Rarely is a pheasant hunt considered to be stealthy. Dogs are running everywhere, hunters are yelling back and forth, and whistles are blown to get the dog’s attention. There is little regard to noise control as hunters freely slam truck doors. If any birds fly off, they will likely be on the other end of the field well before the hunt every begins.
Nobody seems to care which way the wind is blowing. Often, a typical hunt starts with hunters reaching the waste-high grass field, and beginning to walk. It does not matter if the wind is in the dog’s nose or not, hunters expect their well-trained dogs to perform. This is not how to have a successful pheasant hunt. Pheasant hunters need to treat a hunt as if they were pursuing an old gobbler, or a mature whitetail buck, and success would happen more often.
When it comes to pheasant hunting, far too many hunters seem to forget the basic do’s and don’ts of hunting.
If you have hunted pheasants before, you know how smart they really are. They give turkeys, whitetails, and other big game animals a run for their money as to which one is most crafty. Like turkeys, pheasants can’t smell, but have exceptional vision, hearing, and strong legs. Do not fool yourself into believing you can be carefree, and expect a pheasant rooster to hold tight until you are ready to flush it.
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, do not slam truck doors, dog box doors, or tailgates. Every pheasant around will hear and feel the jarring, and take off. Chances are the birds will never take flight, so you will never know they ran off, or where they are.
You should not talk loud while among other hunters when pheasant hunting. To keep from alerting pheasants, as you prepare to start the hunt, keep voices down.
No matter how hard you try to keep quiet, and not spook the birds, they are eventually going to realize something is not they way it should be, and leave the area. Do not waste time getting started on the hunt once you arrive at your hunting destination.
Dogs are very important for a successful pheasant hunt, but they can also ruin a hunt pretty quick. When a dog is let out of his dog box, he is full of energy and ready to run.
To keep your dogs from running wildly through the hunting grounds before it is time, let the dogs run a little bit before leaving the house. Another thing you should do is keep the dogs on a lead until you are where you want to start the hunt.
Slow and steady is the best approach to pheasant hunting one of two things will happen if you get in a hurry while pheasant hunting. First, the birds will stay on the ground and run off. Or, secondly, the birds will stay put. This will do you little good though, because you are moving too fast, and you and your dog will walk right past the birds.
The best approach is moving in a zig-zag pattern. Do not walk a straight line. If you pass through some cover that looks like it should hold pheasants, work it again. There is no pattern to follow. Hit all the spots you can. Stop periodically while walking. This will cause the birds to feel they have been spotted. In return, they will become jittery, and take flight.
A dog is there to smell the birds, and to point or flush them. A dog serves little purpose if he can’t smell. Try to work into, or at least quartering into the wind. This will allow the dog to smell the birds.
Keep noise to a minimum. Walking into the wind will carry noise back and away from you. But, hunters still need to be quiet. Do not yell to your hunting partners. Instead, have hand signals that indicate if a hunter needs to move one direction or the other, or if there is a bird in the area.
Lets face it, pheasant habitat in Illinois is quickly fading away. Our saving grace though, is the CRP program, which provides the best pheasant habitat we have. There are other areas that produce good pheasant hunting too. They are just not as productive as CRP grounds.
Early in the season you can find pheasants most anywhere, including grass fields, cattail sloughs, cornfields, roadside ditches and brush draws. They may be in light or heavy cover. Public hunting areas, though crowded, produce a lot of birds. Here are some early season tips:
- Be ready in the morning as soon as legal shooting hours begin.
- Look for dense or hard-to-reach cover that would discourage all but diehard hunters.
- For the close range shooting likely in early season, most hunters prefer improved cylinder or modified choke shotguns with high brass size 7 or 7 ½ shot.
- Read the contours of the land, looking for places where habitat changes; crops, trees, shrubs, cattails, ditches and fence lines.
Many veteran pheasant hunters would rather hunt in late season than fight the early season crowds. Waiting till after Thanksgiving will result in a very fun and productive hunt. Although the birds get smarter real fast you can still have good success in late season. Here are some late season tips
- Look for wetlands and other very dense cover areas. As the season progresses, birds seek heavier cover
- Try to find offbeat spots, such as a small clump of trees and brush in the middle of a section. Most hunters are not willing to walk this far to work a small piece of cover, so these spots sometimes load up with birds.
- When the snow starts to fall everything changes. Check any road ditches with dense cover, such as cattails and shoulder belts. Ditches give the birds easy access to the gravel needed to grind food in their gizzard.
- Bring your hip boots or waders. If you cross water barriers that block most hunters, you may find some exceptional hunting opportunities. Work grassy ditches, sloughs or other brushy cover adjacent to newly harvested crop fields. If you watch as a cornfield is being picked you will often see birds flying into these areas.
- For long range shots often required late in the season, use a modified or full choke shotgun with high brass, size 4, 5 or 6 shot.
When choosing either a flushing or pointing dog for pheasant hunting, you need to consider a few things.
Pheasants are a nervous bird that does not stay still for long. They are liable to move on a pointing dog of any breed. It is always good to have your dog, whether it is a pointer or flusher, that stays within 20 yards of you. Even a pointer will flush a bird from time to time. It is nice to be close enough to get a shot off, but anything further than 20 yards is too far of a shot.
Whichever type of dog you choose, spend plenty of time with it prior to pheasant season. Use a training collar, or a lead to jerk the dog back when he gets too far out. Teach him to move different directions while following commands from a whistle, and hand signals. Do nor scream, or get carried away with the whistle.
A perfect pheasant hunt should go something like this.
A hunter pulls up near his hunting area, and quietly exits the vehicle. After the dogs are let out of their box, they are attached to a lead, and the hunters and dogs move to where they will be starting. Once in position, the dog is freed. The dog will not go far because it ran his energy off at home before leaving.
With the wind blowing in the dogs face, he quickly smells a rooster, and comes on point. With the hunters just a few yards away, two roosters flush, one is shot. The other bird doubles back, and is harvested when the hunters make another pass through the corn stubble.
Get out and enjoy pheasant hunting this fall. Just make sure to think about how you go about it a little differently than what you have in the past.
