The Crowing Post:  12/10/07

The Top 5 Late Season Hunting Tips/Comments

1. Get Out There – Generally speaking, the number of hunters in the field after the Thanksgiving Holidays is greatly reduced and that means less competition for hunting spots.  We have some great hunting opportunity for upland game birds this year throughout Nebraska and you need to get out there and enjoy it.

2. Ask for Permission – Landowners in the state are very accommodating and willing to give permission to hunt when you politely ask and are respectful of them and their land.  By keeping a sharp eye out for good habitat conditions and then tracking down the appropriate landowner, you can find all kinds of great upland hunting in the state.  Just because an area is posted with a “No Hunting” sign, doesn’t mean you may not get permission if you ask the landowner.

3. Quail, Quail and more Quail – Throughout much of the state, we are enjoying some of the best quail numbers in the past decade.  When looking for places that will likely hold quail, remember that quail need to have all of their habitat needs within about 50 yards of each other, so you’ll want to look for a combination of 1).  Crop stubble (corn, milo or beans);  2).  Weedy cover with some grass in it as well;  3).  Plum Thickets.  The most important of these three components is the plum thicket….preferably one that is 1,500 sq. feet in size (20 feet by 75 feet) or bigger!  If you don’t have all 3 of those things together, move along to another area to look for quail.

4. Roosters and Odd Area – At this time of the year and in areas where birds have been hunted, you can often a group of roosters by hunting very small pockets of cover that have been overlooked by other hunters.  Roosters in particular will gravitate to a small pocket of isolated cover that hasn’t been worked by hunters during the season.

5. Ice and Birds – With the ice storm that swept through the state the first weekend in December, some people may be wondering about what impact it had on bird numbers.  Generally speaking, there were very few, if any, negative impacts from that storm.  Birds entered the fall in good body condition, we have better habitat this fall that in the past several years with our more abundant rainfall in 2007 and the ice storm was followed by warm temperatures within just a day or so.  The weather that we’ve had to this point in the year is nothing more than normal and something that birds can easily survive when they have adequate habitat.

Late season bird hunts like this one can yield great results with a little more planning a different approach than early season hunting.

      habitat today….pheasants forever!