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,

Try the new members-by-location tool:

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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.

Good luck to you, Harold. Be careful on those roads. We are headed from Bowling Green, KY tomorrow to Columbus, then on to Elyria. On Saturday to my dad's house near Youngstown, then on to Detroit for the Auto Show on Monday. Will likely be an interesting weekend for driving. I've convinced my wife that taking one of the 4WD trucks is a better decision for this time of year than her Cadillac.... :whistle:

Dave

yes Dave, looks like it will be pretty dicey out there. Definitely take a 4wD. Youngstown and north looks to be right in the middle of this mess. Be careful

Dave - If you've got some time, let's get together with the girls for a drink or dinner.

Hill City should be as good as any for late season. Not much for restaurants there, a Mexican place downtown and another on the northeast side that has gone by various names. Be sure to visit Nicodemus, a black settlement begun just after the Civil War and still the same today.

If you have snow or rain, dirt roads around there bog down quickly. Some drain but others have no bottom and the same length of road can have both.

Look for the heaviest cover and pockets that you can find this late. Good luck.

Harold, at 8:45 am snow is coming down real good around Detroit area today so it might be a good idea to wait until noon tomorrow so hopefully they can clean up some of the roads.

Thought about leaving Fri after work, but impending ice/snow storm changed that. 64 degrees at noon Fri, 34 at 4:30, and by 8:00 everything was encased in a thick layer of ice. Got at least 6 inches of snow on top of that. Got on the road at 10:00 am after getting the drive cleared for my wife. Between Wheeling and Columbus, I 70 was alittle rough, but after Columbus was fine. Only made it about 50 miles past St. Louis to New Florence, Mo., where I am currently shacked up for the night sipping on a glass of bourbon. That was a little over 600 miles, and have about 500 left to go.
Bruce, I have heard that about the roads, but looks like they should be froze up while I am here. Looking forward to getting out and stretching mine and the dogs legs, Don't figure I will kill a lot of birds at this time of year, but happy to just get out.

Harold,

Good luck! I'm a little late to this thread. At this time of year, I shoot 1oz of #6 in the open barrel and an oz of #5 in the second barrel. These are ~1175fps. I'm shooting over a setter and most shots are within 30 yards.

Also, the dirt roads may be froze in the morning, but as temps get above freezing they can get slick.

Ken

Hey Harold...we need up-date on your hunt??? THE GOOD...THE BAD AND THE UGLEY SXS Ohio

Harold, my wife's from Hill City; I grew up in Palco, about 25 miles away (good luck if you can find it!). I reckon I've stomped just about every pheasant cover around there, and I can tell you that your 16 and an ounce of 6's is all you'll ever need.

Well, that was a tuff hunt!! Brutally cold weather the first day. Zero degrees and 25 mph North winds. I carried the Rizzini with some heavy loads, but twice coulndnt get the safety off, so switched over to the GH O frame damascus 16 and 1 oz loads--the safety on that gun is smooth as butter, and those birds that were shootable were certainly in range for it. I did wack a coyote with some Fiocchi 5's in the Rizzini, that seemed to want to get a little to close to my Fancy dog, she was coming into heat.
The second day was a balmy 13 degrees, but sunshine and no wind--actually pleasant compared to the day previous. Came around the top end of a CRP field where there was a plum thicket and watched 100+ Birds fly out unscathed, out of range, over onto private ground. Neither I , nor Mike run bells or beepers, and the dogs need no handling, but the birds were extremely wild. This became a common scenario. We did make good on most of the few shots available.
Wed and Thurs were pleasant weather-wise, but by Fri afternoon, I was down to a T-shirt in the 70 degree heat.
We did move and shoot some quail. I have never seen so many hawks, owls, and raptors in my life. It seemed every tree had at least one in it and many were down in the CRP grasses.
I will post a couple of pictures from my phone when I get the chance.

Harold,

I forgot to tell you the birds have wised up by now and especially those on public ground. You and the dogs may be quiet but they know orange isn't good! I watched about 30 birds get up 100 yards away and they were in stuff over my head when I got on top a ridge. This was 3 weeks ago.

Hopefully you enjoyed the trip and the scenery.

Ken

I agree....I was a blocker more than once, we hunt huge milo fields and the bird go around the blockers.....they not dumb!, and have super zoom vision! SXS Ohio

Harold , sounds like a typical Kansas late season hunt. But you found birds, saw big flocks, ran the dogs in big fields and had fun. So, did you find some good pie?

I’m supposed to take an older fellow out on his farm after quail. He doesn’t have bird dogs anymore, only some yippy little step on dog, he doesn’t walk well anymore but remembers how it used to be. I’ll run my bird dogs without a gun and he can shoot.

Then I’m off southwest for a week to close the season. Should be great hunting. We are exhibiting Parkers at the Pheasant Fest in mid Feb in Sioux Falls if anyone is interested.

I am guessing like most birds pheasants can see color and hunter safety orange does stick out in the game fields like a shrieking Rosie O'donell at a Republican rally. You don't see the british shooters wearing the orange for a reason. I think the beaters do though.

Sounds like a good time Bruce, good luck to you! Going to the Southern this year?.
I think the pheasants acute hearing helps it more than there vision. They are often in waist high grass fields that they couldn't possibly see over, but they hear you with the first footstep you take in the field.

Finally got around to downloading some pictures.
GH 16 damascus O frame and Fancy.
Damn, it was cold!

It was fun to reread this thread as our annual end of November trip to Kansas is getting closer...(-: It looks like it will be a good year out there too, they are no longer in any drought. Both roosters and quail numbers should be up again this year! SXS Ohio

Finally got around to downloading some pictures.
GH 16 damascus O frame and Fancy.
Damn, it was cold!

That is the next Parker I'll be looking for