What is a pheasant's daily schedule?

R

RuttCrazed

New member
I think a lot of hunters would be more successful if they understood the daily routine of a pheasant. Most successful deer hunters pattern their bucks and know exactly when they are going from beds to food to water, etc...

So what do you think a daily schedule looks like for a pheasant, dawn to dusk?

Dawn (7:00AM) - Wake up, stretch the tailfeathers and start moving out of the thick cover they spent the night in.

10:00 AM - Feed along the edges of fields, close to cover.

Noon - 4:00 PM - Fill up on corn, wheat, milo, etc in large fields

4:00 - Dusk - Start heading back to nesting cover to get some shut eye.

I really don't know, wondering what you guys in pheasant country see on a daily basis???

Thanks,

Rut
 
If it's mild weather, I think they move to feeding areas very early, especially if they have to fly to them.
 
most days, most birds are done feeding by noon or 1 p.m.....they sit in transistion cover or roadside ditches until they return to feed in fields after 330 p.m.
 
long time ago,we had a old man phez hunter tell us,that IF a phez could,he would never leave the wheat stubble.Hens lay their eggs there,raise their brood there,and we used to shoot a ton of birds there. Seems like the last few years,farmers aren't leaving the stubble as high(could be due to the drought),and the fact that our long time friend/farmer,has put all of his land into grass,we don't have those crafty birds firgured out like we used to.
Anyway,good luck to all who venture out this weekend,shoot one for me(I willbe working),and PLEASE write up your stories,since thats all I will have.
Thanks,Joe
 
Wheat strains have changed over the years and they have gotten shorter on purpose. Less water and easier to no till drill. I do agree that if weather is nice no need to leave if they have some overhead cover near by.

Zeepo
 
Thank you all for your input! This is very interesting to me, I usually spend most of my time in the thickest, nastiest cover I can find. Maybe I will try a different approach this year?

Rut
 
Experience has taught me that if you shoot birds off the roost one morning, if you go back the next morning you will not find any birds or very few in that patch. Don't know why, just observed from many mistakes.
 
RuttCrazed said:
Thank you all for your input! This is very interesting to me, I usually spend most of my time in the thickest, nastiest cover I can find. Maybe I will try a different approach this year?

Rut
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Works late in the season, or if you have snow.
 
I used to believe that they left roosting cover shortly after dawn to feed. We would hunt roosting cover first thing, then switch to feed (aka milo stalks) until lunch time, then back to cover for the rest of the day.

I'm not sure that's true anymore, at least where I've been hunting lately. We seem to find birds in the grass all day long. It could be because there is very little milo in the area, it's almost all gone to corn and beans. My new theory is that they field in the comparatively bare corn or bean fields BEFORE dawn, under the cover of darkness, and return to cover when it gets light.

Further, I know some of you have had success hunting corn stubble. I haven't, yet if they have anything in their craw, it's corn. That's what's leading me to wonder if they are feeding in the corn after dark.
 
Here is how I see it:

They leave the roost early in the morning. The majority are in feed fields between 8-11am, depending on the weather. I'm sure some stay there through mid-day and afternoon, but I believe most sit in transition cover within a half-mile of their feed source until afternoon when they revisit the feed, before heading back to the roost. There are times they spend all their daylight hours in stubble/feed....Saturday for example I will spend the day in wheat, milo, and corn. Sunday will be the day I walk the heavier cover.

As for your nocturnal-feeding theory, I'd have to see it to believe it. I spent a few years waking up with CRP all around me and I heard the birds cackling before sunrise, lots of 'em. Now I sleep at a house surrounded by milo and corn; I don't wake up and hear 'em cackling these days unless I wake up late:) Park on a backroads for enough hours and you'll find places they fly/run across the road. When weather patterns are steady they move like clockwork from roost to feed, then feed back to roost.
 
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One evening I hunted a place that was a half section of grass and half section of milo separated by a hog wire fence. I had hunted down the roadside and was working my way back towards the truck when I looked up across the field and there were dozens of pheasants flying into the grass from the milo, they didn't get more than 6' or 8' off the ground, just high enough to clear the fence.
 
kansasbrittany said:
Here is how I see it:

They leave the roost early in the morning. The majority are in feed fields between 8-11am, depending on the weather. I'm sure some stay there through mid-day and afternoon, but I believe most sit in transition cover within a half-mile of their feed source until afternoon when they revisit the feed, before heading back to the roost. There are times they spend all their daylight hours in stubble/feed....Saturday for example I will spend the day in wheat, milo, and corn. Sunday will be the day I walk the heavier cover.

As for your nocturnal-feeding theory, I'd have to see it to believe it. I spent a few years waking up with CRP all around me and I heard the birds cackling before sunrise, lots of 'em. Now I sleep at a house surrounded by milo and corn; I wake up and hear 'em cackling unless I wake up late:) Park on a backroads for enough hours and you'll find places they fly/run across the road. When weather patterns are steady they move like clockwork from roost to feed, then feed back to roost.
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Great post I found it very informative, but it brings up a question. Does a pheasant require standing water on a daily basis during the winter?
 
quanah labs said:
Great post I found it very informative, but it brings up a question. Does a pheasant require standing water on a daily basis during the winter?
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That's an interesting question. I was hunting up in ND this year. It's dry up there, but nowhere near as dry as KS. I noticed that I was consistently finding lots of birds around any water source. In previous moist years, it seemed that the birds would stay away from any swampy areas. Maybe they get enough water from dew, moist vegetation, etc. in wet years, but need standing water in dry years?
 
The pheasants stayed in the feed/wheat this weekend. They were in the milo before first light each day. It is important to note that the dirty milo stubble was the ONLY cover around. The few birds we found were near water as well.
 
Pheasants are going to spend most of the time where they feel the safest and with the least disturbance and as you all know birds will change habits as the disturbance changes, hunting pressure etc.
Stubble might be the safest cover around in many cases. Plenty of food and the rows are just right for running like heck from hunters and dogs.
Wild and hunted pheasants under normal conditions can feed quickly and need not spend all that much time feeding, probably less then a half hour twice a day. In wet, cold weather pheasants will tend to stay in more sheltered areas, stubble is not good shelter.
So it's hard to predict what a pheasants daily routine or schedule is, just depends on weather, habitat (or lack of it) available food, predation , hunting pressure etc.
 
gsh lover said:
long time ago,we had a old man phez hunter tell us,that IF a phez could,he would never leave the wheat stubble.Hens lay their eggs there,raise their brood there,and we used to shoot a ton of birds there. Seems like the last few years,farmers aren't leaving the stubble as high(could be due to the drought),and the fact that our long time friend/farmer,has put all of his land into grass,we don't have those crafty birds firgured out like we used to.
Anyway,good luck to all who venture out this weekend,shoot one for me(I willbe working),and PLEASE write up your stories,since thats all I will have.
Thanks,Joe
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Before no-till came in, wheat stubble was the best hunting because it got weedy, especially in the terrace channels, by hunting season. You would see nests all over in the stubble. But now . . .
 
BritChaser said:
Before no-till came in, wheat stubble was the best hunting because it got weedy, especially in the terrace channels, by hunting season. You would see nests all over in the stubble. But now . . .
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you are exactly correct brit chaser, i remember those days too....used to kill a ton of birds out of weedy wheat stubble in Kansas.
 
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