5 Tips to Bag More Pheasants this Season

5 Tips to Bag More Pheasants this Season

By Troy Hoepker

It was an unseasonably warm South Dakota day, the kind of day we all love, unless we’re in the midst of a pheasant hunt. This weather made the birds jumpy, which was troublesome, considering we were hunting public land birds that receive a great deal of hunting pressure. We managed to bag a rooster or two that morning, but mostly we just marveled at the sight of hundreds of pheasants escaping us in wave after wave from a few hundred yards away.

By mid afternoon it was time to change our strategy. A couple of years before, I had found a hidden little gem in the form of a WIA (Walk-In-Access) area that few knew of. It was listed in the public hunting atlas just like any other public hunting property, but what made it special was the fact that from the road it looked like it was all row crop with zero cover. Once you made the walk over the rise however, the property had several wonderful cattail draws that bordered the corn stubble all the way to the other end. Most out of state hunters looking for places to hunt would pass it on by, never knowing that it held the perfect cover and food source for birds out of sight from the road. Those factors also contributed to unpressured birds that it would hold.

As we walked over the rise and entered the first little pothole of cover, my German Shorthair, Ace, found pheasant hunting gold. Locked into a statuesque point, Ace held the bird while we approached. In a perfect rise above dog and hunters, the bird had no chance. The rooster folded up and plummeted to earth just as another rooster, and then another rooster took flight nearby at the sound of the gunshots. Another volley of shots followed and yet, another bird or two sprang airborne. When it was done we had several birds down and we hadn’t hardly started the hunt on the property.

Pairing the right place to hunt with the weather and the hunting pressure factor of South Dakota led us to that place that day. A hunter has to be flexible and adaptable with their strategy to fill a game bag. Here are five factors you should consider to help you bag more pheasants this season.

Preseason Work
Before the season starts, make sure your dogs are in optimal shape to transition into the season. Hunting dogs are athletes. What athlete do you have lay around on the couch for months at a time and then suddenly ask them to go run 10 miles the next day, and the day after that? Get your dogs in shape far in advance of the season with daily exercise routines and proper nutritional adjustments so their health doesn’t suffer and they don’t let you down on those crucial hunting days just around the corner. Get them on scent prior to opening day and rework all the commands that your dog will need to obey in the field. Take care of your best friend and they will take care of you.

Next, get permission from landowners secured and scout those properties before the hunt. Public or private, things change from year to year. Food plots change, food sources that border the properties you hunt change, property owners change agricultural uses of the land from time to time and weather can play an important role in how the habitat looks from year to year.

Good preseason scouting includes knowing where to hunt depending on the weather or time of year. Identifying locations of warm and cool season grasses gives immediate game plan knowledge no matter the weather conditions of the day. Along the same lines, knowing where the woody, structural habitat lies also helps formulate a plan of attack. Instead of aimlessly walking the fields, know where these features are along with terraces, pond dams, food plots, water sources and ditches.

Sharpen Your Shooting Skills
You can’t bag more pheasants if you can’t hit them. Begin shooting before the start of the season is close and continue shooting throughout the year. Get the clay pigeon thrower out or head to the range and practice on a variety of shot angles. You’ll experience every kind of shot angle once you are hunting so work the going away shot, quartering to and quartering away shots as well as the passing shots. Work on proper shooting form to train your muscle memory and determine which method of shooting works better for your hand and eye. The two traditional methods are swing through the target shooting and maintaining the lead shooting. Perfect whichever of those works for you before the real thing enters your sight picture. Also, use different choke tubes and different shot so you know how your shotgun patterns different loads. It’ll give you a better understanding of what load to use as the season progresses on the real thing.

Hunt Early
I have many properties that I hunt where I have confidence in hunting at any time during the day. Generally speaking however, it’s always best to get up and get out there as early as possible. Roosters are most active within those first hours of daylight. It may seem obvious but you’d be surprised at how many hunters don’t use this advantage. In cooler, dewy or frosty morning conditions, roosters may hold a little tighter for you and you don’t make as much noise as you move. Later in the day, birds can be flightier and our approach is oftentimes louder.

When I hunt public land here in Iowa, I rarely do it in the afternoon simply because I’m always worried someone has already been there in the morning or the evening before. I almost always hunt public lands at 8 am and many times I’ll try and enter the field from a different approach than I think everyone else does. It pays to get up and get there if you are hunting public.

Always trust the Dog
It’s pretty common knowledge to make sure you put the dog’s nose into the wind as you hunt but you can’t always do that for the entire field. Dogs tend to work into the wind even when you don’t want them to and at times can lead us away from the areas we want to cover. A dog trusts his nose absolutely and without fail. We must try and do the same. If the dog acts birdy in the slightest, it’s important to give him time to solve the puzzle. We really have no clue whether a bird is near or whether it’s running on us, but the dog does. A dog’s nose can detect old scent from fresh new scent. If it’s new enough, the dog will take up the trail and sometimes that may involve more walking for us or take us in a direction we didn’t want to go. But, simply put, the dog knows more than us.

It’s pretty easy to determine what you are dealing with a little time trailing your dog in the field. You can usually tell if you are dealing with a running bird just by watching how the dog works. When working with a young dog it also helps your dog’s education if you exercise patience with him. Every experience with scent that your dog comes across and the impending results of trailing out that scent trail gives your dog experience and education for the future. Just like humans they are always learning. A dog’s nose knows!

Attack Habit The Right Way
Good habitat holds birds but does not make for a successful hunt by itself. Attacking the habitat with a game plan, especially late in the season is crucial for birds in the hand. Think about approaching fields from a different entry point as everyone else that has hunted the land. Zigzag as you move through large expanses of grass and stop every once in a while in effort to make sitting birds jumpy so you don’t walk past them. Always touch the corner post when coming to field corners or make sure the dog runs them out to the very last blades of grass on the edge. Birds are notorious for hiding in the last few feet of cover and letting you walk on by.

When attacking structure such as fence lines, terraces or thickets, use the wind in your favor to approach them. Make sure dogs work the downwind side of cover. Terraces in particular make fantastic places for pheasants to use as windbreaks so never pass them by especially on windy days. On the harshest of winter days, look for those areas of protection where birds will congregate, especially areas of cover very close to a food source such as a crop field edge or a food plot. There’s no better place to look on a cold, snow covered day than a thicket right next to a food plot or row crop field edge where you might discover recent scratching in the field.