2005 bird season opener

[jabne]

Couple of my neighbors, my brother-in-law, three of his friends, and me taking the pic. This was opening day...was a blast 'o fun!

[Scott McCray]

Dang, wish we had pheasant like that here. Populations are WAY down.

[yote_trapper17]

Looks like you killed them. One of my best spots turned out to be a bust this year everytime we went there.

[salinakansascoon]

Wow great job where do u live.

[jabne]

I'm in a small town, just south of Lincoln, NE. Most of this area was pretty decent this past season. Even heard some very good reports from public land hunts, too. My neighbor and his brother frequented a couple public areas and consistently either did well on pheasants or found some big coveys of quail.
We went out in late January toward end of the season. Had some snow on the ground, a little fog, and lots of frost. We did very well that morning, too.

[jabne]

What this pic also doesn't tell you is the unfortunate side to that morning's hunt, too. It was opening day, very warm, no breeze, and very dry. We had 3 dogs working with us, and I cannot tell you in good conscience how many birds we put down that we literally could not find, too. Cover was thick, but the dogs just didn't do well picking up scent that day. I dropped on out in a low, mowed alfalfa field next to the tall CRP we were working. I could see the bird laying there, and the dog went right by it, never saw it and never picked up the scent. We marked everything we dropped, but we walked a lot of circles that day around areas where we lost several.
Should be another good year this year. Hiked back through it last weekend to get to a fishing lake in center of the section, and I kicked up a ton of birds just walking through there by myself.