking should not be as important then, but, if it is still freakishly warm, then I would post blockers, if you can.

With regard to the specific location between WaKeeney and Norton, most people I talked to out there thought it was best around Hill City. To me, the WAI quality looked pretty much the same everywhere from Norton down to WaKeeney. I was very impressed with the available ground and type of cover.

I wanted to hunt south of WaKeeney too, but just ran out of time. Ironically, I did drop just south of I70 right before sunset and saw 3 roosters in a winter wheat field - the same number I saw while actually hunting the two days before!! Don't know if that really means that south could be better or if it was just pure luck.

Oh, one tip that really helped me to find the WAI properties.

I had the walk-in atlas, but it does not include the county road numbers, so if that is all you had you would have to just drive around until you found the WIA area you were looking for.

However, you can download the GPS coordinates for each WIA area from the Kansas DWP website (kdwp.state.ks.us/). I plugged the coordinates in to my street navigation GPS and it guided me directly to each area. Probably saved hours of wondering around. You could also just use a standard hand-held GPS (like a Garmin E-trex), but that would not be quite as good, just because it would not give you the turn-by-turn directions, only as-a-crow flies, so you would still have to figure out where to turn and many roads are dead-ends.

Hope that helps...

P.S. One funny story from my hunt... I saw a gigantic mule buck, while hunting one field in Colorado on the way back home. I mean gigantic - looked like an elk rack. Rack extended out 3 times the length of his ear on each side of his head!! We (the dog an I) were in the middle of a cut-corn field and the buck was in the grass corner. He started feeding his way out into the field directly toward us. I told Bear "down" and he laid down at my feet, then I did the same thing right next to him. This monster buck fed right up to us to about 35 yards!!! Stood there for 5 minutes. Could have killed him with my bow. Setting sun was behind us and wind was in our face, so he had no idea we were there, until I stood up. Even then he did not bolt right away and looked at me for about a minutes. It was one of my coolest wildlife encounters, mostly, because I think he may have been a world-record!

Just thought I would share that experience, since it was so unique to have the dog right there with me so close to such a huge deer.
 
To me, it did look like the WAI just south of Norton should produce birds, especially once the crops are down. In fact, the only cut milo field that I found was just southeast of Norton and my dog was super birdy throughout that field, but found no birds. My guess is the birds were just running way ahead. The hotel desk clerk did tell me the he had heard from hunters that most were only finding birds down around Hill City. I found the same thing there too though - no birds.

When/if I go back, I would not hesitate to hunt around Norton other than it just being farther to drive from I70.

Hope that helps..

oops, meant that reply for "Toad"..
 
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Ah well, you paid some dues and hopefully you're right and you'll see 300 birds next time! I gotta say though, as a pheasant hunter in Nova Scotia, the idea of seeing 1500-3000 pheasants just blows my mind. I would consider that to be a fair lifetime total to shoot for! lol! Best of luck to you next time out.
-Croc
 
Thanks Zbirdman. That info will help me plan my trip West. At this point, I would be thrilled to see a pheasant, even 100 yards ahead of me. I can hardly wait to get out there and chase 'em!

I enjoyed your story about the mule deer, I have done a similar trick on whitetails this year. The distances were a little bit farther, and they weren't record-book size by any means. Still, it is fun to observe deer at close range. The rut must really be going now, because the deer seem pretty reckless lately. I dress like a traffic cone when I'm hunting on public ground, so I guess those bucks must have a one-track mind right now...;) I'm sure they see me, but they must not care too much.

I think mule deer must be a little less wary than whitetails. Last year, the dog and I flushed a mule deer doe out of her bed and she WALKED away from us. The dogs didn't even chase her because she didn't even seem scared or anything. She just walked off and waited for us to pass by, like a cow would act. She looked healthy as could be, I can't imagine why she acted so tame... It was fun to see her, and I guess I got to watch her longer since she didn't run away... This happened the last weekend of deer season, about halfway between Dodge City and Pratt.
 
Its great to get get updated on the conditions. I myself was thinking of making my first trip to Kansas, and was thinking of the Hill City - Norton area. I was originally thinking of hunting around Colby, but some friendly advise on this site said I may have better luck further North and East. We currently have our trip planned for the weekend of Dec 6th. Although the last report wasn't that great, I'm remaining optimistic and keep waiting for better success stories once the crops are out of the field.
 
Your Not So Good Kansas Hunt

Sorry your hunt wasn't better. The hunting was queered by all the fall crops still in the field. Most of the birds were concentrated in the uncut milo. I had a call from the farmer of my leased land call me from his combine because he had never seen so many birds as he cut his first milo. He said it was the same when he went to cut the next milo field. The birds will not be much of anywhere else than uncut milo or uncut corn until there is no more.
Come hunt again around mid-December when everything will be harvested and you should see a material improvement.
 
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