I kinda wrapped up the season last week. Overall would rate it poor, with worse to come. Even with my bad legs, I managed to get enough days in the field to get a fair sample. Last outing saw maybe 10-12 Birds over 2 days. My guest left here for central Kansas, saw none in three days. Losing CRP quickly which will stress population even more through the winter and reduce nesting habitat in the spring. As soon as the roads clear, Friday?, I am headed south to winter out...Stay safe and well, guys...

That's sad to hear but a similar tale everywhere. Gotta have nesting habitat or you won't have birds. Have a safe trip south.

My wild bird season in Eastern Kansas this year has been a bust with the bust wild bird day finding three coveys, one large (20+), two very small (<l0). My average day was no coveys. Saw more pheasants, but none within range. Prairie Chicken was below average, but did consistently find birds during the early season, did not try during regular season.

There are two weeks left and I will get out a few more times.

Habitat is the number one issue, access second, that said access does not matter if there are not many birds.

My best hunting days this year have been in South Dakota.

I have spent more days shooting preserve birds this year than I care to admit.

Drove through upper Kansas on my way home from NE last week and saw pheasants everywhere. I didn't buy a KS license this year but have a buddy who did and he had very good pheasant hunting. With the quail numbers in SE NE, I find it hard to believe the quail hunting wasn't very good in KS as well. Everyone I've talked to has said the numbers in KS were very good this year.

KS is a big state, and the eastern part isn't the best for either quail or pheasants.

Same scenario around Downs, Kansas for the pheasants but the low numbers might be attributed to a hail storm there. Did see a few more around Norton & was told of many sightings by farmers around Norton but warm temps prevented the farmers from harvesting their crop due to an aphid gumming up the harvester. So there was more than ample cover. But we did find around 30 coveys of quail, with the majority around Downs or Lake Waconda, each nearing a total of 30 birds per covey. But difficult to capitalize on those coveys in high winds using #4 & #5 shot. And we just had too many hunters to have an effective, safe shot on the covey-rise.

Cheers,

Raimey
rse

While I've always heard that it goes in cycles it seems that the off year cycles were getting longer and longer. One of the main reasons I bought a 12 gauge and mostly hunt waterfowl now. Always plenty of birds.

With more and more reports of good hunting coming in for North and South Dakota only, I wonder how their governments will react to the increasing numbers of out of state hunters.

We did see more quail than we have seen in a good number of years...Today is a Bird Killer day...Just let the dog out...at least 1/2 inch of ice with heavy snow predicted...Birds under that stuff,unless it warms up quick, will suffer...

Chuck, are you still wintering in Mexico?

Steve

No, Steve, Arizona...Have to stay close to VA docs....AND Mexico is as close to Anarchy as any country I have ever seen....Borders being blocked, Yesterday 40,000 demonstrators closing entrance at Mexicali, California Highway Patrol closing freeways leading to Border....No fuel no money...and no US coverage....Not a good place to be....

Concur with hearing good reports, prior to season I saw more quail and believed a good season was in the offing.


However my luck this year was poor in territory that in the distant past were excellent and over the last four years have declined.

I am only reporting what I experienced this year

Thanks for the report Chuck. I'm in Sierra Vista and have thought a few times of crossing over the border for some Mexican food. Maybe AZ/Mex food will have to do for now.

Are you doing any quail hunting down here? I've been chasing after mearns in the Huachucas but it's tough. You need to be half mountain goat when you go after those sadistic little b---d's.

Steve

Larrys point is well Taken...This should have been Titled "In my part of Kansas" Kansas is a very big state. I primarily hunt the NW corner, Cheyenne, Sherman and Rawlins counties...With an Occasional foray into Southern Nebraska when the boundaries become clouded...

Any news from Pratt/ St. John area? I'm heading out there at the end of the month- If reports are poor, I may cancel......
Thanks for any news in advance.
Best regards,
JBP

I took a road trip from Va to San Diego. Spent a little time hunting WIA Kansas along I40. I was hoping to see some prairie chickens with no luck. I did see a lot more quail than in Va. Found these two roosters near liberal KA.I stopped in Sierra Vista to see an old friend. Nice town. This weekend I went to imperial county to hunt Dessert quail with no luck.

Neato !

As some of you have said, I had hopes for KS this year. Opening weekend, I hunt private land out near Ellsworth. The birds weren't great.

After opening weekend, I hunt WIHA areas in NW KS. WIHAs that were good over the last few years were pretty poor this year. Not sure if it was because it's been warm or just low bird numbers. I didn't see a lot of hunters out hunting these areas.

Ken

We had very few hunters here in NW Kansas..