A picture collection from a late summer land run that finalized the contracts for several new quarters of upland bird habitat.
The value of winter food source of crop land and cover of a wooded fence line with insect attracting broad leaf weeds and year round cover habitat of the grass is always the combination sought out for an upland bird lease.
It takes a lot of grass to make for a lot of good pheasant hunts. However, it does not take a lot of grass in one spot to make for the best pheasant hunting. If the choice is between a section, or 640 acres, of grass and four separate quarters of 160 acres each, we will lease the four quarters rather than the section for its better upland habitat. In any grass field there is good and bad grass based on the grass quality itself and then its location relative to surrounding cover and winter, or hunting season, food source. Between a full section and a quarter section of grass each is equally likely to have a pheasant hot spot or two. While a full section may have these two sweet spots four quarters may have 8 total hot spots where the quality of the grass is juxtaposed to a food source. The difference is that the quarters have far more transition or edge to combined with row crop fields. This same cause and effect holds for irregular, small and strip tall grass patches mixed in with cedars, scrub and along crop fields. Another test of this upland bird habitat approach has been tried many times over by those that have bird hunted the National Grasslands. The National Grasslands for those that have never seen them are huge expanses of unbroken grass prairie composed of grass that once covered all of the Great Plains. These grasslands are essentially natural museums, at least those not heavily grazed by contracted cattle ranches, of what the central mid-west used to be. They give the appearance of some of the best cover habitat to be found for pheasant hunting and that is true. Anyone that has been in such quality grass and have experienced a rolling rise of 40 to 80 pheasants from the grass the lesson of what good grass cover habitat looks like is well ingrained and that is sometimes the quality of the grass that exists within the National Grasslands. However, these same grasslands do not produce the pheasant numbers any where near what the grass quality would indicate and that is caused by what the grasslands lack. They lack the rest of the limiting factors that go into creating the right mix of year round pheasant holding habitat. These missing element are the summer high volume insect producing broad leaf plants commonly referred to as weeds and of farming row crops that regardless of the farmer's efficiency always leaves waste grain behind for winter feed. These two elements are what is missing from the National Grasslands and demonstrate very thoroughly that one survival element by itself regardless of its high quality is never enough to provide for all needs.
The other upland bird advantage of quarters versus full sections is that few of us self guided foot upland bird hunters regardless of how much pre-season running we do for ourselves and our dogs want to hunt more than a 1/4 section at a time. Even the poorest quality quarter section will take 2 hours of walking and a good quarter with a fair bit of bird action may take up to 4 hours to hunt. After even just a 2 hour walk pushing the grass leaves most of us, to include the most fit, ready for a sit down rest and drink. On any such walk your Association staff carries 2 litters of water for the dogs and possibly a third on the warm days. Even on the cold days those two litters will last for about 90 minutes.
Another aspect of central mid-west grass lands is that they are not just for pheasant hunting. The same cover attribute of the grass has for pheasants does attract deer. That combined with heavier wooded creek bottoms such as this one makes for the predominate deer loafing habitat to be found. Even with the good deer hunting along grass fields its is after all the pheasant we are interested in when we talk of the tall prairie grass. For our other bird of interest, quail, grass allows for nesting and we want it in less volume than for pheasant.
The last of what were more pheasant chicks than we could accurately count crossing the road trailing after a couple of hens. |
Aerial of the farm pictured, 160 acre quarter at 1/2 mile square. Mostly in tall prairie grass good for pheasant hunting. The wooded creek line at the left separating the crop field that is always required for the best upland hunts. The north and west boarded by row grain crop the east with pasture and hay. The contour demonstrated by the terraced field show this to be a gradually rising piece of high ground with a horizon that continues to separate the segments of the field as one travels across.
