Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game My first pheasant hunt coming up: TIps

From central Louisiana, hunted ducks and whitetail all over NA, but never pheasant. Going to North Central KS, Glen Elder in mid-January.

20 ga Browning silver, 12 g A5, or 12g Silver in 3.5"
Shell prefrence?
Vest, coat, boots and so on?

I now it could be 5 deg or 75, but any tips for the first timer?
Thanks

Probably pick the A5 but any will work. I use open chokes, SK or IC. I do have some fixed choke guns which are Modified and they're ok too.

I like sixes, some like fives, fours are dangerous to victims of accidents, and in my mind, unnecessary. Standard high brass type loads are plenty good. No need for Prairie FireStorm or Golden Pheasant or premium loads in my view.

I wear a Filson strap vest. Others like other vests, I prefer it.

Yesterday it was 21 degrees and 20mph wind. I wore uninsulated Kenetrek boots with wool socks, just like normal. (Thousands of pheasants are shot every year by people in tennis shoes. YMMV.)
I did wear long handles under my usual pants. I put on two under shirts, a button up shirt and a wind shear sweater, then topped that with a rain/wind shell. Thin leather gloves and put on a beanie over my usual hat. If it had warmed up, I'd have been able to react easily. I don't generally wear a hunting coat when bird hunting. Many do however.

My best gear move this year was to get hi viz lenses for my Oakleys. So maybe think about your shooting glasses too.

My buddy hunted Glen Elder area for 2.5 days over Thanksgiving weekend. 2 guys, 4 dogs (Duck dogs though) they got 3 pheasants and 6 quail.

Bring layers for clothes.

If you’re warm standing around the truck getting things ready, you’re over dressed.

The most comfortable boots you own would be on my feet.

I’d personally be carrying a modified choked 12 gauge in January. Lighter the better for me.

If temps start out in 20s with forecast for sun and 40s and it’s been wet, a road will be solid in the morning when you get there. The leaving part can get sporty after it has thawed and the top becomes a road of snot. I’ve used $20 in quarters to get it so I could see out my windshield and get the wheels clean enough to not beat you to death from being out of balance to go down the road.

Don't shoot until you can see the white ring BEHIND your bbl. Due to the long tail, when you swing to the "middle" of a pheasant, it's his ass not his vitals.

Walk 15 steps stop for 5 to 10 seconds in heavy cover, this causes birds to jump up. Cold weather helps hold them. Late season birds may be spooky...a blocker on end helps wild running and flushing birds. I would recommend a modified choke and 6 shot.

My recommendation is to pick the gun you shoot best, that's more important than gauge or choke. Best advice I can give you, if you find you're feathering birds but not dropping them, make a mental note to lead just a little more. Try to see their head when they flush (not easy since they mostly show you the other side), and lead not off the body of the bird, but his head.

YES! But that does not mean which gun you shoot best on Station 8 skeet or trap.

Go to a skeet field. There is a center-stake both the low house and high house birds fly over. Stand at least 30 yards back from that stake and shoot high house birds. Whichever gun produces the most solid hits, take that one.

I carry a 20-ga. because it is light and I am shooting flushed birds over a pointer. For late-season jumped birds I would want a 12-ga. loaded with a ton of #5's and choked modified or tighter.

Or just shoot regular field loads of #6's through a barrel with Improved Cylinder

From what I’ve seen Wild Pheasants are not always on a hair trigger and enough get up close enough. A Dog that knows the game can also make a difference.

If I was hunting late season Birds, it would still be a 16gauge, Mod and 1 ounce of 5’s. Any Bird that gets up past the effective range of that combination can fly off and be gone till another time.

Seems to me there are more than enough Birds, in the late nasty weather, that often have to be practically kicked out of their protected chosen roost.

There is a proven Pheasant hunter here that says the late season is the best killing season.

What is the difference between a flushed and a jumped bird?
Pointing dogs that allow you to move in to flush the bird vs. a flushing dog that flushes them for you and generally further away?

May or may not be a lot of difference.

A Pointer Dog with a great nose may lock up at 3 yards or 40 yards. A flusher may put one up at your feet or the Bird may get up at 40 yards.

And the birds’ reaction is also determined by what kind of cover it’s in, at least in part; i.e., in fairly clean row crop stubble, they will often run for the end.. while in thick CRP or closely planted sorghum, especially if snow-packed, they will get up anywhere from under your nose to a quarter mile away.

Seems to be the security they “feel.”

But, in any cover some will run for the end, some will flush in range, some out. Some will hold and never get up (even with dogs if is especially dense cover); and some will flush behind you.

Never a dull moment. If your mind wonders, the one getting up under your nose will will will wake you up.

Since you and BK are more familiar with late season than I....Would it not be wise to pick your covers in the cold times with emphasis on when you hunt....early and late....along with giving a heads up to sheltered covers?

Exactly Battue.

Our spot wasn't so good on Thursday morning. The birds were congregated in a tree belt on neighboring property, and only a few found on our side of the fence. My only shot of the day was a rooster that erupted between me and my Labrador, somewhere between 8-12 feet away from me. I recovered from my initial surprise, let him get out to 10-15 yards and folded him up with one shot. I saw a few other single birds, mostly hens, and had no other shots presented. My partners each took a bird as well. One was dogless and while in a pinch point that the birds frequently use, shot a bird flying towards him which was put up elsewhere, probably by a hawk. The other had a pointer, who moved by his reckoning, about 200 birds from a low spot in the grass (The dog probably bumped one or two birds, which by their flight caused the rest to burst out of cover. It was incredibly still Thursday morning.) and he was able to scratch one down from some distance and get it in hand.

Birds will do what they will do, generally based on numbers and tactics and weather and cover and pressure both over time and at the moment. This "late season, educated birds need tighter chokes and heavier shot" is all simply theorizing. My own experience is that late season pheasants are more frequently found holding tight in heavy cover. Then again, I actually go pheasant hunting on average a couple of times a week from September through March, instead of sitting in a recliner thinking about it.

IC and #6's will do the best for the most, day in and day out. Very very few people can shoot well enough to make the longer shots consistently, and anyone who can doesn't need advice on it from the 'fire.

Yes George as usual is right. Not all the birds are doing the same thing at the same time. They relate to weather, predators, food, hunters, domestic animals and just plain old "traffic" among other things.

We've been a bit stymied of late by weather which was too nice. Our usual spot is entirely CRP, surrounded by cut corn, wheat stubble and harvested sunflowers which belong to others. There is always a few birds in it. On these really nice days many birds seem to prefer the wheat stubble. They can eat, and duck down in the stubble itself if a hawk or eagle flies over and they seem to spend the day there when they go there. The corn seems used more on days of heavier wind, not because it's corn, but because it's sheltered by cedar breaks planted on the north and west sides of it. The overall preference is for the sunflowers it appears, but they won't stay out there long as the stalks were disked down by the operator. It seemed to "hold" more birds when the stalks were standing. Now they just run out there, eat a crop full and run back into the CRP. In any event, if we had colder windier but not too windy, the CRP would hold more birds through the day. With the nicer weather, we've had to compress our hunting into the last hour before dark as the birds come back from their lengthier forays into the crops.

As I often tell the dogs, we can only get three. Matters not much at all what the other 247-497 in the field did.

I try to avoid 6's for pheasants, as they leave too many pellets in the meat, but I certainly would not use them on late season jumped birds.

At 30 yards there is no choke that produces as good a pattern as a full choke. The more open you go from that, the more you are handicapping yourself. (Bob Brister wrote a book about that back in the '70s.) Mod is a good compromise in case you get some 20-yard shots, but I would prefer to avoid IC for 30-yard-plus shots. You still have a hot center, but it is small compared to that of an IM or Full.

Point accurately and IC will kill past were most can point accurately.

The advantage of tight chokes is not how far, but the fact less fringe results in less cripples.

I haven't had anything tighter than an IC in my 303 Beretta in over 2 decades. ICs in my 20ga Beretta 626 SxS. Cyl in my Beretta 303 20ga.

My longest kill last weekend was a hair under 60yds and stone-dead, so maybe I oughta tighten up my chokes.

Of course, I shoot turkeys w/IC and 2 3/4" 1 3/8oz 4's or 5's too...........

Don't slam the truck doors, click them closed QUIETLY.

Whistle and hand-signals for the dog. No voice commands and don't be yapping with your hunting partners, collectively shut your pie-holes.

Whistles don't seem to bother late-season birds. Voices and yelling dog commands will have them headed for points unknown as far away as they can hear you, well out of range.

Slow down, then slow down some more, then do it again. Late season roosters will wait you out WAY longer than you can believe. You cannot catch the wild-flushing hoards, you have to hunt for the lazy stragglers that think they can wait you out.