Anyone make it out to the Panhandle for opening weekend? I know the outlook for this season was pretty dismissal, but was hoping to hear some first hand reports.
Thanks
Joe

This report is from the Ultimate Pheasant Hunting Forum:

http://www.ultimatepheasanthunting.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9744

I talked to a guy who went out by Plainview. He said they saw two roosters all day.

I started that UPH report; as far as numbers, I would say we say 10-12 roosters over two days and 50-60 hens. The roosters are very hard to get to as they are experienced birds. I will try to post up next weekend as we are hitting some different areas.

8 hunters saw a total of 11 roosters. The group killed 4, had a couple of misses and had several runners that never flushed. Difficult to get close because of the short CRP. Towards the end, we would pull up to a field and just work the tallest grass and skip everything else. Overall it was better than I thought it would be, but there was one very disturbing trend. We saw more roosters than hens. I hope that it was just an anomaly, but I'm afraid the drought, for whatever reason, may have impacted the hens worse than the roosters. Saw zero quail. Also flushed a coyote out of some CRP that had a pheasant in it's mouth.

Thanks for the reports. Not great but nice to hear there are at least a few birds out there.

Hey Texan hey eagle..where were y'all hunting??I'm headed to Petersburg this wknd..

Just down the road from Petersburg near Floydada.

birds were there. Mostly last years birds. First day, with the snow the birds held very tight and wouldn't have flushed if not for dogs. Second day, birds would fly as soon as you drove up in the truck. Numbers are pretty bad.

Hunting up North of Dumas and around Sunray was horrible. We shot 2 birds all weekend, only saw 6 total roosters. We did see alot of hens.

I dunno.. reports sound pretty good to me. You gotta hunt 'em that's not a bad thing. I was really dreading hearing the reports from the first wknd I was afraid no birds would be seen. Seeing a dozen isn't too bad and seeing good numbers of hens is very promising.

Hunted north of Plainview. A group of about 15 of us shot 9 roosters in the two days. We saw around 60 hens.

The drought definitely kept the grass short, but we still jumped birds in the short stuff.

Keep in mind, this is the same area our group limited out opening weekend last year, so I would say the numbers are poor this year and not sure if it's worth hunting. I think with decent rain, we'll be back close to normal next year thanks to all the hens we saw.

Tasco, we hunt in Petersburg every year and for the first time in 20 years(I haven't been hunting out there that long, but some of the gang has) they canceled. Don't want to sound like negative nancy but we are headed to N. Kansas next week instead...my buddy did say the small group that went, shot 3 birds, he didn't pull his trigger :(good luck though and let us know how it goes.

We could be back to normal IF it rains next year. I'm hearing reports of at least another year of this drought.

Our outfitter told us not to waste our money and he would see us next year if they get some rain around Halfway.

Hunted near Silverton on second weekend of pheasant season. Saw more hens than we normally see...which I thought was a good thing. Our group of six hunters bagged 12 roosters the first day and knocked out seven on the second day. It has been much better, but we aren't complaining. With some good moisture this winter and spring...I think our birds will be back to where they normally are. Still, it was a good hunt...there have been better, but we're not complaining at all.