Dodge City report

just talked to people that bought our home place 45 mile north west of Dodge City, have had 20" of rain since june, the office of fish & game in Dodge with support of farmers in the area asked head quarters in Topeka to NOT have a pheasant season for the next three yrs, the proposal was turned down. Johnny told me that he had seen only two hatches over scattered 5000 acres. hopefully they can have a couple of good yrs rain wise to get the population back.

It doesn't help that they are baling and grazing all the CRP.

we had pretty good pheasant #'s when there was very small amounts of crp, I can remember in a 10mile square area there was 2 160 acre plots of crp. I could go by myself and get a limit.

Just east of Dodge they were hammered with rain in Late June and July but still WAY behind on birds. My buddy who farms/ranches 6800 acres has seen about a dozen birds this year - taken years to see this many. Going to be hurting for years to come. Cancelling our trip now for the 4th year. Ugh.

yep, going to have to have ideal conditions for the next several yrs tom come to get back to good populations

I talked to my contacts in SW Kansas and there are very few birds again this year. It will take some time for a recovery. I am heading North for pheasants.

Buddy in Dighton told me to cancel again. We will meet up after Christmas and bird hunt or place in the panhandle. Guess it's another year of dove and quail. I'm missing eating some pheasant.

I'm hunting due north of Dodge city right now. Dove south of 70 and chickens north of 24. These counties have been allowed to cut the CRP, but I'm not seeing much of it cut. Heard some Pheasants yesterday evening whie hunting a flooded field hole for dove Been lots of late rain in the area for sure. But I have not seen one pheasant yet while hunting prairie chickens. Tall healthy crops all over, so they may be buried up in that stuff. I'm hunting native grass and adjacent CRP edges. Finding lots of Quail. But right now finding Quail while hunting Prairie Grouse with a pointing dog is like having green trash fish largemouth bass constantly messing up the crappie rigs when your only wanting to catch crappie. If I came back up here it would be to hunt Quail and just consider any Pheasant a bonus bird.

I just got back from hunting WT in Sherman County mainly south of Goodland. Areas had a lot of rain this year and CRP was not cut anywhere I was at. Lot more corn this year and not as much milo. CRP was very tall and very thick. A lot of Kochia weed and sunflowers this year that are all tall and thick. Lot of clover growing on grass pastures and CRP. I saw and heard a lot of Pheasants with a lot of little birds that the man I hunted with said were 7-8 weeks old. Seems like late hatches after the hailstorms were 5-6 birds with the early hatches 8-12 birds. He was not sure if it was a second hatch or just a first hatch after the nest were hit with hail. He said reports ranged from 30%-60% increase over last year. I know I saw a lot more pheasants this year over last year.