A sand and gravel pit may seem like one of the strangest places to hunt pheasants. Despite the lunar landscape look of these locations, there is often some ringneck-holding-cover in some secluded and hard-to-get-to part of the property.

The traditional locations for hunting pheasants are easy to identify. Vast tracts of prairie grass, natural stands of marshlands, cultivated grain fields, and regular tree plots are among the most common spots in ringneck country to search for roosters.

There are other kinds of cover sites, however, where these wild birds hang out -- unusual bits and odd pieces of rural property we might all walk or drive by without realizing that maybe pheasants might be there. Peculiar places in some instances…in fact, far removed from the ordinary and familiar locations we call conventional pheasant habitat.

"Strange places," in other words, that once found and figured out could help make a day's good hunt great or a poor hunt better.

"It's the Pits"
"If hunting ringnecks in sand and gravel pits was easy, every hunter would do it and there would be no pheasants out here," I assured my fellow rooster shooter for the third time as we and our dogs first climbed up and then slid down a man-made mountain of sand and gravel.

At the far end of this quarter-mile square complex of 30-foot-high hills and 50-foot-deep valleys was a little wet spot where wild sunflowers grew, surrounded by a ring of golden foxtail. A weed patch, in other words, where pheasants were protected by a wall of thick and tall vegetation all hidden a quarter mile from the main road.

Climbing up and sliding down these mounds of shifting sand and uncertain piles of loose stones was hard exercise that left us both breathless and sweaty by the time we got to the spot that we hoped would hold a rooster.

Old dump sites, where discarded home appliances, car bodies and other trash are piled, might also offer prime cover for ringnecks. The more difficult to find and get to, the more successful the hunt for pheasant can be in these strange places.

"There's lots of pheasant tracks here," my buddy whispered as he pointed to a mish-mash of bird footprints, most of which were pointed toward the far end of the cover.

"Hen," I hollered out of habit and for no good reason as the obviously brown bird launched from the foxtail patch. Five more "ladies" followed the first one while my German shorthair stayed on a pretty point waiting for me to flush pheasant number seven.

"Hen? No it's a young rooster," we both decided. The short-tailed cock collapsed to a load of #6s.

"What a Dump!"
From a half-mile distance, these 10 acres of rural real estate don't look at all promising as a place to hunt pheasants. Up close, however, this now closed small town dump looks even worse -- rather destitute and forbidding, in fact, with defunct but still white refrigerators like discarded monoliths poking through ragged weed beds. And long-dead car bodies lying like rusty buffalo carcasses in chin-high prairie grass.