Kansas Wild Pheasant Hunting, page 3

Dogs & Habitat

Kansas pheasant hunting run a wide habitat range with the tall grass just one point on the spectrum.

Other wild pheasant habitat include the brushy draw, crop stubble with milo and corn being enough to hold birds and wheat with weeds mixed in also a highly productive habitat. However, working all of these habitat types will not be productive for all bird dogs or pheasant hunters. Just as in tall grass, dog power is often defined as to what habitat type any one particular dog can produce pheasant holding points.

Hunter Feedback

We have a great amount of exposure to a lot of pheasant hunters from various states and upland bird backgrounds. This exposure value is the hunters' feedback based on habitat type and predominate upland bird hunted back in their home state. In short terms what we have found from these pheasant hunters is that those with grouse productive dogs seem to do the best at finding pheasants in the tall grass. Those with bird dogs heavily trained or hunted on quail do not produce nearly the number of pheasant holding points.

This compares locally that most resident bird hunters with the best quail dogs rarely pheasant hunt. Any pheasants bagged by dedicated quail hunters more often than not are incidental to the quail hunt. A byproduct that while accepted, is not sought.

Conversely, that same non-resident bird dog with whatever predominate bird it has in its training or what bird it hunts the most, may be a poor pheasant point producer within one type of habitat be it grass or crop stubble and be a superior pheasant hold to point dog on the brushy draw or crop edge. That lends us to the advice to new traveling to upland bird hunt hunters and that is to take a bit of a tour of our pheasant and quail regions in Kansas and Iowa.

When the first year MAHA self guided upland bird member goes on his first upland bird hunt we will recommend where based first on his bird of choice, pheasant or quail, and second on any habitat preference. That recommendation may not always be Kansas.

Usually the first time central mid-west hunter while knowing the bird he wants to hunt does not have a preference on habitat. For that hunter we suggest a tour of such of the various habitat types covering the entire spectrum of what is available, a choice Kansas is well suited for to include providing a good mixture of quail and pheasant hunting regions.

Within that first pheasant hunting trip, he may very well fine tune his bird dog and hunting style to the pheasant habitat they are most productive within. For Kansas pheasant hunting the choice is the tall prairie grass, brush draw and wildlife areas around crop farms.