Recommendations for late season Kansas pheasant
 

Got the call yesterday, my buddy Mike is going out to Kansas, his third trip this year, and asked me if I wanted to come out for 5-6 days. Well, hell yes, but I need to square things up in the office , but it looks doable. I will be driving separately, as he is staying for 2 weeks. I do not expect big numbers of birds this late in the season, and expect a lot of walking. Decent quail hunting will be a bonus. I am not a 12 ga guy, but do have 9 16 ga 's--don't even own a 12 Parker, do have a Fox pin gun choked cyl/m. Was planning on bringing 16's only. Right now the most appropriate guns would seem to be an Ithaca 4E 16 m/f, sterly 16 m/f, Parker VH 1 frame IC/IC, and a Rizzini 16 ou with double triggers and choke tubes. Would like to bring my GH16 o frame Damascus, but would have to shoot lighter loads thru it.
I have several boxes of factory 1 1/8 0z 4's, 5's, and sixes, 1oz 4's and 6's,
and my reloads that are 1oz 6's and straight 7's. I never shoot over an oz here, but those birds were released not wild.
I will be shooting over setters, but my dogs have never seen wild pheasants, but are very good grouse dogs. Mike has setters also. Kenny Graft met Mike in Kansas earlier this year.
Will be staying in the Hill city area --any of you out that way?? This will be a first for me to hunt wild pheasants.

Harold,

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Harold,
I went out there the first week of December and brought a parker 20 IC/Mod and a Fox IC/Mod and found that I shot the Fox with one oz. of sixes for Pheasant and one oz. of eights for the quail. Sometimes I would load one of each until we were sure what the dogs were pointing/flushing. We Hunted pointers and flushers. All of my shots were really short or not worth shooting at because the roosters were getting up sixty to one hundred yards away or holding for us to flush. I love the sixteen gauge..... Shoots like a twelve carries like a twenty. That Fox pin gun sounds like a nice choke combination to me. You may want to bring non toxic shot or steel shot and another gun for shooting it for the restricted areas if you will be hunting those.
Have fun, Brett

Harold these are pheasants not armor plated winged tanks. There is no need for 1 1/8 oz of shot. Any of the 16's with a 7/8 oz load of either 6's or 7 1/2 will work just fine. I'd take that straight grip DHE 16 if it were me.

Well, that certainly is a sweet gun to carry at eaxactly 6 lbs, but it is choked cyl/m--great for the quail, but Mike says the pheasants were flushing pretty far in front of the dogs a few weeks ago.

"Never send a boy to do a man's job." Nash Buckingham

What Brett(BS) said. If you're hunting behind pointers the birds will either hold or not. If they flush really wild and far out, it won't matter what you're carrying, they'll be too far out. A 16ga should be just fine behind good pointers. Behind poorly controlled flushing dogs, maybe not as good.

Harold....If you shoot a 16 this late in the season you will need 1oz of 5# shot going 1250 to 1300 FPS and one good tight choke too! Don't handicap yourself or Mike will kill all the birds with his 4 shot load he likes! If you can find some 16 ga. Nobil Sport Hunting loads in number 4# shot those shoot extra tight, they work very good in open chokes. The wad does not open as fast as other loads and put way more pellets in a 30" circle at 40 yards. They only load 4 or 6 shot, they skip 5# Cabelas may have them? I have them if you get up this way. Have fun and I hope you have good hunting weather. Maybe next year I come too! SXS Ohio

Harold. I have hunted wild pheasants for decades. Late season I prefer #4 but they will drop with 5 6 or even 71/2. I like M/F combo as generally the shots are longer. Gauge is good at 12 16 or 20 as long as bird and shot pattern occupy the same space at the same time. The pic is my first pheasant from 1965. I built a habitat display on my garage art wall. Only thing left to add are some cattails. The combination of vegetation would never be found all together but it is present throughout my favourite haunts. Enjoy your hunt. Cheers Jack

Looks like it may be a tuff drive out. Was going to leave around 5:30am Sat, but that will be right in the middle of impending snow/ice storm--maybe better to wait til around noon.