Railroader04's Blog

Road hunting for Pheasants

railroader04 — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:40:32 +0000

Have you ever been road hunting for pheasants? Have you ever been too tired to go walk the patches you know the pheasants are in? I know I have. That is why I like to road hunt. When it’s cold out or you don’t have enough man power to walk patches. That is a good time to take your boy or dad or just some friend and take out in the pickup and drive the roads slowly looking for pheasants just hiding in some fence row.

When I worked my oil field job, we could take our shotguns with us for the first few years of my employment. On my way to work I would drive out to the pumping station real slow to see if I could see any dumb roosters hiding along the fence line or maybe run across the road. There were many times that I would have been driving no more than ten minutes and I would see a couple of pheasants. I would stop and most the time get them both. One instance I was driving to work and saw about a dozen roosters in a wheat field along the road. I got up on them without them seeing me and got my limit in a matter of five minutes. The only bad part of that was, I was done for the rest of the day. It was truly fun because I had many of those type of days while I worked in the oil patch. Happy hunting!

Hunting Geese

railroader04 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:19:44 +0000

Hunting geese is about like hunting turkeys. You first have to do some scouting to find where the geese like to eat and where they like to spend their time on the water. Once you find out where they eat you can get to the spot early in the morning and put out your decoys. Geese are a bird of habit. If they are left alone they will continue to come to the same spot. While I lived on the farm, I watched thousands of geese land in the milo field right across the road from us. They would come in about eight in the morning and go out to water at about four in the afternoon. If you don’t like the cold, goose hunting is not for you. You will stand or set for hours waiting for the geese to come in, if they come in at all.

When the geese left they flew only about a half mile to a pond that they liked. Again no one bothered them and they continued to do this for about three months. Finally my cousin, my dad, my boy and myself went out one morning and stationed ourselves around the pond. We got there early and they were there. As soon as the sun came up and they saw us they took the path that I anticipated that they would take and we had a good morning. We each got our limit and we were only there for about an hour. So if you do your homework and get lucky now and then you can get you a goose.

How to hunt pheasants in a cut milo field

railroader04 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:49:46 +0000

I’m going to explain how to hunt pheasants in a cut milo field. First of all it depends on how big the field is. Most milo fields are huge so you need quite a few guys to hunt a field of this magnitude. If you have the man power, this is how we do it. Say you have a dozen guys. Take eight or nine guys to start the milo field hunt. The other three go to the other end of the field to block. Now start out slow because it’s easy for the pheasants to run between the walkers. While you walk, start to zig zag through the field. The zig zagging let’s the pheasants see you and they continue to run ahead of you. If you would walk just straight ahead the pheasants will run on either side of you and you may never know it.

As you continue to zig zag through the field you might flush one up here and there. Very seldom do they get up during the first half of the field unless you have caught them dusting or just plain not paying attention. During this time of zig zagging you continue to keep your line straight. Make sure no one gets ahead of the group so he or she does not get shot if a rooster gets up. When you get to the towards the end of the patch, you ahead of time decide which way you are going to swing, start to swing the line and the walkers will gradually start boxing in and walking towards the blockers. This is when you start walking slower because the pheasants are looking for a way out. As you start getting to the corner you start squeezing the formation tighter and pretty soon the pheasants start coming out in droves and that becomes lots of fun. Hope you enjoyed this and happy hunting.

Pheasant Hunting

railroader04 — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:46:16 +0000

Have you ever been pheasant hunting? What I like about it is the cackling the rooster makes in the early morning. You can hear them in the patch you are going to walk especially if something or someone scars them. In the evening when it’s about quitting time, or about sunset, you can hear them cackling. They are getting ready to roost for the night.

Getting up early to go and try to out fox the pheasant is a challenge that I love. Some mornings you will catch them still roosting and can sneak right up on them. Some mornings are so chilly out and so quiet that the pheasant can hear you coming for a mile away. He then takes off running and sometimes can run out on the side of you or maybe beats you to the end of a patch and crosses to the other side of the road, when you have no blockers. The pheasant is a sly bird to hunt. He can sometimes predict what your moves will be and just out maneuver you. The pheasant is a truly one of a kind bird. The pheasant is such a challenge. That’s why I love to hunt this bird. Happy hunting!

Quail are hard to hit

railroader04 — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:24:46 +0000

Have you ever been quail hunting? Quail are hard to hit. I’m not very good at hunting quail. When I have a good dog and he points them out to me, I still have a hard time hitting them little boogers. You know that they are there and sometimes you can even see them running and then all of a sudden there they go. I barely get one shot off and then they are out of range. Most of the time they just fly a few yards from you and lite in a big bunch of grass or maybe some tall weeds. You think that you are sneaking up on them but lo and behold they scare the tar out of you because they come up quicker than you were ready for them. They come up quicker because the dog didn’t get the scent and failed to point them.I love to quail hunt just because it gets me ready for pheasant hunting. I think quail are quicker than pheasants so my confidence level is quite a bit higher when I go hunting for pheasants. I’m not saying I’m a better shot when shooting pheasants, I just got more confidence. Most of the time it takes me a couple of boxes of shells to get my limit on quail, whereas with pheasants it usually just takes a box. The moral of the story is when you go quail hunting, don’t. Go pheasant hunting instead because you use less ammo. Have a great day!

Hunting Turkeys is tricky

railroader04 — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:28:31 +0000

Hunting turkeys is tricky business. Not only are they very smart, it seems that they can read your mind. My dad and I went on a turkey hunt. The first day we scouted and found out the path that they seemed to be taking. We found out also where they roosted for the night. We got up early the next morning, well before sun up, and set the decoys out. We sat and waited for almost three hours. We finally gave up and found out that they had left before we got there. Again we were out smarted. We came back that evening and watched them take the same path as the day before and roosted in the same spot. When we were sure that they weren’t going to move we left and planned our strategy.

We left the decoys there for the night and went home. We got our good nights sleep. We again were up well before sunrise and got to the spot about an hour earlier than the morning before. About twenty minutes after we got there we heard a commotion. The turkeys were on the move. My dad called a couple of times and the toms were moving closer. We sat still and made no more movements. The turkeys flew right over our heads and landed at the decoys. My dad had a clear shot and got the first one. The second tom came running over to the one that was dead and started to jump on him. We think he was trying to get him to get up. About that time my dad shot again and the second turkey was dead. The second turkey laid about 2 feet from the first one. The rest of the turkeys flew off. We went and picked up the two toms and headed for home, with a successful hunt.

Opening day of Pheasant season in western Kansas

railroader04 — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:02:49 +0000

How many of you have pheasant hunted on opening day in Kansas? All I can tell you, it is wild. First off, on friday night we all get to bed early to make sure we are up by 5 am. The excitement is just awesome. You get to bed and look at the ceiling trying to get to sleep but nothing happens. You stare and stare wondering who will get the first shot or the first bird. The wagers have already been made. Everyone puts in 2 dollars and then the boasting begins. My brother wants to bet me another ten between him and I. Of course I can’t resist. Pretty soon the house is silent and everyone is in their own world dreaming of that opening day pheasant hunt.

The alarms are going off at 4:45 in the morning. The women are already up making breakfast. The breakfast included eggs, bacon, toast, milk, juice and coffee. The morning paper had already arrived and everyone was talking about if Alabama was going to beat Florida. That topic was soon dismissed and was on the topic at hand. Was the sun coming up yet and what time could we get into our first field. What field were we going to hunt first. We had been scouting different fields for weeks and knew which ones had the most potential. When we had all eaten our breakfast, we started to load up the trucks with rain gear, shotguns, shells, snacks, pop and water. That took a total of about 15 minuets to load because of the excitement. At 6:30 we took off to meet the rest of our party.

Finally we were on the road to a farm house about 5 miles west of town. My thoughts were, finally opening day of pheasant season is about to start. When we got to the farm house, we were the first to arrive. We sat in my brothers truck for about 10 minutes and four more trucks rolled in. Another five minutes went by and three more trucks came in. Our farmer friend came out at about seven o’clock and wanted to know what we thought of starting our hunt about a mile away in a cut milo patch. He said the patch was a mile square. We all said let’s get this show on the road. So off we went. There were a total of 18 hunters and 5 dogs.

We got to the first patch and twelve of us got out to start the first walk, the other six went to the end to the patch to block. Blocking means that you wait at the end of the patch and make sure the pheasants don’t run out the end on us. We started walking and we were about ten minutes into the patch and about four pheasants got up and we got two of them. We were only about a fourth of the way through the patch. When we got about three fourths of the way through the patch we had about twenty pheasants get up, we got six of those. When we got to within about 15 yards from the end, everything went crazy. There must have been 50 birds get up. We ended up getting 7 from that bunch. It was a pretty good first patch.

We walked three other patches and only got six more birds total. We finally got to a patch that the birds had been roosting in. The patch was just a little pothole. It was only a quarter of a mile long. We started from the north end and walked toward the south. It took us about 3o minutes to get to the end of the patch. We didn’t see anything until we got to within 20 yards of the road and then s0mewhere around 50 birds got up. We had a field day because some of the pheasants got up right at our feet. We ended up getting twelve from that little patch. We then left to go back to the farm for lunch.

We got to the farm and the ladies had lunch ready for us. We had chili soup, cheese and crackers, pies and cake. The chili fit the day because the temperature was about 45 degrees with a slight wind. We ate and then we got caught up on all the football scores. We then went over to the trash barrels and started to clean pheasants. It took us 45 minutes to clean the birds and put them in ziplock bags and load them into the refrigerator. I don’t remember how many we had but it was a good morning.

We had about two hours of hunting left so we left the farm and headed north about 2 miles and hunted another cut milo field. We had about 14 of us in the field. It was real light going until the end. First one rooster got up then another. Pretty soon the sky was full of pheasants. I don’t know how many got up but we ended up getting 14 birds. The dogs were having a field day. They didn’t know which direction to run to get the pheasants. There was so much gun fire that is sounded like artillery fire in the war. We walked back to the trucks and put the birds in the trucks. While we were d0ing that we saw 15 roosters run from the field across the road to the field we had just walked. I said let’s go get them. My dad said they are probably down to the other end already. We ended up jumping back into that field and walked back to the trucks again. About 10 yards from the end they all got up. We got another four more from that little venture.

The sun was starting to go down and we took off for the farm. We got the rest of the birds cleaned and put into the refrigerator. Everyone was tired but happy. The day was a good day of hunting. We ended up having about 50 birds for the day. I would call it a successful hunt. That is what opening day of pheasant season in western kansas is like. This happens year after year.