Pheasants in Iowa

dmiller_16

dmiller_16

Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
42
I know it's a little late for the hunting/skinning contest but I thought I'd share mine anyway. I got back to Iowa over Christmas to visit the family and do a little pheasant hunting. The weather has been hard on the pheasant numbers in Iowa over the last several years, but at least we saw some this year. Prior to now, I haven't even had a shot in at least three years. Finally the drought is over. It was a little over 50 degrees when my father and I left his house the day I got my bird. We drove into town to pick up my Brother-in-law and my 12 year old niece. By the time we reached the first field we hunted, maybe 30 minutes later, the temperature had dropped to just below 40 degrees. No birds. After about an hour we loaded up and tried a second small patch of CRP. The temperature now is about 25 degrees. Talk about a swing. A few minutes into the field and the dogs were acting pretty birdy. We saw a few roosters flush, one going east, one going west, but way out of range. But the dogs were still nose down. Max, my black lab, got a rooster up to my right. It was a crossing shot moving left and I missed. A few minutes later he got another one up, this time going away from me and I made the shot count. The bird hit the ground running. Luckily, my Brother-in-law's golden retriever chased it down. A good ending to a great day. And as you all have probably guessed, the izula II makes a great pheasant skinning knife.
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Thanks for sharing and the pics! Glad to see you got yourself a great looking bird!
 
Im jealous. We had tons of pheasant in the Texas panhandle on our 900 acre farm but once everyone switched irrigation seems like the population never recovered. Havent been back in years. Looks like i need to head up north.
 
Nice looking bird. I miss hunting pheasant. We've had a red fox population explosion that has all but wiped out the pheasants.
 
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Nice hunt, I always enjoying hunting birds over dog, and if you can do it with family it is even better.
 
scotsmanspride said:
Looks like i need to head up north.
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As far as pheasants go...South Dakota is where it's at. We stayed near Rapid City for a few days with my Sister-in-law's family then drove across S.D. on Christmas Eve. I saw more roosters in that trip than I did a week of hunting in Iowa.

Bakeel said:
Nice hunt, I always enjoying hunting birds over dog, and if you can do it with family it is even better.
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Friends and co-workers keep asking why I keep going back when the population is so low and we see very few birds. I always say, any day out in the field is good. With family is great. Getting a bird is just icing on the cake.
 
Makes me remember the day when we had pheasants here.... Sure miss pheasant and dumpling stew. Thanks for the pics.
 
I hope you bought that pheasant a drink first before you grabbed it's breast like that.
 
Thanks for sharing -- that looks like much fun! And 25 deg. is considered a heat wave around my neck of the woods lately -- 40 deg. is tropical!
 
dmiller_16 said:
friends and co-workers keep asking why i keep going back when the population is so low and we see very few birds. I always say, any day out in the field is good. With family is great. Getting a bird is just icing on the cake.
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That is the truth!!
 
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