Pheasant hunting after cold and snow have settled in for the winter is a radically different challenge than what you and your retriever experienced in the early season.
Birds that escaped heavy pressure in October have learned a lot about survival. With instincts honed by successful escapes from the gangs of dogs and hunters that have been chasing them, even young birds may have taken on the wise characteristics of their older brethren.
Where and how you hunt in December, and even into January in some states, takes a bit of extra planning and effort. Let’s look at the challenges and rewards.
Your retriever needs to be enthusiastic about hunting dense cover such as cattail sloughs for late-season roosters. (Photo courtesy of Jeffery Karls) Where to Find Late-Season Roosters Studies by upland biologists have shown that a rooster pheasant, conditions permitting, will live out his life within a square mile of habitat. While pheasants will travel anywhere necessary to survive, if that 640 acres contains all of a pheasant’s critical needs (crops and other food sources; nighttime roosting cover; and thick cover that doubles as escape cover and protection from the elements) that bird has all he needs to live in comfort. That last piece, the thick stuff, is where you’re likely going to have to concentrate once temps drop and snow piles up. In balmy weather, a rooster might spend most of his day in light cover where he rests and loafs, moving back and forth between that area and food on a whim.
But in really nasty weather, the routine is more like this: leave the comfort of thick roosting cover (cattails, overgrown shelterbelts and the like), fly out to gobble up as much corn or other food as possible, and then get back to the relative warmth and protection of roosting cover. I should also point out here that heavy hunting pressure has a similar effect. When birds get chased around out where the walking is easy for hunters, they’re of course going to start hanging out in less-pressured spots.
How to Adjust Because a December rooster can act like a completely different species from the one you were hunting back in October, you need to change some tactics. That also means changing the way you handle your dog.
Nothing fills your game vest more reliably than an experienced dog that’s figured out where late-season roosters hide. It’s imperative that your retriever is enthusiastic about working in cattails and other dense cover if you expect success. You can hope your dog will learn by doing, but it’s much more efficient to set up training situations that will benefit you during the season.
It’s especially helpful to show young dogs the cover that late-season birds like so they make the connection. You can encourage this with dogs of any age during the off-season. One drill is as simple as placing a freshly killed training bird several feet inside an edge where thin cover meets high cover. Work up the edge in a way that the wind will drift the bird scent in your dog’s direction.
You don’t need to do a lot of talking or give commands. If your dog has any interest in birds at all, it should quickly figure out that diving into the thick cover when it catches bird scent is going to result in a reward of a mouthful of fresh feathers. Once your dog is enthusiastically working its way into thick cover to find planted birds, go ahead and move your training birds farther inside, and then get in there with the dog as it searches. By going into the cover yourself, your dog gets used to hunting in front of you, where it’s supposed to be. If you don’t work on this routine, you might be disappointed to find that anytime you’re in thick cover, your dog would rather walk behind you as you break a trail.
While I’ve been talking about pheasants so far, I should also point out that many of these concepts apply to ruffed grouse hunting as well. It’s fun and convenient to work on flushing drills in open fields of knee-high or shorter grass where walking is easy. Unfortunately, that’s not where you’re going to find grouse come fall. It’s important to help your dog get comfortable and confident hunting in places where it has to use its nose as much as its eyes and where it can’t always see you, regardless of what type of birds you’re hunting.
Thick cover is more likely to hold roosters late in the year. (Photo courtesy of Jeffery Karls) In the Field When you’re hunting in tall and thick cover, the reality is that your dog will be out of sight much of the time. You might be relying on watching the tops of the grass or cattails move to keep track of your retriever’s whereabouts. That works...until it doesn’t. On a windy day, if you’re hunting in cover that’s over your head, you can lose track of your dog pretty quickly.
Don’t discount the idea of putting a beeper collar on your flushing dog. We tend to think of beepers as a pointing dog tool, but really, if you know you’re going to be spending a lot of time where there’s limited visibility, wouldn’t it make sense to outfit your retriever the same way? I use a beeper collar with a hawk scream option. Does it stop birds from running? I don’t know if I can prove that it does, but it certainly can’t hurt.
The other thing I do with all my flushing dogs that pays off at any time of the season is to train them to respond to the vibrate or the tone feature on their e-collars. It’s simple, yet it provides multiple benefits.
First, teaching your dog to look back at you (when you’re in the open) lets you silently give it a wave to the right or left or at least notice that you’re changing direction. You should always hunt birds as silently as possible. If you’ve ever seen a whole flock of pheasants exit the other end of a field just because someone slammed a car door, you know what I’m talking about. Well, no matter how skittish a rooster pheasant might be early in the season, he’s got 10 times the anxiety level come December.
Second, tone and vibe help you train yourself to stop constantly hacking on your dog. “Come on, hunt ‘em up, over here now, come on boy, no, no, not that way, come on, birds in here...” You’ve heard it. Maybe you’re guilty of it and don’t even know it. So, stop. Hunt quietly. Take advantage of technology to communicate with your dog.
Lastly, if you’ve really lost track of your dog but you’re not at the point where you think you need to start shouting or yelling, use that tone button to recall your dog. You could, for example, train your dog that a brief tone means to check back visually, but a constant tone means “come” or “here.”
“Late is great” is an overused phrase that’s been applied to hunting just about every game animal. It might be trite, but it’s so true when it comes to upland bird hunting. Come winter, hunters are fewer (good) but so are bird numbers (not so good) but the reward of putting a bead on a trophy rooster that your retriever rutted out of the thick stuff is a priceless payoff for the effort.
