Batting Cleanup in the 9th Inning of Pheasant Season

Some tired pups following an afternoon of mid December pheasant hunting.

You set your alarm for an hour much earlier than all of your neighbors did. You know you’ll be on the road and pulling  into the field before they ever hear theirs. A moment or two after silencing the startling chime you swing your legs out of bed, pull on your thermal lined jeans and shuffle to the day old coffee to make you feel more alive. Your bird dog takes notice of your weary steps yet perks his ears with an eagerness that seems to suggest he’s not sharing the same symptoms of exhaustion from the string of extra early Saturdays that stretches back to when the calendar was scheduling October. Back then these early Saturdays were fueled by a year’s worth of anticipation and dreams of upland pilgrimages and heavy vest pockets. Now the dread of a closed season, and the trauma of a cut off habit is what spurs you back into this late season routine. Just when you question why you keep putting yourself and the pup through this ritual week after week, season after season you catch that milky orange arrival of our favorite star highlighting the crusty snow shrouding the empty cornfields and you feel the most alive since last week’s hunting trip. The birds know it’s late season too. Winter’s arrival has changed their living arrangements, and a couple months of hunting pressure has increased their wariness, and if you hunt them the same way you did in October you will miss out one of the greatest opportunities that comes in the late season- late flushes and greater bird densities.

Prioritize Habitat

Every time I offer advice on how to hunt a new piece of land, I always suggest surveying the ground before hunting it. If you enter a hunt without having a basic knowledge of the landscape you will spend a lot of your precious hunting time just trying to figure out where you should start. By simply spending a small amount of time driving by the property, or studying aerial maps, and maybe even gathering some intel from other hunters or landowners you will gain a much better understanding for how to begin your hunt, and may even help you crack the code on where the roosters are when everywhere else isn’t producing birds. For late season hunting you need to prioritize the habitat that makes the most sense for the birds. Just as humans have basic needs to survive, so do pheasants, and just as human needs for survival change throughout the year, so do the needs of a pheasant. During the warm early season birds are mostly prioritizing habitat that provides cover from predation, and proximity to needs like gravel, food and water. Once the birds start feeling the bite of winter their priorities switch and they begin seeking shelter from their biggest threat: the cold. 

Thermal cover is the biggest limiting factor for good hunting in the winter. One of the reasons much of the midwest has such incredible deer herds is the prevalence of food throughout the year. Deer can always find leftover corn and soybeans on the ground all the way through the winter months and pheasants can do the same. During a recent conversation with a state upland biologist, I asked him about this exact situation for pheasants and he mentioned that pheasants typically don’t struggle to find food through the winter, but they do run into trouble when the harshest of winter weather blows in. Having this information should help you narrow down the types of habitat the birds will be using. Start by identifying areas that hold many low-lying branches mixed in with some dense grass cover. Direct your most focused attention toward cedars, white pines, and spruce trees where birds can use the thick branches to stay out of sight from predators, and sheltered from the wind and snow. If this type of cover doesn’t yield any birds, turn your attention to patches of cattails. Many upland hunters target cattails as a preferred winter hiding place for pheasants. Use common sense though. If the ground where the cattails are rooted is obviously marshy and doesn’t have much dry ground to allow the birds to get away from the ice or slush, they may not choose these patches due to the threat of losing precious body heat to these cold, wet surfaces. If these choicest sources of habitat aren’t available to you and your dogs, you will have to try to piece the puzzle together by observing what else would make sense for the birds. A couple of other places to look include large, dense patches of tall grasses on southward facing slopes and topographic depressions. The additional sunlight on the southward facing slopes may provide enough warmth to entice pheasants to move into these areas, and the grassy lowlands will provide at least some degree of an escape from the bone-chilling winter winds. These types of grassy areas may be your best options if grass is the highest quality cover on the farm you have permission to hunt. Regardless of how good of cover you can find, one thing that has to be kept in mind is the need for all late season habitat to be located in close proximity to food sources. All endothermic, non-hibernating wildlife use extra calories in the winter to keep their internal furnaces burning. This means food has to be close by so they can easily replenish the calories lost to maintaining a healthy body temperature. Cast your dogs toward the areas of the farm where these two needs overlap.

Knock, knock, knockin’ on the Neighbor’s Door

Not all properties are equal. In general agricultural states are great for hunting, a hunter’s paradise even, but on occasion I have pulled up to hunt a usual honeyhole to discover that the fields fell victim to fall tilling, or the grass covered acres got a late summer haircut. In both cases one of the key pheasant need-meeting components on the farm have been eliminated, greatly diminishing the property’s ability to hold birds into the late season. The good news is, the pheasants that have been displaced by this change to the landscape didn’t just disappear, they have simply relocated somewhere local and if you piece the puzzle together correctly by identifying good thermal cover and food sources, you can probably determine where the birds have migrated. This is when you start knocking on doors and asking for permission to hunt ground that looks to offer better pheasant potential. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t relish banging on some stranger’s door and asking for permission to hunt their ground either, but one thing you will have in your favor during the late season is that the landowner, or anyone else they let hunt their ground, has probably already had plenty of opportunities to hunt at this point in the season and will be more willing to letting a respectable looking stranger give it a shot. 

That Late Season Flush

I like to divide pheasant season into early, mid,  and late season. Of course the time of year and the weather factor into this classification, but I also factor in the amount of hunting pressure the pheasants have endured at each point in the season. Early season brings some of the best flushing conditions because the birds have had a year to forget about bird hunters moving through their living rooms every weekend. Mid season brings some of the toughest hunts of the season because the birds are now on high alert and flush plenty early to avoid the threat of bird dogs and size 5 shot. Then late season brings a much desired flushing response that is similar to that of early season. The birds are so focused on staying in their coziest habitat and not burning calories unnecessarily that they will hold much tighter than they did in mid November providing much better shot opportunities. This later flush means you will have to hunt more thoroughly and trust your dog’s nose, so do your best to scour the high quality thermal cover and you will get roosters to launch into flight. The other difference in flushing birds this time of year comes from the reality that many birds will pack in close together during the late season. Once again the good thermal cover is the greatest need at this point and in many places in ag country, it’s availability can be quite limited. If you have a hunting partner along with you, make sure you are coordinating your movements so you can take advantage of the close, multiple target opportunity. The only thing better than a rooster in the bag is two. 

Birds of a Different Feather

Bobwhite quail are an often overlooked treat you can enjoy hunting throughout pheasant season in many upland destination states.

There is no debate that pheasants are the favorite upland bird of many midwestern hunters, but they certainly aren’t the only birds. During this late season time frame the need for thermal cover brings the pheasants into a situation where their habitat overlaps more frequently with quail. In recently talking with the same biologist I mentioned earlier, he explained how quail utilize a small home range centered around shrubby cover. This doesn’t mean that it will always be the same cover that pheasants are utilizing this time of year, but it doesn’t hurt to run the dogs past a few thickets and bushes to maximize your day in the field by getting a shot at a covey or two. Of course these birds are much smaller targets, and significantly faster out of their flush so be ready for action when you approach these shrubby, wooded lots near late season food sources.

As the final inning closes on the pheasant season don’t just dutifully trudge into the frozen fields simply for the sake of your dogs, or to silence the dreadful thoughts of the conclusion to the hunting season. Instead draw renewed excitement from the unique hunting conditions that often will equate to some of your best hunting of the season as you enjoy the last second flushes, meeting the neighbors, a change in scenery, and a frosty, target rich upland adventure.