...AND THE WEATHER TAKETH AWAY

[mobirdhunter]

The weather for December and early January was as nice as I can recall and gave us some memorable days. Then, the storms began, one after another. We were "weathered out" of our Missouri season end on January 15, and it looks like we'll not get to hunt the end of the Iowa quail season this week either.

Looking back at my hunting log I'm struck by how fickle the weather can be and it's effect on late season hunting. We got out once between storms last week. I had to shovel a place to pull off the road to park. It took a half hour, but we managed to find a couple of coveys. Quail in snow can be very unpredictable, to say the least.

We tried again to hunt this weekend. Saturday was sunny, but the area we tried to hunt had so much drifted snow plowed along the roadways that it was impossible to get off the road to park. We had had a half inch of rain before the most recent 9-inch snow storm, so the plowed snow is rock hard.

Today we tried a farm that has produced lots of good hunts in the past. When we got to the farm the predicted-to-be 20 degree temperature was 6 degrees. We drove the back roads hoping the day would warm some when the sky opened up and hit us with stinging ice pellets intermixed with large snowflakes. A little after noon I took the chance to get out for what I knew to be our last hunt of the Iowa season, since the rest of the week is to be even colder. The temperature had moved up to 9 degrees and two feet of crusted-over snow made walking an exercise in futility. It did not take long to decide we did not want to break up a covey, even if we could find one, so we turned back. Several times I stepped through the crusted snow into holes up to my thigh and struggled to get out. It was a great cardio workout(!), and the puppy loved it. Oh, to be young...and have four legs.

I know those members from New England (and Richard in Alaska) will snicker at our piddly-by-comparison snows, but for us here on the edge of the prairie, we got punched hard. I fear we'll lose lots of birds to this weather. I hope not.

I'd much rather lose the season opener than the last day.

How did (or is) your season end(ing)?

Key to photos:

1. We found a wind swept field edge but still had to shovel a place to pull off into the field. It made for a long walk to get to any cover. Tough hunting, but you have the fields to yourself this time of year.
2. A point and back on a single from a good sized covey we found. For those who say Gordons are hard to see in cover, here's a case where that's not so.
3. Try as we might, we could not find a place to pull off the back roads on the farms we wanted to hunt. The snow is rock hard. At least the sun was shining on this day.
4. Today while driving around hoping the weather would warm up a bit, we saw lots of birds feeding out in the open where the wind had blown the snow away from ridges in the fields. Here some pheasants are picking beans from a few plants the combine did not get.
5. A covey of 9 quail scavenging for beans. They were a good 200 yards from any cover. The hawks will have some good hunts in this weather and I'm afraid we'll lose lots of birds before the breeding season this coming year.

[Brett Hoop]

Nice that you gave it a go anyway. The weather has been all over the place in western PA. New Year's Day I took Buzzy, my Setter pup, to see if we could find a pheasant. He did, and functioned just fine, pinning a cock in a wooded field edge. I circled ahead trapping around and flushed the bird, the pup stood while I watched as best I could to see where it went. Half an hour latter Buzzy found the same bird for a replay. I could have taken the bird, for me it's better to have him maybe still be around for another day. This was Buzzy's first pheasant experience, and his grouse and woodcock education seems to have his belief system operating so that all birds live in the woods not those boring fields we have to walk through to get to the thickets. Hopeful we can get out a time or two yet.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Brett Hoop

Nice that you gave it a go anyway. The weather has been all over the place in western PA. New Year's Day I took Buzzy, my Setter pup, to see if we could find a pheasant. He did, and functioned just fine, pinning a cock in a wooded field edge. I circled ahead trapping around and flushed the bird, the pup stood while I watched as best I could to see where it went. Half an hour latter Buzzy found the same bird for a replay. I could have taken the bird, for me it's better to have him maybe still be around for another day. This was Buzzy's first pheasant experience, and his grouse and woodcock education seems to have his belief system operating so that all birds live in the woods not those boring fields we have to walk through to get to the thickets. Hopeful we can get out a time or two yet.

Brett,

I'm glad to read that you have been able to get out...and find birds. It sure makes the future look good when a pup shows promise. It's easier to live through the off season when you are looking forward to the next phase of your pup's development. Got any pictures of Buzzy?

[Dean Romig]

Picture #4 really brings me back to my early days in eastern Massachusetts when there seemed to be pheasants everywhere. In fact, our flocks often doubled or tripled the size of that one. They were about gone by the mid-seventies.






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[mobirdhunter]

Dean,
How often do you find yourself lamenting changes for the worse in matters relating to hunting opportunities? I read similar lamentations in sporting books from past generations of sporting authors. It makes one wonder what the next generations will find...or even if they will care.

BTW, Southern Iowa is not a pheasant destination, but we did ride by a field with about three dozen pheasants and an equal number of turkeys gleaning beans. Back in the late 80s, we’d see 75-100 pheasants on open ground feeding in conditions like we have had recently.

[Richard Flanders]

I know about hunts like that Garry. Trigg and I hunted a preserve north of Anchorage in 2006 when it was -13F and thick ice fog. His GSP was able to scent birds and point from 50yds out! He was a superdog though. He got some pointing practice in on the bird box(dog kennel) before we put the birds out. We stayed warm enough and didn't have to walk far but that was the coldest hunt I've ever done, but not so cold that you had to really dress up. Fun though! Only birds I've ever taken with my 30" damascus DH12.

[Setter Man]

In the fall of 76 I was introduced to quail hunting in East Central Indiana by a friend whose father had several pointers. We would load of his fathers dogs in the back of my Camero, throw vests and guns in the trunk and head off, getting home just in time to clean guns and clean the few birds we were able to scratch out, then clean out my car before I picked up my girlfriend. Everyone reminisces about the winter of 77-78 but the winter of 76-77 was pretty brutal as well. I still remember driving on country roads "punching through" drifts that winter trying to get to coverts.

I was a senior in high school the following year. Record snowfall and unheard of low temps kept me out of the fields from mid-January through the end of February. When we finally did get out the only coveys we found had frozen together under the snow and ice. Two brutal winters brought the end of quail hunting in Indiana - there weren't huntable numbers after then and, to my knowledge, there really aren't huntable numbers today. Not saying it was just because of the weather (farming practices and predators have changed the ecosystem forever) but back to back hard winters spelled the beginning of the end. ...AND THE WEATHER TAKETH AWAY is right.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Richard Flanders

I know about hunts like that Garry. Trigg and I hunted a preserve north of Anchorage in 2006 when it was -13F and thick ice fog. His GSP was able to scent birds and point from 50yds out! He was a superdog though. He got some pointing practice in on the bird box(dog kennel) before we put the birds out. We stayed warm enough and didn't have to walk far but that was the coldest hunt I've ever done, but not so cold that you had to really dress up. Fun though! Only birds I've ever taken with my 30" damascus DH12.

Richard,

I really enjoyed your pictures -- thanks!! I've not bird hunted in temps that low, but did climb the bluffs of NE Iowa after grouse in 0 degree temperatures, and also hunted grouse on a Christmas Day in SE Minnesota when it was minus 10 by the truck thermometer. That Christmas Day the bells filled with ice and froze solid, the beepers' batteries "froze" and would not work...but we still moved some grouse in the pine plantations. My 28 sounded like a pop gun when I fired it. Again, the dogs loved it, but we went through lots of Mushers Secret and my hands got very, very cold putting it on them. Looking back, I'm not sure why we hunted except that we were there and had driven 6 hours to hunt. But, I am absolutely not sorry I hunted that day, and have never been sorry I spent a day in the field with my dogs, my wife, and my guns.

Highs of minus 10 are predicted for the next two days, so we'll stay in and reminisce...and pack the truck to head earlier than planned to Oklahoma to finish out their season.

Thanks again for responding and posting your photos!

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Jay Gardner

In the fall of 76 I was introduced to quail hunting in East Central Indiana by a friend whose father had several pointers. We would load of his fathers dogs in the back of my Camero, throw vests and guns in the trunk and head off, getting home just in time to clean guns and clean the few birds we were able to scratch out, then clean out my car before I picked up my girlfriend. Everyone reminisces about the winter of 77-78 but the winter of 76-77 was pretty brutal as well. I still remember driving on country roads "punching through" drifts that winter trying to get to coverts.

I was a senior in high school the following year. Record snowfall and unheard of low temps kept me out of the fields from mid-January through the end of February. When we finally did get out the only coveys we found had frozen together under the snow and ice. Two brutal winters brought the end of quail hunting in Indiana - there weren't huntable numbers after then and, to my knowledge, there really aren't huntable numbers today. Not saying it was just because of the weather (farming practices and predators have changed the ecosystem forever) but back to back hard winters spelled the beginning of the end. ...AND THE WEATHER TAKETH AWAY is right.

Jay,
I was in SE Ohio in grad school during the years you mention, and I do recall two particularly bad storms, probably the ones you mentioned.

We had a fiercely cold and snowy late winter here in Northern Missouri in 1983. I, like you, found frozen quail, and it was after a stretch of bad weather like that at the end of the 1980s that took our pheasants from us. They never recovered and are not particularly common today when in the mid-80s we used to flush 40-50 birds from CRP fields in late winter.

I'm sure you are correct in your surmise that those storms were the beginning of the end of your huntable quail populations. When the habitat is marginal and then they get hammered by bad weather, there's little they can do.

[Ken Hill]

Garry,

It looks like a challenging time for the end of the year. The weather in Kansas has made the traveling around the back roads interesting. Areas we want hunt you can't get to. I walked a half mile just to get to a field to find few birds. However, the moisture is really needed although maybe not this early.

Ken