# reply to the "Wiley Winter Roosters" article



## Brandon Cattanach (Nov 22, 2004)

I went out pheasant hunting multiple times over the break we had from college. i felt that the hunting was the easiest that it had been this year, besides the opener when the birds were everwhere. 80% of all the hunting i did late in the year was on public or unposted land and i found tons of birds that were easy to kill. We went out many times, leaving town about 8 arriving where we were gonnna hunt about 945 10 and we would have a limit of 9 to 15 birds depending who all went by noon or 1. I did encounter many birds that would flush along ways ahead, but if you watched where they went and sat down it was like shoothing clay pigeons. the dogs would go on point and the bird would get up while you were kicking around in the grass just trying to get him to flush. My dog caught at least 2 roosters and numerous hens the last weekend of Dec. and into Jan.


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

You and everyone else Brandon. You and everyone else. LOL.


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

The wiley article was right on the money where our crew hunted. Each week of season required more effort with the birds being pushed farther from a driveable road. The best places were at least a mile walk in, a mile of hunting, and another out through boot deep snow. I figured I averaged about 2 miles of boot leather per bird across the season or convert that into about 50 + cheeseburgers. And a :beer: or two. Out of the whole season there was only 1 dumb rooster that was going to chase my dog. I thought of it as self defense.


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## wirehairman (Oct 31, 2005)

While I'm used to the spooky, late season roosters described in the article, my late season hunting this year was much more like Brandon described.

I hunted the three days after Christmas on public areas that had a fair amount of pressure this year. The first day, my 1.5 year old GWP pointed three roosters and a hen in less than 30 minutes and that was that. The other two days took me a little longer to limit out, but I didn't hunt more than three hours total either day and picked up a bonus sharpie or two along the way. Every bird I shot (or missed  ) was stone cold drilled by one of my GWP's.

I'm just suggesting that birds can vary from place to place depending on a million things, and maybe, Brandon isn't just thumping his chest but found a sweet late season honey hole.


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

whm, where did you get your dogs? (I like the picture.)


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## wirehairman (Oct 31, 2005)

Dick,

My dogs are all Cascade wirehairs or out of Cascade lines. The male in the picture, Binger, is straight out of Cascade Kennels and is heavily bread back to Cascade Rogue. If you'd like more info and/or pics, PM me.


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

pm sent


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## DJRooster (Nov 4, 2002)

There are opportunities for those who take the time and put forth the effort to find them but the trend is towards less land open to hunting without having to ask permission. I am not one to say this is good or bad but this is the reality of the situation. The harvest information should point to this being the best since the 60's. I wouldn't be surprised to see the dollars raised by liscense and fees up accordingly. This should speak well for financing of projects by our Game and Fish Dept. This will probably become a more important part of the equation as CRP contracts expire. It is hard to escape the reality of hunting becoming a big business proposition but I am afraid.....


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