Any Pheasant Hunters out there

**2020cy** · 11-11-2008, 09:29 PM

Central Iowa - worst hunting in 19 yrs. that I've hunted.

**spanny** · 11-11-2008, 09:47 PM

I went back home is SE Iowa, we saw 2 birds, but man was I sore from walking! There is still a ton of corn out, and we hope that is where they were but it was a real bummer. I'll keep at it though. I have heard some duck hunters say that those numbers have been up, but not the mallard numbers.

**tidbit** · 11-11-2008, 10:01 PM

I farm in Dallas co., and still have corn to harvest.I have one field that two years ago jumped 23 birds out as I was finishing, where this year in the same field only chased out 3. So by my count the pop. is way down, just as the turkeys are.
The deer are another story they are still very thick, with herds of 25 to 40 in the field at night feeding. One of my friends was out bow hunting Sat. and said they were thick, moving all around ,chasing the females. The rut has started.

**JVAR** · 11-11-2008, 10:20 PM

I have had a similar experience. NO BIRDS. I have access to some nice land, and it is like the birds have disappeared. All the farmers that I have called again this fall have said the same thing: "Go ahead and hunt, but there is not much out there. The winter and spring was tough on them." We had a great time last year. We were still limiting out on some hunts in December. My family owns some ground in central Iowa, and the population is horrible. They have had wet springs and the numbers have been declining over the past couple of years, but when we would at least shoot some birds. I have taken 2 on two hunts. The duck hunting has been decent.

I might start hitting the shooting preserves as I have a young pup and need to get some birds shot over her. I bought a German Longhaired Pointer. They are rare, but awesome dogs. They are as beautiful and calm as a setter, but hunt like a German Shorthair or Wirehair as they point, track, and retrieve on land or water. She is the calmest pointing dog I have ever owned. Good luck hunting.

**Aclone** · 11-11-2008, 10:20 PM

Originally Posted by Bobber

The east 1/2 of the state had a horrible winter with ice and then a lot of snow. Follow that with a lot of rain through the end of June and it's not a good recipie for Pheasant surviving and reproducing.

I've only seen 2 or 3 birds all year and I'm out in the country on back roads for work all the time.

Bingo. It isn't just the corn still out. Hopefully they'll recover this offseason.

**kingcy** · 11-11-2008, 11:01 PM

As we get the crop more and more out I am starting to see more birds. Heck I chased 2 roosters and a pile of hens up out of a waterway today with my 4 wheeler checking cows.
There are still pleny of deer around, seeing more and more small bucks. I have been averaging seeing 3 a day as I drive.

**c.y.c.l.o.n.e.s** · 11-12-2008, 10:49 PM

Long, wet winter + excessive spring rain + continuing loss of habitat = very bad year to be a young pheasant.

Parts of NW Iowa were actually a little drier than normal thus much better hunting.

**arrrgh11** · 11-12-2008, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by ISU BET

live by sioux city and have had good luck in comparison, but not seen anywhere neer normal counts. i read a month or so ago that the roadside numbers were down about 70% from a year ago in eastern iowa, about 40% in southwest iowa, and about 25% in northwest iowa. i have heard south dakota has been excellent as usual though.

You are correct about South Dakota. I said to heck with hunting in Iowa this year and went on a 4 day hunt to South Dakota. I have never seen anything like it - we literally saw thousands of roosters every single day. There were 10 of us and we had 30 roosters in an hour of hunting every single day. I shot my gun more in 4 days than I have in the last 10 yrs of pheasant hunting in Iowa. It was just awesome.

**CLONE2THEBONE** · 11-13-2008, 12:27 AM

I hunted just south of Afton yesterday. 4 guys, two dogs, three roosters, 5 hours. Cold, raining and windy.

We saw about 1/10th of the birds we normally see. We usually have to stop every 5 minutes because one of the dogs is on point (usually a hen), but we probably only saw 10 hens all day. I swear that Union County is the hen capital of the world...but not this year.

We couldn't hunt one farm because the corn's still in. I'll be interested to see how we fare there, because 50 pheasants were released from a Surrogator earlier this year. The bad part is, they all appeared to fly to the neighboring farm when released.

Anyone have any experience with a Surrogator or similar system?