Does anyone hunt Pheasants, Chukars, or Huns anymore?

[huntnfmly]

My wife and I both want to learn but we're also both new hunters and we feel like we definitely don't have our feet under us with the other things we started off trying to learn (deer, turkey, elk) and so adding other things to the list of "stuff we don't know about and aren't good at" seems premature. We want to learn duck hunting and upland bird but I feel like spreading my time researching and my time in the field even more thin won't result in more success, but will likely result in a lot less success across the board.

Summary: Hunting anything feels hard in WA so trying to hunt everything in WA seems like it would make that a lot harder

Not necessarily. When I’m hunting quail, pheasant, chukar in January February and I’m finding fresh elk signs that should tell me they shouldn’t be there in September. When snow melts in April and I’m looking for turkey sign and find some deer sheds tells me he should be there about December. All it does is makes you pay closer attention to multiple things instead of focusing on one task.

 

Anytime out in the field you can learn about other species without even really trying
Another good example is finding elk droppings
You can tell what part of the year they are in there soft cow patty looking most likely spring and summer from eating fresh grasses
Hard and round more likely late fall and winter from eating browse
Enjoy the time

[follow maggie]

My wife and I both want to learn but we're also both new hunters and we feel like we definitely don't have our feet under us with the other things we started off trying to learn (deer, turkey, elk) and so adding other things to the list of "stuff we don't know about and aren't good at" seems premature. We want to learn duck hunting and upland bird but I feel like spreading my time researching and my time in the field even more thin won't result in more success, but will likely result in a lot less success across the board.

Summary: Hunting anything feels hard in WA so trying to hunt everything in WA seems like it would make that a lot harder

Not necessarily. When I’m hunting quail, pheasant, chukar in January February and I’m finding fresh elk signs that should tell me they shouldn’t be there in September. When snow melts in April and I’m looking for turkey sign and find some deer sheds tells me he should be there about December. All it does is makes you pay closer attention to multiple things instead of focusing on one task.

 

Anytime out in the field you can learn about other species without even really trying
Another good example is finding elk droppings
You can tell what part of the year they are in there soft cow patty looking most likely spring and summer from eating fresh grasses
Hard and round more likely late fall and winter from eating browse
Enjoy the time

100% true. Especially if you keep track of what you see, where & when & record it on some type of map or log book, whatever. This will make it easy to see how animals travel through your area & where they prefer to be.

[huntnfmly]

My wife and I both want to learn but we're also both new hunters and we feel like we definitely don't have our feet under us with the other things we started off trying to learn (deer, turkey, elk) and so adding other things to the list of "stuff we don't know about and aren't good at" seems premature. We want to learn duck hunting and upland bird but I feel like spreading my time researching and my time in the field even more thin won't result in more success, but will likely result in a lot less success across the board.

Summary: Hunting anything feels hard in WA so trying to hunt everything in WA seems like it would make that a lot harder

Not necessarily. When I’m hunting quail, pheasant, chukar in January February and I’m finding fresh elk signs that should tell me they shouldn’t be there in September. When snow melts in April and I’m looking for turkey sign and find some deer sheds tells me he should be there about December. All it does is makes you pay closer attention to multiple things instead of focusing on one task.

 

Anytime out in the field you can learn about other species without even really trying
Another good example is finding elk droppings
You can tell what part of the year they are in there soft cow patty looking most likely spring and summer from eating fresh grasses
Hard and round more likely late fall and winter from eating browse
Enjoy the time

100% true. Especially if you keep track of what you see, where & when & record it on some type of map or log book, whatever. This will make it easy to see how animals travel brought your area & where they prefer to be.

 

[HereDuckyDucky]

Love chasing Devil Birds!

RW

[T-Dozzer]

A bunch

[DIron]

I hardly ever hear of anyone hunting pheasants, chukars or huns in Washington anymore.  Unless folks are going or just came from the Dakota's on some type of guided or pay to hunt deal I can't say that I hear much of anything about upland bird hunting.  Is it a lack of birds issue, lack of access to huntable land, or is there just not much interest in bird hunting like there used to be?

I grew up in the lower Yakima Valley and we used to spend more time hunting birds than anything else.  Most of my friends hunted birds but it seems like now, hardly anyone hunts birds anymore.  I have one friend that still hunts waterfowl quite a bit but doesn't do any upland bird hunting.  When I was in school my dad would be waiting in the parking lot to pick me up after football practice so we could catch the last few minutes of light hunting pheasants in a near by asparagus or squash field.  Where we hunted deer and elk is when we'd get into the chukars and huns.

Even here on HW forum, which has a very health group of hunters, I rarely read about anyone hunting pheasants, chukars, or huns so it got me to wondering why nobody hunts birds much anymore.

I do... invested in a upland Choc Lab who just turned two. Chasing Quail and Huns are my favorite but I'm happy to get after Pheasants and Chucker as well. I'm new to Washington hunting so I haven't found many birds yet. Do you hunt upland?

[AL WORRELLS KID]

 [/quote]
 
Another good example is finding elk droppings
You can tell what part of the year they are in there soft cow patty looking most likely spring and summer from eating fresh grasses
Hard and round more likely late fall and winter from eating browse

[/quote]


Dad would have us Kids test out the "Freshness of the Deer and Elk Droppings" that we would come upon, by popping some in our mouth and chewing them up!
 He would then pretend to do just that... to our amazement!
(What we didn't realize, was he had Black Licorice Gumdrops hidden in his hand and after chewing them up he would tell us "Okay,now you try it!" 

[huntnfmly]

 

Another good example is finding elk droppings
You can tell what part of the year they are in there soft cow patty looking most likely spring and summer from eating fresh grasses
Hard and round more likely late fall and winter from eating browse

[/quote]


Dad would have us Kids test out the "Freshness of the Deer and Elk Droppings" that we would come upon, by popping some in our mouth and chewing them up!
 He would then pretend to do just that... to our amazement!
(What we didn't realize, was he had Black Licorice Gumdrops hidden in his hand and after chewing them up he would tell us "Okay,now you try it!" 
[/quote]

That’s funny

With my nephew I would put my middle finger in a pile of bear scat and then put my pointer finger in my mouth so he thought I put the finger from the bear scat in my mouth😂
I told him that’s how you can tell if it’s fresh so he tried it but I stopped him before he got it in his mouth😂

[DIron]

I do. Just picked back up after long hiatus. New to the Wa scene and have been disappointed in the numbers of birds. Seems like our farming practices here denude the land way too much. Birds need quality cover and insects, not much of that when the land is left barren.

We need to get more policies like what So Dakota has done.

[DIron]

Retired until we get another Brittney...we never truly went specifically after pheasants, mostly quail.

Quail… yes please  They are my fav, but then again I haven’t chased Huns or Sharpies

[Pegasus]

 

Another good example is finding elk droppings
You can tell what part of the year they are in there soft cow patty looking most likely spring and summer from eating fresh grasses
Hard and round more likely late fall and winter from eating browse

Dad would have us Kids test out the "Freshness of the Deer and Elk Droppings" that we would come upon, by popping some in our mouth and chewing them up!
 He would then pretend to do just that... to our amazement!
(What we didn't realize, was he had Black Licorice Gumdrops hidden in his hand and after chewing them up he would tell us "Okay,now you try it!" 
[/quote]

That’s funny

With my nephew I would put my middle finger in a pile of bear scat and then put my pointer finger in my mouth so he thought I put the finger from the bear scat in my mouth😂
I told him that’s how you can tell if it’s fresh so he tried it but I stopped him before he got it in his mouth😂
[/quote]

Had a guy join our hunting camp and every time we returned to camp our snacks would all be gone. Bag of candy....gone, pepperoni sticks...gone, etc. So we decided to play a trick on him. We had some chocolate kisses left and unwrapped one of them and replaced the chocolate with a fresh elk dropping that was shaped just like the candy kiss. We returned from our hunt and the remaining candy was gone including the fake. We waited for something to be said but nothing was ever mentioned. After that it was safe to leave our stuff out without it being devoured. Problem solved.

[pianoman9701]

I worked a short while for a MN company, way up north west of St. Cloud. The number of huge pheasant roosters by the side of the road was amazing. I've always wanted to do a hunt there since.