16ga.com ~ View topic - Russell Kansas

Day 3 – Sunday December 16th

Got up about 6 am Sunday, got organized and walked down to the hotel lobby for coffee and a bagel. Pretty cold (10 degrees) this morning (supposed to go up to 35 and be sunny), but very light winds (a relief – as you know western Kansas can be a little windy). Snow (11 inches) still on the ground, but sun coming up and big rigs and other vehicles back out on I-70 moving briskly. Stuart showed up as agreed at 8:30 am with 4-wheel-drive, his gear, and 2 pointing labs (Addie and Tommie). I tossed my gear in truck and off we went – south of Russell about 10 miles to a large area with a food plot (milo strip) down a lengthy swale between crp and a cut milo field (well at least that was what was under the snow). Once again every tree and bush we passed along the road was loaded with pheasants – also saw many rabbits in the same bushes. As we pulled up on the property we would hunt, we saw about 15 prairie chickens flying off one of the fields (more about some other prairie chickens later on day 4). Today I was planning on hunting with two 16 ga guns – a fox sterlingworth and an Ithaca model 37 – that I intended to share time in the field. First out of the truck was Ms. Sterlyworth (double triggers, 28 inch Orlen-opened barrels choked 0.010 and 0.017) – dropped a paper 6 (7/8 oz reload) and a paper 5 (2 9/16 1 oz Western Expert) in the right and left barrels, respectively. Stuart let the dogs out and we stepped into the food plot strip and in about 15 (deep in the snow) steps Addie locked up on point right in front of me (I had already noted lots of pheasant tracks in the snow). She was pointing at a hole in the snow next to some milo. I could not see any birds, but I walked to within 3 feet (in the 11 inches of snow) and up burst two roosters – cackling and spraying the powdery snow. As I was thinking that I wished I had the camera crew behind me, I shouldered Ms. Sterlyworth and dropped the first bird about 20 feet to my right and then turned and waited for the second bird to clear the truck and doubled up on the second bird with Stuart at about 30 yards over my left shoulder. WOW Very Happy

– what a pretty way to start! Two roosters (1 shared), less than 5 minutes. After the dogs retrieved the roosters, I walked back to the truck and gently laid the two roosters on the hood of the truck for later. We moved back into the field and walked about 25 yards further and I shot another rooster – pointed right in front of me and we soon flushed about 15 hens and several more roosters. All birds we found were holding very tight in pockets in the snow at the base of milo stalks – Stuart downed a couple of roosters out of this so we soon had 5 in the bag. We moved on through and got to the end of the strip by the crp field and found a covey of quail – at first flush I dropped a single and so did Stuart in the 20 or so birds that got up. Singles flew all over the place, and in a lot of slogging through deep snow we managed to bag a dozen quail between us in the next hour or so. Actually, the birds held pretty tight, the problem was when you shot one it “flumped” into the 11+ inches of powder and it took some time to find them and we did not wish to lose any. Gathering all our birds and patting the dogs, we looked at the watch and realized it was almost 11 am – so we packed up and headed into Stuart’s house for lunch. Today Crystal had chili – delicious.

After lunch, Stuart and I regrouped and determined that we needed 3 more roosters and 4 more quail for limits for both of us so we decided to go to an area near his house with a crp field and a small dam that had thick cover along one side of the dam. Sure enough as we drove up I saw a rooster slip into the cover along the dam out of the crp. As we got carefully out of the truck I selected the Ithaca model 37 (28 inch barrel, mod choke) and slipped 4 Remington game load 6s in the tube. Stuart let the dogs out (Addie and Tommie) and I slipped along the fence on one side of the cover and he went down the other side and the dogs went in. Soon about 20 feet in front of me, 2 roosters burst out of the base of a cedar tree and flew out over the ice on the pond and I dropped them both (remembering it was a single trigger and that I had to pump between the two shots) on the ice – about 20 yard shots. Addie ran out on the ice to get the roosters (great sight – black lab, snow covered pond and colorful ditch parrots) and I heard Stuart shoot – he called out that he had the third rooster we needed for a limit. I moved up along the dam, flushing another rooster and a hen and Addie brought me the two birds and as I straightened up when picking up the second bird I saw a quail run into a bush about 20 yards further along the dam in front of me. I stepped to a clear spot and called softly to Stuart that quail were ahead and sure enough, both Tommie and Addie moved up and pointed. Stuart gave the dogs the go-ahead and up about 10 birds came – the one on my side was dropped cleanly and Stuart shot a double. While retrieving his pair, another came up by him and he dropped this one also. So between us for the day (finished about 2 pm) we had 8 roosters and 16 quail – the Kansas limit Cool

. Great fun was had by all Very Happy

After loading up the truck, Stuart said that he had two spots to look over, so I said sure. The first spot was a game farm about 5 miles southwest of Russell – the nets had come partially down in the ice storm Tuesday and the rest of the way down with the 11 inches of snow. Roosters (with no tails) and hens (several hundred) were everywhere – in the bushes, on the house porch, under the trucks, in the trees, on all the fence posts – we also saw about 15 hawks here. I am sure feasting was going on. Stuart dropped me off later at the Days Inn and we spoke about hunting Monday. Konner (a guide for Stuart – we have hunted together before) was to take me out as Stuart had to work on Monday. We agreed that I would be picked up at 8:30 am and I went in for the night to clean-up and get organized for the morrow. On Monday I planned to hunt with my LC Smith and all paper hull reloads (6s and 4s – 7/8 ounce) – a vintage shoot. stay tuned for day 4….

WOW - - Great Day!! Very Happy

That sounds all right, if you're into having a great time, creating great memories, shooting limits of birds and that sort of thing. Myself, I'd rather drive several hundred miles and not see a thing. Now THAT's hunting! Rolling Eyes

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3438 Location: Illinois

It will take a bit to top that Wink

Joined: 03 Jul 2005 Posts: 370 Location: Amarillo, Texas