2022/23 Pheasant

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A BIG FAT zero for the first two days of the season. The wind on opening day kept them in heavy cover, but we managed to flush a few birds (3 roosters and 2 hens). It was a lot of walking in heavy weeds/brush to get them up. Towards the end of the day, I finally took one shot, and he took a nose dive in the milo field just outside of where we flushed him. By the time that I got out of the weeds, he apparently got up and ran back into cover. We never found him after that. Day two started out with pretty good conditions. We were hunting south of Keyes, OK. Around 10:30, I noticed a dark looking wall cloud heading our way. Within a few minutes, the wind started picking up, and I caught one rooster heading back to cover. I took a shot and knocked him down with eyes on him the whole time. The wall cloud of dust, dirt, and tumble weeds got to us right when I shot him. The wind was literally blowing 40 mph within a few seconds. That dang bird got up and ran into thick brush right by where he was laying. I never found him, but I tried for about 30 minutes while getting sand blasted and slapped by the tumble weeds. I’ve never experienced a true dust storm until yesterday. It was a wild experience. Visibility was only a few hundred feet at times. The pic doesn’t do it justice, but it somewhat shows the dust in the air. Hopefully, I’ll head back in a couple of weeks and try again.

E48C6C63-92A3-4F85-8AE7-631F96EA9172.jpeg
 
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Ancient history winters of 1975 & 1976.......age 25 and 26.

In between overseas jobs and working in Wichita, Kan. a fella from work and I used to hunt the public land around Marion Reservoir about an hour or so drive NE from Wichita every Sat. and Sun.

Don't know how it is now but back then the state planted milo plots here and there around the lake and they always held a lot of wild (not planted) pheasants and we'd always get our limit with the occasional rabbit or two thrown in.......no dog we just spread apart and zig zagged back and forth through the milo.

We'd never hunt opening weekend but instead we'd wait a couple of weeks and let the birds calm down.

Three years ago my current duck hunting buddy got a free trip to Kansas on a hunting preserve and although three of them easily got their limits he said that it wasn't that hard to do because the birds had only been released a day or two prior to the hunt and it wasn't much more of a challenge than hunting chickens and he hasn't been back since.

I haven't had the opportunity to hunt pheasants since my days in Kansas but I've got a lot of good memories.
 

retrieverman

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As a kid in the late 70’s and early 80’s, we hunted quail in southern Alfalfa county when we came up to see my grandparents at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and every few years, we’d luck into some pheasants.
I’ve had friends go to Kansas and Nebraska on pheasant hunts, but I‘m pretty sure they’ve all been “canned” hunts.
I hear and see a pheasant or two around my place, but it’s a rare occurrence.
 

Okie4570

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As a kid in the late 70’s and early 80’s, we hunted quail in southern Alfalfa county when we came up to see my grandparents at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and every few years, we’d luck into some pheasants.
I’ve had friends go to Kansas and Nebraska on pheasant hunts, but I‘m pretty sure they’ve all been “canned” hunts.
I hear and see a pheasant or two around my place, but it’s a rare occurrence.
Justin and I are convinced they don't like sandy areas.
 
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They’re pretty thin in numbers this year. With talking to some of the local farmers, a disease attacked the milo crops this year, and the drought didn’t help. All the birds I saw were within a couple of miles to a feedlot pond. I think finding a water source whether it be stock tanks or ponds with water is a good method for finding birds this year.
 
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We used to have lots of pheasants until a couple of families bought around 15-20 thousand acres around us. Every weekend there would be a half dozen trucks or more filled with clients and customers hitting every waterway and CRP field.
When finding birds was getting tough, we had a huge flood during nesting season.
It’s rare to see a pheasant now. I’ve seen two this fall.
 

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