SW Kansas Trip Report

Had a really good Kansas pheasant / quail hunting trip this year. Probably best quail crop I can remember, had five large coveys pointed on one 45 minute turn for example. Limited first day on pheasants, but quail hunting got in the way of limiting second day. Third day with 25mph winds hurt our productivity. Super dry up there, first 90 minutes and last 90 mins decent for scenting, was tough outside of that. Had two 9 year girls in the party this year, out walked both their dads that were nursing old man injuries.

Feel like pheasant crop was better this year as we saw some big groups of 20 - 30 birds consistently flying from grain to CRP or vice versa. 18 mos old pup was star of show, was trailing and locking down roosters really strong the 2nd two days, found every covey of quail we shot into, never quit rolling even in 68 degree heat, and made a 200 yard rooster retrieve to boot. Will try and get a short video done by weekend.

Yea Buddy!!! I wish I knew yall were up that way, I would have bought dinner one night!!!

Did you guys hit up all WIHA? Trying to decide if I should head to KS or AZ. Lots of access for Mearns in AZ but no cartel in KS. Also KS is a lot closer to Dallas.

No, we hunt all private. I drove by a couple of quailey looking WIHAs and they didnt have anybody hunting them. I have said it before, but get on google earth and look for areas with irrigation circles near the WIHA properties, those areas hold up better when rain fall is not optimal.

Sounds like a great time.

What type of cover did you find most of them in?

Looks like fun. Great pics

That Rock Star pup has turned into a machine. And best part is she looks good doing it. I see Sadie didn't let her have all the fun.

Could you have used a UTV if they were legal? Could you have used one and not hunted off it?

Thanks for the tip on the irrigation circles! That’s a good idea.

Pheasants were in CRP (e.g. knee high to waist high little blue stem). Find a patch of more than four or five trees in SW KS and you shall find the quail. We hunted rolling sand hills with tree lines and plum thickets on the quail.

Bill - farmers dont like UTVs rolling over their little blue stem at all, that would be a non starter up there as there are no two tracks in those fields but they do occasionally cut strips across if they need a short cut. I have never even somebody hunting off of one out in a pasture in Kansas in my 20+ years of hunting up there. Roosters dont dig the engine noise either

Ok, You are killing me! I got to go back this year.

That's some great dog work right there. Great pictures and the dust flying under pups feet says just how thought it was.

Congrats.

good job, thanks for sharing

Here is a short video. Just did some of the points over my 1 year old as kennel I got her from wants it as well, so two birds with one video. Looking at footage, we had a lot of trails and break offs and then the birds would get up 30 yards out and a lot of hen lockdown points, so culled those out (man wish it would have been sub 65 degrees, lower wind and > 15% humidity on this trip as I think the bird population was best in four years in this area)

On some browsers it may not start in HD, so if you dont see a red "HD" over the little gear icon when it starts, then click on the gear symbol and switch to 1080P HD vs the Auto setting (if anybody has figured out how to force the youtube player to always start in HD resolution, man let me know the trick)

https://youtu.be/mB7Im2olvMw

[video:youtube]https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=mB7Im2olvMw[/video]