What kind of numbers are we talking about?

R

raginrooster

New member
Just came from SD and saw lots of birds on a typical day either hunting or driving.
Have been in Great Bend 2 days hunting the area hard just myself and my dog. Yesterday went out west and hunted a creek bottom and some CRP near Lacrosse on WIA. Saw only a couple of birds all day. Was looking in the snow for tracks and saw very little.
Today went south to Pratt and hunted the Texas Wildlife area. The habitat was awesome. Flushed some hens and one rooster out of range. Even checked the registration box and pulled the bottom out and read the hunters results. Most rated the hunting as poor or fair. Alot of zeros on the harvested list . A few ones and even one two as far as birds taken. All pheasants, no quail. Drove lots of back roads and only saw two roosters late in the day gravelling. Is this common to see this few birds? Almost all the WIA was CRP.
Have been reviewing this site and seems some guys say the birds are here. Just wondering where? The Hays area reports kind of indicated otherwise.
Has the Dodge city area been better? Is this typical Kansas? How many birds do you come across or see in a typical day?
With that great habitat thought I would see more birds. What part of the state has been best?
Thanks for the help.
RR
 
RaginRoster, I hope you just had a couple of bad days since I have plans of heading to Great Bend area in a couple of weeks. Sure would like to hear about some positive results in that area before I head that way. I will be focusing mostly on quail. If anyone knows of a better area of Kansas than GB to start at it would be verrrry much appreciated. Since I am comming from Dallas I can go to any part of Kansas to start. Are the CRP fields on the WIHA's not a good place to hunt? Should you always look for milo fields, draws, and crop edges? Should I just start knocking on doors and asking permission to hunt private land instead of wasting time at the WIHA's?
 
Bad couple of days

Well Dwayne.
I would like to think I had a couple of bad days as well. Never hunted KS before so I was just gathering info and recommendations from this post.
Usually when I have a bad day its from shooting not from lack of seeing birds around.What really puzzled me was I was in this big creek bottom with lots of great cover with snow still on the ground and saw only one or two sets of tracks in the whole area.
Usually I would see them laughing at me flying into some farmers field from a distance.
I have a week and a half before I need to be back in Fort Worth so I am ready to make a move If I knew where some better areas were at.
RR
 
On a decent year, I've often seen groups of 20-30 birds sunning themselves near cedar rows from the highway. Traveling back roads near Larned or Great Bend on a good year should produce lots of sightings at graveling time, feeding time, and roosting time. You should've saw more birds on the roads, especially if you were looking in the back yards of homesteads w/ cedar rows.

I believe the pheasant pop is spotty in that area. However, I certainly would've expected to see more birds on the road and in the field.
 
I agree that the birds are very spotty and I think that they are down from last year, which was WAY down from 2 years ago.

I have hunted 7 days so far. 4 days-limited out. 3 days -1 bird per day (I was lucky enough to "make" the only shots I had). If not for incredible luck, the 4 limit days could have been 1 bird days.
________
iolite portable vaporizer
 
Last edited:
Ragin, I was out yesterday as well. I moved 15 pheasants and 1 covey all day and never fired a shot. Could have on the quail, but in 6 foot tall switch I didn't want to lose any. Those high blue sky days aren't much for hunting. Today was much better until the clouds cleared. I hunted 2 hours and claimed 3 roosters and missed a fourth, all pointed.
 
From 12-13 thru 12-19, we hunted the area. Spent 1 day hitting many of the WIHA NW of Great Bend. Most plots had little cover. Only killed 2 quail before noon, then headed elsewhere for the rest of the day. Best results was the Hill City area.
 
We hunted the Saturday of the opening weekend on private and moved about 70 or 80 birds around the pratt area. Lots of hens I think we ended up with 15 rooster's. They seemed to hold a lot better this year (a lot behind us), and had a lot out of gun range, hope to go this weekend and after the 1st of the year. We also had no dogs.

Rod
 
I was hunting a ways west of Pratt, Sunday. It was 60 degrees and it wasn't the most comfortable hunting. My dog had 8 points, mostly hens, one rooster (I missed) and a large covey. Temps and weather play a lot into it. A lot of birds were running and it was tough scenting for dogs. I was proud of my dog getting that many points in those temps.
Good Luck and Merry Christmas
 
That's not indictative of Kansas Pheasant hunting. I have hunted Kansas all my life and have also hunted South Dakota There are more birds in S.D. overall but Kansas can be really good too depending on the area you are hunting and the weather conditions. 2 weeks ago when that 8" snow hit N.W. Kansas we flushed draws that had anywhere from 20 to 200 birds in them. The birds couldn't run and it was to nasty for them to be out in the fields there is very little CRP in the area we hunt so every draw was full of birds. It was a slaughter. I would love to be up there today with the same conditions hopefully when we go in January we will have cold snowy conditions again.
 
hotrod13 said:
We hunted the Saturday of the opening weekend on private and moved about 70 or 80 birds around the pratt area. Lots of hens I think we ended up with 15 rooster's. They seemed to hold a lot better this year (a lot behind us), and had a lot out of gun range, hope to go this weekend and after the 1st of the year. We also had no dogs.

Rod
Click to expand...

Hotrod, if some birds flushed behind you try walking a little slower and completely stopping from time to time. I have had good luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top