Texas Panhandle Pheasants / 2020

I know.
It's early.
But what are you seeing up there this year?

and thank you.

It may be early but thanks a bunch for posting.

upper panhandle is looking good, wheat/barely harvest we shall plenty of mature birds. I haven’t been up a ton this year, but indication on the hatch is good from our local biologist.

I’ll be running dog for first time in a very long time come Dec. I’m looking forward to it

I'm in the southern panhandle and have not seen any young pheasants around. I have seen a couple of young coveys of bobwhites. I usually see a rooster or hen pheasant in my yard daily but just no young ones yet. It was a somewhat wet spring with a brutally dry hot summer so far in my area. I'm not predicting good numbers on the southern end of the panhandle anyways. Hopefully the northern counties got more rain than I did.

We would be in the Perryton area.

I’m two hours east and north of you.

Any guides recommended for the Perryton area?

If you can go another hour west to Dalhart PM JeremyKS

How is the cotton looking up that was. A neighbor told me that his bolls are starting to open. He went on to say that he is looking for a record crop for dry land cotton.

I don’t have much if any cotton around me. Wheat, Corn, Milo, barely in that order, and alfalfa for the non grain.

There is a pasture where I ran my across the road from the cotton field. They always pointed several coveys of quail there.

In Dickens county seeing some juvenile quail but not the numbers I expected with the above average rain we received early ( up 20% over 10 yr ave.) Looks like the volume and timing has not had the expected impact. We'll see how the season unfolds.

What cotton hasn't been blown out by the wind we had in late June and the hail actually is looking really good. North West Panhandle has had a ton of rain. some areas 10+ inches over the last month and probably closer to 15 in most areas, which is a lot for us. A lot of corn and seed milo around. Was driving on work related business the other day and saw several chicks. I think areas such as Friona and Dimmit are extremely dry, heard corn was actually turning white and was cracking when touching the leaves. Most farmers were abandoning the south half of their circles in that area - I haven't been just what I heard. Hunted Dimmitt two years ago and killed a bunch of birds - I heard Friona had like .6 inches as of two weeks ago. We had two weeks of 105+ and the wind blew 40 mps several of those days.

Perryton should be good I would assume. They always get a ton of rain and grow big corn in that area. I have never hunted that way personally, but I know the Gruver area still hasn't recovered since 2011, so I guess it just depends on the bird numbers. I would anticipate them still being well below average, but probably seems like there is quite a few compared to the last few years.

Anybody agree?

Thanks for the report, Conner.

What's the process for finding out which landowners/communities are hosting pheasant walks? Or are you guys mostly going with outfitters?

I've been trying to reach out to the county or city chamber of commerces to get information but haven't gotten a response yet.

We have a business associate up there that let's us hunt his family's property.

Call the C of C around Dalhart, Pampa, Dumas, etc. or the Better Business Bureau might help.
I think some of the fraternal organizations also host hunts.

Keep digging, you'll fine 'em.

We hunt with the Lions Club in Cotton Center every year.