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Joined: 13 Oct 2015 Posts: 151 Location: SE Ks

Family and friends gathered in western Kansas for the opener Saturday, weather was too warm, hunters were everywhere. We got to our favorite walk-in area 45 minutes before daylight and there were already trucks there waiting on legal hunting time. Went to 3 more walk-in areas before finding one we could hunt. Every patch we hunted all day had already been walked several times.
Under the conditions we were happy, 7 of us counting my two young grandkids ended up with 9 roosters and 10 quail.
To bring the post more on topic, my Dickinson Estate SxS 16 ga shooting my 1 1/8 oz nickeled 5s fared quite well. 3 of the roosters were hit rally hard at 30-40 yards using IC and Mod chokes.
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The shotgun doesn't show up but it's one of the few pictures we took time to make.

GREAT picture
Thank you for sharing
Mike

Joined: 15 Mar 2015 Posts: 118 Location: Manhattan KS

I hunted in south central Kansas. We had a good time, and took a youth hunting for the first time. So that was great. The bird numbers were down though. Not dramatically down, but definitely less birds than last year. We hunted mostly private with an hour on public mixed in. I killed 5 birds in 6 shots and had a double on quail. Me shooting that well as about as likely as Hillary and Bill sharing a bed.

Member Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 425 Location: Big D

The dog's tongue, almost as long as that rooster's tail, attests to the warmth. Great pic.

Mike

Wonderful picture - exactly like a magazine would print. Sounds like a great day. OH

Joined: 01 Oct 2007 Posts: 962 Location: Minnesota

I hunted in west central Kansas. The pheasant population was devastated there five years ago, by extreme drought and heat.
In past four years we have shot virtually zero pheasants, and some years "saw zero."
This year there were nine of us including several that were hunting for the first time.
We killed five roosters in about three hours. We saw lots of prairie chickens, at least 40 and one covey of quail.
That's a pretty low number of birds in the bag but it exceeds the "total" of the past four years. And also, the newer hunters missed a few.

Joined: 13 Oct 2015 Posts: 151 Location: SE Ks

We felt like the population numbers were down from last year on pheasant but up in quail. Certainly not the glowing reports we'd seen on the pheasant. Wel'll probably make the 5 hour trip a couple more times during the season. Way better than sitting at home wishing

We hunted North Central Kansas and Pheasant numbers are definitely worse that last year which were poor. Kansas Wildlife and Parks is now Kansas wildlife, Parks and Tourism. Hmmm I wonder if the glowing reports and the Tourism part are related?

James

Contrary to other reports we found the bird numbers in northwestern Kansas to be up considerably from the past year or two. I was able to limit out on Saturday, and three of us took nine pheasants and a couple of quail. Lots of hunters about, and lots of out-of-state plates. My Fox A grade 16 and 1oz. RST's performed about as well as I could ask.

Little different on Sunday, but more to do with the weather than anything else. WAY too warm, and the birds were harder to find and even harder to get out of the thick cover. Only saw a few other hunters out. We lost two pheasants and only came home with two pheasants and two quail in the bag, after taking a mid-day break to watch the Chiefs take one from Cam Newton and the Panthers.

We'll see what the Thanksgiving weekend brings!

Joined: 27 Jan 2016 Posts: 490 Location: Oswego, Kansas

My trip for opening weekend was a total failure. After the five hour drive on Friday to the Clay Center area where I hunted for 15 years but had been away from for the past ten I found that the landowner, my former brother in law, had sold a bunch of the property that he used to farm but that I could hunt a couple of the places he still farmed.
I had made the mistake of not reserving a motel room and thus ended up sleeping in my van that night which I had prepared for except for the temperature dropping to 19 degrees before daylight.
The fields that I hunted produced nothing but tired legs. I saw absolutely no sign of pheasants or quail. I hunted a public walk in hunting area adjacent to one of my regular fields which looked promising with the milo stubble but there ended up being a lot of grain on the ground and no sign of birds. The only pheasant that I saw all weekend was a rooster that flushed ahead of some other hunters while they were still 100 yards away while I was driving by.
I ended up so disgusted I took my LC Smith and my golden retriever home where we slept much better in a warm bed that night. Mad

Just got home from south-central Nebraska, just above the Kansas line. Hadn't hunted here for about six years, so my previous experiences was "pre-Great Plains drought." Pheasants were scarce, with only 6 or 7 roosters seen in three days of hunting. Much poorer than before the dry years. Quail were about the same--we found 10 or 11 different coveys and got lots of shooting.

Ironically, I went 9 for 11 on quail with my Citori using reloaded steel #7s and 3 dead with Remington factory #4 steel (which was in my 2nd barrel in case of a pheasant flush) on WPAs. Meanwhile, I only shot 5 quail and a pheasant with around 20 shells using lead shot in my Model 37 on private land. I would have expected just the opposite. Go figure!

Good times. Cooler weather would have been nice, however.

Joined: 27 Jan 2016 Posts: 490 Location: Oswego, Kansas

That is true Old Colonel! As I was leaving the walk-in area a game warden stopped by with survey cards. He assured me that the birds were out there! I told him that they must not have feathers and did not leave any droppings on the ground in the two complete sections that I hunted! Must be a new breed?

I agree with the inflated numbers that are designed to bring out-of-staters (or rather their money) into the state. But reports by people I do trust - local farmers and bird hunters keeping track - say that bird numbers are up, at least in the areas I hunt. And I'd have to say I've found that to be true so far.