Wild Birds 2012!

High Brass said:
Got a question about Wisconsin Phes.? We spent 5 years in Madison and traveled the lower third of the state from the Mississippi to the big lake. I cannot understand how a state with such rolling terrain, varied crops, hay fields, pasture land, swamps, sloughs and every type of field imaginable not produce great numbers of Phes. I am not trying to be a smart a$$ but really don't understand. If I was a Phes I would sure consider living there.
Thanks
Bob
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You would think so right? As WisTurk keeps hitting home with, there are birds out there, but why not in "great numbers" as you asked?

As for Wis. one reason is that many many acres of grass lands are in low lands. Such fields all too often flood in the spring and therefore don't make the best nesting habitat.

Regardless, like Illinois; Wisconsin should have higher wild pheasant numbers then they do in areas with habitat that supports wild birds.

Habitat is an issue of course(!), but where there is prime, large areas of habitat bird #'s are not what they would have been years ago:confused:
 
One thing I think we SHOULD do is be more aggresive in controlling nest raiding predators. I'm in the "habit trump all" camp by far but every nest raider you kill will insure more birds make it into adulthood and every bird counts.

I know guys pass up coons when they are bird hunting for a variety of reasons but look at that coon (or possum,skunk,etc...) as a future rooster your dog might get to point,flush,or retrieve. If every pheasant hunter killed 3 coons a fall it would help I do believe.

Get a foxpro with coon sounds,shotgun light,and go out after hours and start killing them on purpose and we'll be better off.

Beyond that report everyone that shoots a hen.
 
I couldn't agree more with wisturkeyhunter. Add feral cats, fox, yotes, and skunks to the list. Possums and skunks are notoriously bad nest raiders and cats kill anything they can catch. Do your part and take these predators out at every chance you get.
 
I go back to visit relatives in SE WI and also can't understand why there shouldn't be birds. But my cousins who still live down there say it's not worth going out any more in our old haunts. Predators certainly take their share and I'm the first one to agree to thinning them out, especially feral cats. But the cause has to be deeper than that alone.

Some years ago while talking to a game warden in Iowa my cousins were having this same discussion. The warden said that in Iowa and other western states, they don't salt their roads in the winter like we do in WI. The birds here go roadside to pick grit and ingest a lot of salt, which ends up killing them. I don't know how accurate that statement may be, but it sounds like it could be part of the equation.
 
Once you find a few different pockets of wild birds living in Wisconsin it becomes painfully obvious why we don't have more and why we won't probably ever have more. Fortunetly I think the spots that have wild bird populations will stay the way they are as long as any of us are around. I doubt salt has much to do with anything.
 
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Ranger Rick said:
But the cause has to be deeper than that alone
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It is. That's what we're working on figuring out. WisTurk made the point of predation. Yes, that's certainly an issue but the problem we're faced with goes beyond predators.

Pheasant #'s were on the rise along with predator populations. Then as if hitting a brick wall, the pheasant # plummeted and never bounced back. Literally within 1 year:confused::confused:

I've been observing an area here in N. IL since the 1980's. Combined with the surrounding areas, it was once home to 1,000 wild birds or more. One winter, I and a couple others witnessed 400-500 wild hens flush before us after a drive. This was the case until the mid-90's.

Today, this same area has increased in pheasant habitat acreage 3-4 fold.

Perfect habitat, great food sources, water year-round. Spring, summer, fall, winter, it has what the birds need to not just survive but thrive like no other time I've witnessed in this area's history.

Despite the increases in habitat I'd estimate the wild bird numbers to be around 400-500 birds.:confused:

I have a theory as to what may be going on, or, at least a part of the issue at hand.

We may very well have a genetic line of wild ring-neck pheasants that fall into a monogamous line/gene pool. The solution may very well lie within a polygamous line/gene of ring-neck pheasants from China/Korea. A line known for breeding large numbers of hens vs. other lines that only breed one hen each spring.
 
519vx said:
I couldn't agree more with wisturkeyhunter. Add feral cats, fox, yotes, and skunks to the list. Possums and skunks are notoriously bad nest raiders and cats kill anything they can catch. Do your part and take these predators out at every chance you get.
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How about ground squirrels, crows and magpies. These are often over looked but are Hell on nests. Also Turkey's out compete hen pheasants for prime nesting ground where their ranges over lap. Kill a hen turkey and help a pheasant nest.:thumbsup:
 
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Christmas Miracle!

First of all I wanted to say Merry Christmas to all on the forum.

Since my last post I was able to get out a few times and I was again blessed to get into some wild birds. I'm up to 8 wild birds this season (I have to admit that I did receive help with extra feet on the ground helping to push birds and some amazing dog work on crippled birds).

The best news of all was the Christmas present my in-laws surprised me with, see picture attached.
 
Thats very cool! If you have it, pls send me the info on who did the painting? I'd like to consider that for my wife.

I put up one wild bird last Saturday in XX and another yesterday in YY, both went out the other side of a tree line and both are still out there.

I haven't taken a wild bird this year..getting a little depressing. May get out Saturday again for the last time.

I'll be up north for almost a week after New Years and may chase some grouse if the weather is decent.

Merry Christmas Everyone!
 
Early B-Day Present

I woke up this morning and as always was planning on going hunting because I didn't have to work. Went out to warm up the truck and noticed we had about 2 inches of snow on the ground and the local forecast said it would snow until 3PM. I started to pack it in and call it quits (I'm getting pretty worn out barreling through those snow packed cattails). So on a whim I decided to check the forecast where I was going to hunt and noticed it was not snowing, so I went ahead with the hunt.

When I arrived at the destination someone was already there and out hunting (a group of 3 hunters and 2 dogs). I decided to stick with my plan and hunt this area, so I headed to the opposite end of the field they were hunting and had at it (I've never hunted this area so I didn't know what to expect). I was about 30 minutes in and did not notice even a track in the snow. Then all of the sudden the dog started to get birdy and few minutes later, my GPS vibrates and I notice he's on point. I head over to the area and find the dog and we flush out a tight holding hen. We proceed to hunt this area of cattails and find nothing so I moved on.

Just around the next corner I find the pheasant highway (tracks are everywhere and going in every direction. Best part is I notice a few tracks have spur drags). Dog starts following the tracks and just seconds in a rooster busts out about 35 yards out. I fired a quick shot and sent the bird into cart wheels (totally shocked I folded it that far out, I was expecting at best a crippled chase).
We continue to hunt this area until we get to the end and find no other birds (totally shocked because tracks were everywhere). We went around the corner and it was not long before Cookie starts trailing another one. This one went on for at least 200 yards down a ditch, into cattails and back to the ditch and to the cattails and then finally back to the ditch again and then point! (by this time I was pretty exhausted but as always, I hauled tail over to the dog and I only made it about 10 yards and the dog takes a very slow step and when his paw hits the ground, up busts a rooster. I stop in my tracks and start to draw a bead and then I notice the bird turns and starts flying right towards me! I wait until the bird gets over my head and fire and the bird goes down. Drop the bird in the bag after the retrieve and look down at the time and notice it's 8:50AM:eek: Could it be that I only hunted an hour and twenty minutes!

After going through this in my head again, I had to believe this was my birthday gift (birthday is tomorrow)(something pushed me to go out and then something pushed me to hunt the area that was already occupied). If I'm crazy then so be it but it just felt different today.
 
No IF about it. :D

More guys walking the fields with guns now than there was during the opener... Deer hunters and pheasant hunters. I wish it was a lot colder and enough snow to throw on my snow shoes.

I'm a little burnt out on the whole pheasant thing myself. Busting a ton of cover to maybe get a shot or 2 and always having to hit up the same place to find birds sure can take the hop outta anybodies step. I'll probably be out tommorow at some point though.
 
Not sure where Im headed yet but Im headed somewhere in an hour or so. Chilly start to the day!
Last chance to put a wild one in the pouch.
 
Good luck today Uplander! I just walked back in the door and it was a much tougher day. I found 3 hens and a rooster that busted out about 60 yards ahead of me.

Dog was on alot of birds in the marsh but couldn't get them up in the air, they just seem to vanish today.
 
well the year finished the way it started. No wild birds. First year in 8 years that I haven't taken a wild pheasant in WI. Pathetic. I was in an area that traditionally should hold birds. A triangle of grass, cut corn and cattails. Nada. Not even any tracks. Surprised at the amount of deer hunters out there.


Heading to N WI Tuesday for 5 days of ice fishing and chasing ruffies.

Happy New Year Gents!
:cheers: :cheers:
 
shorthairs4life said:
Good luck today Uplander! I just walked back in the door and it was a much tougher day. I found 3 hens and a rooster that busted out about 60 yards ahead of me.

Dog was on alot of birds in the marsh but couldn't get them up in the air, they just seem to vanish today.
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Everywhere I walked today had been hunted hard since yesterday's dusting of snow, the birds are feeling the pressure. Few hens was it for us too.
 
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