Gun Dog Forum

I read the other day that the spring Pheasant Nesting Habitat Conditions report is out on the Pheasants Forever website, and it seems to be a combination of good and bad news depending on what part of the country your from. I was wanting to hear from you guys on what your opinion is on these early reports and how much stock do you really put in them. The reason I ask is because I'm new to pheasant hunting and have never payed attention to these reports so its hard for me to gauge the effectiveness of this kind of early field data.

Is there really no interest in this subject? Is the nesting report so insignificant that hunters don't care to comment on it or if the subject does not directly deal with dogs you guys can't be bothered with it? I should have worded the question "How do you train your dog to read the spring nesting report" and there would have been a hundred posts describing , in detail, the best way to train your pooch to properly enunciate the vowels by never giving a command that can't be enforced. It seems to me that the birds that are nesting, in the spring, will be the birds our dogs hunt in the fall, so I would think this topic would peak this forums interest, but as I stated before I am new to pheasant hunting with a bird dog so maybe I don't know what a good topic on this forum is.

how bout a link to the report, I don't see it on the site......

http://www.pheasantsforever.org/page/201105nesting.jsp

First of all you should chill out. Not every post on any forum spurs in depth discussion and debate. Secondly your reaction is a sure way to get people to dismiss your posts out of hand without giving them any consideration.

There really is nothing to talk about in this initial report. It's either been wet and cold, or dry and cold or dry and warm or maybe a little wet and still warm...............that's about it. Until there are crow counts and other such data available I'm not sure that this initial report has anything to offer.

Yes around here (Minnesota) it might get brought up, but to the people that hunt close to home we already know the condition. I am going to hunt the same amount at home as well as 2 trips to SD no-matter what the nesting conditions are, or if the pop. is up or down. So its more of a causal conversation topic more us. Now with that being said I live in an area where there is a high pheasant population so the reports in other areas might of greater importance to others. Later in the year they do a physical count to birds, in which they drive the same 50 mile stretch of road (every year) with 2 people counting every pheasant they see. You have to take that count for what its worth, depending on rain or sun or how the tall the crops are or the ability of the guys road tripping to spot the pheasants makes that count rather worthless IMO.

Now with that being said I live in an area where there is a high pheasant population

Where specifically do you live? And do you have a spare room?

Your probably right bird dog 67, I should chill out I was a bit suprised that there was no post but I was really just busting chops and not really angery at anyone. I should have put a smilie face in my comments to show that I was just kidding. I was looking foreward to hearing how other bird hunters , more experienced than me, thought about this report. No disrespect intended. Here is the link http://www.pheasantsforever.org/page/201105nesting.jsp

Dont know how important nesting report is this early in the year. There is so much that can influance the outcome we all wait for.

quanah labs wrote:Your probably right bird dog 67, I should chill out I was a bit suprised that there was no post but I was really just busting chops and not really angery at anyone. I should have put a smilie face in my comments to show that I was just kidding. I was looking foreward to hearing how other bird hunters , more experienced than me, thought about this report. No disrespect intended. Here is the link http://www.pheasantsforever.org/page/201105nesting.jsp

Liked your post, I thought it was funny. I used to pay attention to nesting reports, but as stated there are so many things after nesting that can affect population. Around here bird numbers seem to go hand in hand with hail and storm paths.

nikegundog ~ See that your location is SW MN, how has the spring been down your way so far? We hunt around Ortonville every once and a while. Up here we have some isolated pockets of birds. I drove by some of our hot spots the other day and they were flooded pretty bad, hopefully this crappy spring doesn't effect the birds to bad. But like you said whether populations are up or down we'll be out there chasin'em!

I'm surprised Casey hasn't posted her findings on the website yet....

ultracarry wrote:I'm surprised Casey hasn't posted her findings on the website yet....

Stop stiring the pot! :roll:

Ezzy

Nesting reports dont mean Jack. Opening day and the rest of the season does. I run dogs year round and hunt the ground I train on, never see any more birds during season than I do during the off season. To many variables. I have and DO see tons of birds along the road ways this time of the year paired up, doesnt seem to impact numbers.

This is the kind of info I'm looking for, thanks for your posts guys.

Bah, nesting reports, rural mail carrier studies, State Department of Wildlife official reports..... don't pay much attention to any of it anymore. Might talk to the farmers who work the ground near where I plan to hunt, occasionally cringe at June/July hailstorms even lace up the boots and go do some plain ole offseason scouting. In the end though I'm just going to go chase them birds around every chance I get, whenever and wherever I can manage to squeeze in the oppurtunity. Some days are better than others and that's just the way it goes.