17 Dec Fall TurkeyHey ya'll, Rex checking in for a fall report of my archery trip to [location deleted]. I am writing you as Indiana is in the middle of our firearm season, which makes me appreciate the peace and quiet of the [location deleted] lands where I hunted. It is a zoo around here, seems like there is a hunter on every 20 acres in the area. Down there I had hundreds of acres to myself with no one in sight. The only people I ran into were fellow club members, and all were eager to stop and chat for a few minutes, sharing info about different land parcels and how their hunting has been going, all members were quite friendly and a pleasure to talk to.
With that aside, I did not bag a big buck with the arrow, however I did harvest a trophy, a very nice bearded hen turkey which I am going to mount. I also scored on a gobbler as well. I filled both turkey tags, which was well worth the trip just for the turkeys. I did rattle up two or three smaller bucks, after taking a fellow members advice, but none were shooters.
After I came home and have to put up with the masses in Indiana, I can really appreciate the peace and quiet of [location deleted]. That is one of the main reasons that keeps me coming back, you don't have to fight for a spot anywhere, lots of game, and the chance to harvest a trophy, as I did this year with the turkeys.
I will write again with my update on the firearms trip soon. Enclosed you should find the pics of the two turkeys I arrowed. Thanks again for a quality hunt.
Rex
Thanks Rex always good to hear from you. Consistent hunters like you are a good measure of what is going on.
15 Dec CardingMore members seem to be taking control of the resource they are paying for by carding those they encounter on MAHA lease land. Thank you to all that take this extra effort, it has paid off.
Recurring SuccessReturning members of recurring success extend the courtesy of sharing their current season success picture to add to the previous two.
We have seen this season some exceptional trophy success that has surpassed previous years performance. However, the most common deer hunter experience is not harvesting a trophy whitetail. The next common is such as seen in this picture. Three buddies and one nice buck. While everyone has the potential for the best deer of their hunting career the reasonable expectation is to have a good hunt.
Thanks guys and congratulations on the nice buck!
Texas/Oklahoma Quail HuntersSouthern state quail hunters are feeling the impact of the year long drought and resulting poor southern quail hunting. They have been knocking hard on our door to salvage their current hunting season. Most have been rejected for simply being quail killers rather than hunters out to enjoy their dog work. Perhaps this posting will save us from more wasted telephone time.
14 Dec PheasantSummarized observations sent in by member feedback is that pheasant numbers are down. This is an inverse correlation with observations on quail (at or above last year) and turkey (numbers observed above last year).
Those offering cause and effect analysis with their observations offer:
Pheasant, quail and turkey, three ground nesting birds that have overlapping regional population distribution along with similar nest and brood periods all should do similarly well or not during the same spring reproduction period. The observation that two of the three have seem to have a higher reproduction success rate indicates other causative factors for the decline of the third bird.
Another offers pheasant numbers have been most affected by thinner and shorter tall grass due to dry summer weather. The effect is that pheasants are not concentrated within the now shorter than last year tall grass and requires hunters to find them in less population dense protective cover. Dogs that can effectively hunt the tall grass for the harder holding pheasants may not be as effective in other habitat types.
Two of the most recent emails (this week) that represent the two extremes of the range of feedback received and interestingly cover the same county in specific and counties in general are posted below.
Email #1john-
Well it certainly has been a tough bird season in Kansas this year, compared to last year.
The drought has really had a negative impact on the reproduction cycle and it shows, but that is the nature of hunting and bird cycles........one big effect of the drought was the early wheat harvest that took place in [location deleted].......talking personally with several farmers 2 things happened that hurt immensely.....1) the wheat harvest in that area took place 2-3 weeks earlier than normal, which resulted in a lot of nests that were destroyed and never were allowed to produce hatchlings; and 2) the first hatch was impacted by 4-5 days of 100 plus degree temps, which severely impacted chick survival rates as well.....a double whammy for the birds...2nd hatch was marginally productive as well, according to many locals...there are spotty areas where the birds did produce pretty well.........
The 5th day of the pheasant season (the first Wednesday of the season) saw temps hitting 89 degrees in the [location deleted] area where I was hunting and I had to pull my dog from the field at 11:00 a.m. due to the excessive heat...first time in 40 years that I ever had to stop pheasant hunting due to heat conditions.......anyone that thinks climate change is not happening is asleep at the wheel, I can assure you of that!
I ventured up to [location deleted] last week, as I had not been to that area for many years......wow, what a huge disappointment, as the dynamics of farming has changed drastically there over the past 10 years or so since I had been there.......there is virtually no CRP or set aside anywhere......you couldn't lease it if you tried...it is extremely scarce...what exacerbates the problem is the intense farming from fence row to fence row (even the brome grass waterways have been cut and baled, leaving no cover whatsoever), leaving only hedge rows and a few brushy draws for real cover, which is still working for the quail, but has decimated the pheasant population and their ability to find suitable nesting cover...I have never seen so few pheasants in as many days as I hunted there.......making it even worse are the many soy bean fields which leave no stubble cover for the birds to feed in......although that is a rotational row crop (same fields could be milo next year), the current result is the huge lack of additional cover left when that crop is in...
Finally, I hunted/looked at most of the properties in [location deleted].....I don't mean to offend you, but that ground is primarily "moonscape" and offers no value whatsoever for any game species (pheasant, quail, turkey or deer).......we are virtually throwing away good money for the majority of those properties.....if I were to ever see any game on that ground it would only be moving through it to get to some other available adjacent cover...very disappointing.
Again, I do not want you to think I am being disrespectful towards your efforts (you guys provide a lot of good ground and no one can expect you to be responsible for the weather) and I realize you have a ton of ground to review, but quite frankly the good bird ground/cover will harbor a good deer population as well (we saw a huge whitetail and a really big mulie on several [location deleted] properties last week) , but I STRONGLY suggest that you guys review [location deleted] and especially [location deleted] as they are not providing the value to bird hunters or deer hunters either one. Yes, the quail hunters can still enjoy [location deleted] and find some coveys, but I would like to see us reduce our lease ground in [location deleted] and especially [location deleted] and maybe shift it further west to [location deleted] and other areas that have a stable CRP or set aside environment, which not only favor the birds (pheasant hunters) , but would still provide suitable ground for deer hunters as well. With as many bird hunters as we continue to see join our ranks, we need to keep reviewing those old leases for their value and try to rotate out of some of those pasture type properties.
Appreciate you taking time to read and review my suggestions/reports. I love the club and what you guys do (there is some great ground out there for bird hunters) and appreciate your hard work, just trying to pass along what needs to be reviewed and will add even more value to our club and to the membership. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my assessment of the situation as described.
Email #2John, Hope all is going well with you. Recently returned from what I call a Midwest safari. I went deer and bird hunting in [location deleted]. Did not harvest a trophy buck, although I saw two I would have liked to. One was a [deleted] deer that was beautiful. The other was a magnificent [buck] that would have scored at least 170 B&C. The terrain is so open in [location deleted] that you can glass for miles and see deer everywhere. I would normally deer hunt until 9:00 a.m. and then bird hunt until 3:00 and then deer hunt the last two hours of hunting hours.
The bird hunting was about as good as it gets. I was hunting my two old Brittany male brothers Zeke (10 years old) and Scout (9 years old). I owned both sire and bitch and they just came out of different litters. Zeke and Scout have been hunting pheasants since they were 1 year old so between them they have 17 years of pheasant hunting. It showed during the safari. Hunting 3 to 4 hours a day, I averaged harvesting 2 roosters a day. My best day I had my limit in 3 hours. All of the birds were mature 2 to 3 year olds. One bird that I harvested (that Scout had a great point), his head was almost completely white and his tail feathers were almost pink. He was an old guy.
On a down note, if they don’t get some rain in that part of [location deleted], the wildlife will be severely affected next year.
Take care. [name deleted]
Holiday Day HuntJohn, Enjoyed another great family outing on Thanksgiving morning! The birds were sparse, but my older son managed a nice mixed-bag in just a short three hour hunt.
It made his turkey day and his smile says it all.
Happy thanksgiving!!!
Steve
Thanks Steve and Kyle. It is probably evident just how far we are behind with the updates as it is almost Christmas and we are getting to the Thanksgiving weekend emails!
QuailFrom a long time member of continuing success and admirable attitude.
We found this picture interesting as the older dog found the right place to sit and the comment along with the picture was the pup on the left was growling at the cows across the road. It is always good to find enjoyment in any dog's behavior.
What has been offered to us by several long time quail hunter/members is few complaints other than the warm weather conditions and much compliments on the quail habitat. We will offer that for many that a quail limit is as tough to come by as a trophy whitetail is for a deer hunter.
Those that seem to enjoy quail hunting the most (not necessarily limit hunters) have offered through the years a success method that seems to have sustained their continuing membership. That method is to hunt and find coveys by covering a lot of ground. Harvest but one bird max per dog per covey and move on to find the next covey and repeat. Not hunt the same covey more than twice a season. By the end of three such seasons that hunter should have more coveys marked on his maps than time to hunt. The value is when a first season pup is put to field that hunter can be on more coveys in a short time giving that first year dog the experience to develop into a good bird dog. These same hunters will also seek to add a quail holding farm or two each year after to keep adding to their "quail inventory" compensating for land or coveys that go away.
The converse would be to harvest 8 birds from the first covey encountered and not be concerned with finding that covey on that farm the next season. |
