Prairie chicken season opened September 15 in Kansas. This is a good excuse to get the dogs out. Where we go in Kansas does not have many prairie chickens but it gives us a chance to see what the quail season is going to be like. Kansas has thousands of acres in the walk-in hunting program. The walk-in map books may be found where hunting licenses are sold. I got mine at Cabela’s in Kansas City, Kansas.
I usually pick up some extra maps for friends who haven’t got theirs yet. I have to get them after visiting the gun library and drooling over the really nice guns. No one wants wet maps.
Robin Barrows, Steve Minshall and I left my house about 7:30am enroute to the Emporia area of Kansas. When we got to the first farm it was already above 60 degrees.
We had 6 English setters with us. Five were mine and Robin had Molly. I put Gps and e-collars on Luke and Whitey, brother and sister from different litters. Luke is 3 years old and Whitey about 18 months. Robin also used a GPS and e-collar on Molly.
We worked the dogs around the edge of a wheat stubble field. We worked the dogs for about an hour. Although the dogs hunted hard and covered the ground well, other than about 20 turkeys, we saw nothing.
The next farm had wheat stubble as well as some unharvested soy beans. I turned Lucky and Dolly loose. We worked them around the wheat stubble and then down 2 hedge rows. It was warming up quickly. We only ran about 30 minutes. We saw nothing on this farm either.
Blaze was the only dog that had not been out and I decided to put her down with Luke who had run first that morning. Blaze is a litter mate to Whitey.
This farm had soy beans and milo inside of a large area of CRP. Because of the heat we only ran for about 30 minutes and saw nothing.
All three of these farms had quail on them last year. Although we are prairie chicken hunting, we also are trying to find places to quail hunt when the season opens. This area was not severely impacted by the drought. The habitat looked good. With the unharvested crops, thick cover and the heat we could have missed finding the quail.
When it cools down we will try these places again. Steve may not be with us. This is the second year he has hunted prairie chickens with us and he has yet to see one. He keeps saying mythical prairie chickens.
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