The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

So, when does an afternoon pheasant hunt turn into a nature walk? Every hunt is a nature walk but normally at least a few of those nature walks will result in a pheasant or two in the game vest. Late season is far harder than hunting the young and dumb ones that had never been busted by a dog. There is a certain challenge in hunting late season roosters, and it is a challenge I enjoy, but this late season is shaping up to be just a bit more challenging than most.

There are three primary reasons for this situation. The first of those is the weather. Now there is nothing unpleasant about walking in the tall grass in 45-degree temperatures in zero snow. The gun shoulders a lot better without 2 inches of clothes between your shoulder and the stock of the gun. It is pretty easy to bind up when you add in a little sweat and those extra layers, and this makes for a few more missed shots.

What this nice weather also does is not congregate birds. Snow and accompanying winds will blow in most marginal cover spots and this forces birds to move to areas with better cover. If temperatures are below freezing the birds will go out to fill their crop and then head back to cover to preserve energy and reduce their exposure. This saves calories and burns less of the birds’ reserves.

With super nice days a pheasant can leave the cover and spend a short time feeding and then spend the entire day lounging along a fence line. Nestled into a corn field with lots of crop residue is another great way for a rooster to spend his days. It also keeps the birds out in the field longer into the evening. I have had many times this season where, while after enjoying the last of a sunset, I see birds flying back into cover in the headlights of my truck on my way home.  They are pretty hard to target out in the open and you certainly can’t shoot them in the dark.

The second challenge this late season is the wind. We had about the best summer ever in 2023 when it came to wind. There were many beautiful days when the windy plains were just not all that windy. Smart late-season birds are already smart and windy conditions make them even harder to get into the range of a shot gun. Pheasants can hear you coming a mile away. As long as they can pinpoint your location, they will listen to you approach and sit tight as you stroll on by 100 yards off to their left or right. When it’s windy they have a harder time telling exactly where you are and with this unknown, they will take the safest route and bail out 100-200 yards ahead of you. My recent outings have certainly included seeing lots of birds. I am just having a harder time seeing one 25 yards away within gun range.

My hunting partners are sharing the same experiences. The last reason for challenging returns in miles walked is competition. I love hunting and shooting public lands roosters. They are open to everyone, and I am glad to see lots of hunters using them. The difference this year, and really the last 3-4 years, is mild temperatures have kept every die-hard fishers off the ice. My local lake is not frozen over yet in Nobles County.

Bird hunters, deer hunters and all the die-hard fish chasers are normally engaged in drilling holes in the ice and give up chasing roosters as soon as the ice is thick enough to do so. With no ice and great weather all the want-to-be frozen lake hole drillers only have one choice: Might as well chase roosters if I can’t do the other stuff I love.

I often do a drive around and visit with hunters as they make their way back to the truck after a long walk.  Finding someone to talk to is super easy these days. There are super high numbers of hunters on public lands and they all tell the same story. I walked a long way, saw lots of birds and harvested only one or two. I have taken to hunting in larger groups than I prefer to walk a spot and pinch the birds into a corner or other pinch point. We had a group of six guys who did this maneuver and in the last 10 minutes of the day we shot eight roosters, all at a spot that had been reduced down to about a 100-yard square. We harvest eight birds in the last 10 minutes of the day and without a big group working in unison I don’t think any single member of that group would have been successful hunting the same spot as a solo hunter.

The birds are there, but the challenges of getting them cornered require a tactical approach. There are two weeks left in the season (at the time this article was written) and 2023 has been personally a lot better than 2022 was to this hunter. Harvesting roosters does not hurt their populations in any way. The average life expectancy of a pheasant is 11 months. Hunters take a harvestable surplus with weather and habitat being the most important factors. Challenges or not, it will not keep me home. I will have the next nine months, after January 1st in Minnesota, for the dogs and me to recover from the million-mile walks. As my great friend Tom Carpenter, editor of the Pheasants Forever journal will say, it can happen in just a minute. You just don’t know what minute that will be. I have two more weeks to find a few more of those minutes.

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.