Recent content by Smokyhillsguide

Gimruis your experience in October is not mine. Opening day found me on my usual opening public area watching roosters running around for 45 min till 9 am. Hunted on a side near harvested beans. Shot a limit in 10 min. Limited each day I hunted in October except one day when I only shot 1. Since...

One would have to be crazy to hunt grouse in PA, MI, WI, or MN during firearms deer season..hundreds of thousands of trigger happy weekend warriors in the woods is reason enough.. pheasants probably not so much depending on your hunting area, but still perhaps not the best idea..especially given...

Pennsylvania has split seasons for small game including ruffed grouse and pheasants, presumably due to deer season. There may be more..

I'm well aware of the reason for waterfowl splits. Just know our DNR well enough to be pretty sure they wouldn't go for a longer season than we now have. Especially since it has already been extended considerably in the past. Just saying that if we had to give up some days to extend it at the...

My bet is the DNR would not consider extending the season or delaying the opener - but how about having a split season like we do for ducks? Close the season for nine days during deer season and add those nine days to January. A lot of pheasant hunters wouldn't miss those nine days because they...

I agree that a longer season would be nice some years. In fact I'm old enough to remember when pheasant season opened a week later than it does now and closed in early-mid December. I believe they moved the opener up a week (around the late '80s?) so it would be open for the MEA Thursday-Friday...

Got out yesterday for my last hunt of the season. 8 above with light winds and fresh snow made for excellent conditions. Saw lots of birds feeding in the open bean fields while driving out - think they can sense the immanent arctic weather. First place my lab Jack and I hit produced a big...

I thought the birds were way down in EC. Nice to hear that's not the case. I hunted the Dalbo area a few years back and thought there were too many hunters and never went back. I hunt WC where I grew up hunting, and it's been an awesome season! LOTS of birds in my typical good spots. Much better...

MEA weekend ranked in the the top 3 all time for both mallards and pheasants. My area is definitely up from last year, which was a very good year. My brother and I shot limits of mallards in the morning and found plenty of pheasants later on. Usually done by noon for both..DNR counts on...

Interesting observations..Pen-raised birds sure are dumb. I wouldn't be surprised if finding or consuming adequate grit isn't an evolutionary trait inherent to wild birds, as are countless other survival instincts lacking in pen-raised birds. I too have noticed the white bean fat vs yellow corn...

Some solid advice from good hunters on this site. I agree listening for roosters at dawn can give you a good idea where to hunt. Hunting ducks early in the morning and hearing those roosters has really helped me locate some hots spots over the years. And hunting public land can be tough, but the...

I've been guiding for years as a hobby in my spare time - mainly fishing, turkey, and deer, but am starting to do some for pheasants and waterfowl too. I don't charge much compared to the outfitters - just have a passion for seeing good people enjoy the outdoors and have some success, especially...

After a bit more thought and research I've come to a few more conclusions on this. First, it appears many of the studies on the lack of nutrition in soybeans involved domestic poultry and pen-raised pheasants fed a diet of dry raw beans. First, wild birds with generations of natural selection...

Interesting topic. I'll go with my biology background, some research, and most of all nearly 40 years of pheasant hunting in corn and bean country coupled with some common sense. I've killed way too many birds packed with beans in late season, besides watching flocks of winter birds scouring the...

Glad to see west-central living up to my preseason prediction. At least the few areas I've hunted so far that were good last year (with very good habitat) appear to have good numbers of birds. My lab Jack flushed about 25 on the opener in less than an hour! Shot a limit and was back at the truck...