Some good advice about hunting pheasents

ryank

New member
According to a DNR upland bird biologist, pheasants follow a schedule as routine as your daily commute to and from work. By understanding the pheasant's daily movements, hunters can increase their odds of flushing a rooster.

"Pheasants start their day before sunrise at roost sites, usually in areas of short- to medium-height grass or weeds, where they spend the night." That's the word from Dick Kimmel, research biologist at the DNR Farmland Wildlife Populations and Research Station at Madelia. Kimmel says that, at first light, pheasants head for roadsides or similar areas where they can find gravel or grit.

Then, around 8 a.m., the birds begin feeding. When shooting hours start an hour later, the birds are still feeding, often in grainfields, while cautiously making their way toward safe cover. "That's when to look along the edges of picked cornfields," says Kimmel, who regularly hunts southwestern Minnesota with his English setter, Banjo.

By mid-morning, pheasants have generally left the fields for the densest, thickest cover they can find, such as standing corn, federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) fields, brush patches, wetlands, or native grasses. Kimmel says the birds will "hunker down here for the day until late afternoon."

It's next to impossible for small hunting groups of two to three hunters to work large fields of standing corn. Pheasants often run to avoid predators, a response that frustrates dogs and hunters working corn, soybean, and alfalfa fields. Groups of two or three hunters usually have better success working grass fields, field edges, or fencerows. Other likely spots during midday are ditch banks, along railroad tracks, and as far into marshes as you can get without drowning.

Remember: The nastier the weather, the deeper into cover the pheasant will go. But eventually, the birds have to eat again. During late afternoon, they move from loafing spots back to feeding areas. As in the morning, birds are easier to spot from a distance and are more accessible to hunters. "That's why the first and last shooting hours are consistently the best times to hunt pheasants," Kimmel adds.


This was taken from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resource's web page. I met Mr. Kimmel at a pheasents forever banquet last year. And to be quite honest.... he is a very knowledgable person when it comes to upland game.

Ryan

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