Any Pheasant Hunters out there

[kingcy]

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]

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]

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]

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?