What's the plan for this weekend?

H

Hunter1971

New member
I'm hoping the weather comes through and we get some moisture out of it!! I can't go Saturday because of my daughters Choir concert, but me and my setter will be heading East early in the morning on Sunday to chase some birds! :thumbsup:

We will be hunting solely WIA's in Yuma and Phillips Counties, so we will just have to see how it goes, but either way I'm just glad my setter is healed and we will be back at it once again! I'm really looking forward to watching Andy do his thing and hopefully hearing at least one flush of a rooster in range!! :thumbsup:

Good luck to everyone else out there! COME ON AND SNOW ALREADY!!! :D
 
The plan for this weekend is to drive to north dakota next weekend :) Good luck out there. You should be able to scratch a couple birds out. let us know how you do.
 
I hope I run across a few of you!!! Some of you old timers sneaking out on Friday ain't right!!!!! You know who you are!!!!:cheers:
 
We are headed to Nebraska ... in and around North Platte. Weimaraner friends invited us up and they have access to some private land. I'm not expecting much because I don't think that North Platte is much better off than the Julesburg area. Setting my expectations low so that I don't get disappointed. :laugh:
 
No expectations here!!! I know I will have at least 2 shots!!!! LOL!!!:cheers: Wait , maybe that is a expectation????
 
Gonna try and fill my whitetail doe tag. I've been holding off the pheasants this year even though where I'm deer hunting has a large population. The farmer that owns the property has made some comments about numbers so I'm not gonna beat up the birds there too bad this year.
 
I will be out tomorrow chasing birds around Yuma. I have a friend visiting from out of state, hopefully he can get a rooster or two.
 
I will be out in Phillips county trying to fill a white tail tag and when not chasing them I am bringing a bird dog with me and hope that he can help me find a few birds. I was planning on bringing my 9 month old pup for her 1st pheasant hunt but she came up lame on Tuesday with what I think is a broken toe so it will be the old dog instead. Hopefully the weather will bunch some of the birds up!

Good luck out there!
 
Went to North Platte with low expectations ... the trip lived up to expectations. :laugh:

We hunted all private land, put up 2 roosters on Sat, but they both flushed out of shotgun range.

Sunday ... 12 degrees in North Platte this morning, with wind at 20MPH, guesting to 30+. We hit one field, flushed some hens, and then enjoyed some coffee back at our friend's house.

Drove back to CO, stopped off near Sedgwick, flushed some hens and called it good.

Discovered that our "rock star" dog, Dakota - will not hunt with the puppy. Dakota basically shuts down when the puppy is with him, which likely explains why we haven't found any birds this year ... granted numbers are way down, but ... if there is one in the field, Dakota should be able to track it. I ran Dakota on Saturday, without the pup on the last hunt of the day and he looked like a pro - tracked, pinned and pointed a couple of hens. I ran Dakota alone today, and he tracked like a pro, and put up 10 hens that were in depression in tall grass, out of the wind. I am not sure how or if I can resolve this issue. Possibly they will be alternating fields or hunts.
 
I went out Saturday all the way to the Kansas line WIA's past Burlington, hunting six fields. No birds seen and my two labs only got "warm" once. My dogs and I have flushed exactly one rooster in four trips...I think I am going to wait for next year and hope for rain during the summer.

As a former wildlife biologist, I walk around and wonder how many hens sitting on nests were mowed up with the emergency haying. We're hunting survivors from the previous year (mostly) and 2 years ago(small percentage)...no their first rodeo. It's a tough year to hunt with dramatically lower numbers, and even more difficult hunting seasoned birds.
 
Same here hunting between Haxton & Yuma on Saturday, put near 9 miles on my boots, on mostly private and one WIA, and jumped two hens! ... my dogs only got birdy one other time too!:mad:

...if this keeps up, sooner or later these pups of mine are gonna like the frisbee and raquet balls WAY more than hunting!:confused:
 
Yep, the wind was blowing good, and the birds were blowing out and flying even better. They were jumping up way out of range, and running just as fast as their legs could take them. My setter, Andy pointed and held one rooster right off the bat. But I blew it. I think I was tasting the pheasant noodle soup I was going to make with him!! No the truth is I wore my light gloves and my frozen trigger finger and gun safety didn't cooperate fast enough. :eek: Not a shot was fired! Heavy gloves were put on right after that for sure!! :thumbsup:
It's just so dry out there! It's really tough on Andy to keep the scent. We seen plenty of birds, but I really don't think I'm going back out after'em until we get some real snow on the ground and not just the stuff that the weather man predicts!! :rolleyes:
 
I'm with you...dogs are running around sneezing, I'm walking around sneezing...so dry! I wore a dark blue light pair of polypro long underwear on Saturday and when i took off my pants my long johns were gray and my legs were black up to mid-thigh. Just felt so gritty! Wouldn't a nice 6" wet heavy snow be nice?
 
Tuff Conditions

A friend and I were out in Yuma County last Thursday with my britt, Sam. We hunted around 7 hrs and Sam never got birdie. We decided to give it up and stoped in a winter wheat field to take off the vests, get a drink and let Sam take a whiz. I looked over and Sam was tracking something in a little depression. He flushed a single hen about 30 yards out. That was our day.
I was reading a thread on the kansas forum. These guys were talking about hunting rabbits over their bird dogs. Of course there was the discussion about never shooting rabbits over bird dogs. But,it occured to me that their are other small game species to hunt other than pheasant and I have hunted all of them and enjoyed doing it, before I got locked in on pheasant. I think I might put the #5s away and get out the 22 and #8s.
 
I think that you are on to something. Then with the exceptionally hot/dry summer, with sparse cover, the survivors are very savvy.

When we hunted the Sunday of the season opener, there were hawks everywhere, and even an owl out during the middle of the day. With so little cover, and snow on the ground, it was likely a pheasant feast.



marshrat said:
As a former wildlife biologist, I walk around and wonder how many hens sitting on nests were mowed up with the emergency haying. We're hunting survivors from the previous year (mostly) and 2 years ago(small percentage)...no their first rodeo. It's a tough year to hunt with dramatically lower numbers, and even more difficult hunting seasoned birds.
Click to expand...
 
cover

I agree, probably took a lot of nesting hens or young, the hawks and owls are waiting for the pickings. They take a great number of birds per year!
Some of my favorite WIA's have no cover and the shelter belts are exposed, no place for them to avoid predators. Years ago I have watched hawks dive into heavy CRP repeatly to dislodge hens for them to go after.
 
If a hen loses her brood from weather, mowing, etc...she will attempt to renest. Dead hens seldom renest...

I worked on the Sichuan pheasant program in Michigan and learned how efficient hawks and owls are as pheasant predators. We would let adult birds out of the crates and watch them get picked off in the air and also within seconds of landing. Part of the release strategy was to "overwhelm predators" at the release site, so we could put out 50 birds/stop.

We also had radio transmitters on birds and found about 90% mortality within a week of released adult birds, with most of that coming in the first 48 hours.

I used to tell hunters, when looking for quality habitat, if you can see your boots find another field...it's not good enough habitat. I have seen a lot of Bean boot this fall!!

I like the small game recommendation, though. Rabbit sort of 'tastes like (ditch) chicken' !!
 
On the predator front, I have seen countless owls and many hawks. The lack of cover makes hunting easy for them. I have also seen some coyotes prowling the fields. It is a bummer. I do hope that some weather hits the area soon.
 
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