Transcript for On The Wing Podcast Ep. 333: PF's Tom Carpenter Delivers Strategies to "Mix it Up" this Season
Speaker 2 (00:50.506)
Welcome to On the Wing podcast presented by Purina Proplan. All right. I'm going to do what I sometimes do, what I often do when there's an editor. I read their words back to them. So you know, we've got editor, Pheasants Forever Journal editor, Tom Carpenter with me, and I'm going to read Mix It Up by Tom Carpenter back to him. Here you go.
Sometimes the best pheasant hunting strategy is something different, unpredictable, or new. It's easy to get stuck in our ways, don't I know it? Right? This is of course true of our lives, but it also is true of pheasant hunting. Don't get me wrong, to just keep on keeping on, that's got to be a song, isn't it? Back from your childhood.
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:49.152)
Yeah, it's Dylan. Right. Imagine that.
just keepin', keep on keepin' on can solve many of life's changes. And here is another carpism. and put a roostery sag in the old game bag. how good that feels. But the miles can get too long. The scene's too familiar. The plan too rote. The rooster's too evasive. Time to mix it up.
Mix It Up by Tom Carpenter is an article that appears in the Pheasants Forever Fall edition of the Pheasants Forever Journal. Coming up, Carp...
Yeah, it should be, I think it's going to start hitting mailboxes about October 10th. So if you get your issue, you'll be able to look at the story and read this podcast or vice versa. Yeah, read this podcast and listen to the story. That's right. so yeah, mix, mix it up. you know, we'll get into that. know we gotta give some love to some of our great sponsors before we dive into some of this, but...
Speaker 1 (03:00.398)
Yeah, that's the main story is some, and we'll get into this in a little detail, but sometimes you just got to mix it up. mean, that's why I use that title. And I had it on a posty note on my desk for like a year. And I'm like, it's time. It's time because it was like late summer. starting to think about, big surprise, know, prairie grouse season warming up, which is a warm up for pheasant season. It may be a little more than that for me, but I thought.
I want to talk about some of these things I do anyway and give folks some ideas for how they might mix it up this year.
Five ideas, in fact. We've got five ideas that we're going to hit, as you mentioned. Before I thank our sponsors, I want to get a field report from you. I know you've been making the podcasting tours. You've shared some stories with Travis Frank on The Flush and Nick Larson on Birdshot Podcast. Thanks to both of those guys for having us on and talking.
having you on, having the organization on, talking about our organization, our mission, and some of your adventures. I don't know how the Minnesota Prairie Chicken Hunt, which is a lottery, went for you. So share it with our listeners.
Speaker 1 (04:17.048)
Yeah, that was my most recent hunt. I've done a couple runs up to North Dakota for sharptail hunting. this happened to be a year that I did get a Minnesota prairie chicken license and Minnesota is like the outlier state of prairie chicken hunting. You know, you've got your Nebraska, your South Dakota and your Kansas and the only other place you can hunt them is Minnesota, but it's a resident only draw. I've, I look back in my records. It's funny. I've hunted them six times in about.
22 years in Minnesota. That's about how often you can draw a tag. So it was a good hunt.
Is it, it, you draw a tag or a permit, is it for two birds or one?
Two chickens,
Two chickens. And they live up on the far Northwest corner of the state. It's actually magnificent country. I love it up there. A lot of grass and that, big surprise. That's where the prairie chickens have constricted to in Minnesota. It's actually the beach of what was glacial lake Agassiz, which is the Red River Valley. And it's up on what is a beach. Oceans have beaches and on a beach is sand and rock. And it's not as not that wonderful cropland.
Speaker 2 (05:30.318)
Right, like the ancient Lake Agassiz, bottom or the center is great soil for farming, but up on the top, like you said, sandy and rock, and it makes good habitat for chickens.
Yeah. And some of these spots mean you're literally in it's elevation is, elevation is relevant to some places like out and you get elevation in South Dakota and it's hundreds of feet or something. here elevation is 10, 12, 30 feet. It's flat country. It's a diff, it's, it's challenging hunting because you don't have that elevation.
It's sort of intimidating in some of these places. but yeah, it's, beautiful country. There's lots of grass, you know, when there used to be more CRP up there and Lord help us if we could get some more back up there, that would boost these, these chicken numbers again. But it's a fun hunt. It's nine, nine, nine day. Okay. Yeah. They do it over two weekends. When I first started it used to be, in the weekend after pheasant opener. It says that seven day.
Speaker 1 (06:41.462)
is when the chicken opener was. And you'd get chickens, but it was just naturally a little tougher because they're prairie grouse. They're more mature like any bird. and, and all about probably 10 years ago, I think the season first started in 2003, about 10 years ago, they moved the opening up to the last weekend, September. And I think it's helped the hunting a little bit, but yeah, more heat and you deal with that as well. And we did deal with that. I think no matter where you're listening here, you're you're probably have been had had a lot of warm weather and we certainly have here on the northern plains in the north woods. These first three, four weeks of hunting seasons. Yeah. Yeah.
Public land, private land, mixable.
pretty much all public. I used to hunt more private. I'd work first, but that was when there was more CRP on the ground. it's like a lot of things, and even like pheasants will get into this a little bit, but sometimes the best land is the public. And it is that way up there, because that's where the big expanses of grass are. On some of these wildlife areas, wildlife refuges, WPAs, that's where the grass persists the best. There's still... There's still some CRP up there too. We did good. I got two prairie grouse. One was a chicken and one was a sharp tail. okay. And interesting. They're in the same spots. No, no, but they were same day, mile apart. Okay. And it's interesting. Prairie chickens are very gentle.
Speaker 2 (08:02.87)
And what'd find?
Speaker 2 (08:11.662)
Are they together?
They weren't on one flush.
Speaker 1 (08:30.2)
passive birds and you can even see it when they lack in the springtime. Prairie chickens don't have this frenetic activity that sharp tails do. Now in Minnesota you can only hunt sharp tails. The only open season is north of Highway 2, which is the high line. It roughly cuts off the top third of Minnesota. There are sharp tails south of Highway 2, which is where prairie chickens are, but sharp tails are only legal in the prairie chicken country.
when you have a prairie chicken tag.
I see and if you shoot one while you're out prayer chicken it all counts towards you. It doesn't count towards your prayer chicken? No, you're okay. Chicken? No, you can hunt until you get a second prairie chicken. Okay. Or at least I've always been a little foggy on that rule, but this year I didn't get a second prairie chicken and cause it was tough conditions. but the second bird I got was a sharp tail and just a little story. You know, I, I
I had some exquisite dog work from Lark on this sharp tail. And it was in a place where, you know, they're going to be often in the same type of country. it was evening, finally got cool. We went back out for the last hour. We had about a 200 yard episode, point, work, point, work, point, work. And finally she locked up and I was proud of myself that, uh,
Speaker 1 (09:59.382)
She had a good lockup point and I went in and the birds went out from about 30 yards ahead. And they said, no, ain't going to do it. And she moved 10 yards and locked up. And I went in and the bird went out and wow, I got it on the first shot. And this was the, and I walked up and I felt this little twinge of disappointment that it was a sharp tail. I got pretty mad at myself.
for doing that because everybody knows how much I love sharp tails too. But I quickly got over it because of the dog work and just because it's such a special bird. But the sharp tails are starting to migrate south into the northern side of the prairie chicken range even more. They've always been there and they're starting to displace some of the prairie chickens.
You know, there's, there's a lot of work. It's all habit. The more habitat we get, better. And habitat is always the answer. And habitat management is also the answer. Sharp tails can put up with a little more brush than prairie chickens. some of the, in Minnesota, even Western Minnesota, prairie wants to be woods, especially up there. It's the Aspen parklands. And there are grouse up there. heard grouse. Rough grouse. Rough, rough grouse. Yeah. There are rough grouse up there. heard grouse, we heard grouse drumming. They are about so gross. There are some places like the International Falls area that you can legitimately, one walk would be tough, but one day hunt on sharp tail rough grouse and spruce. Yeah, the International Falls area, but I have not yet done it. Yeah. But it is on my list of one of those unique experiences that I'm interested in trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1 (11:40.693)
Sprucey's
Speaker 1 (11:52.088)
think if the weather is cooler and there had been more time and I would have gotten a second prairie chicken, that I would have tried to get a rough up there. Cause I heard him drum. know you know where the roughs are going to be. And there are lines of aspens out there. So it was a great hunt. I love doing it. I've done it six times.
I just get sort of crazy about doing it. it's there. So there's such special birds and in my home state, they're still here. so, you know, we do a lot of work pheasants forever with Minnesota Prairie Chicken Society and and Minnesota sharp tail growl society. they're, sort of in lockstep organizations too. There's a lot of crossover and I'm a longtime member of the Prairie Chicken Society…
Speaker 1 (12:42.296)
There's some great folks. had some good visits up there. A good friend of mine, Ross Hyer, who actually does some occasional artwork for the magazine. Longtime DNR guy, him and some of those other folks up in that corner of the state are the ones responsible for promoting these prairie chickens, helping them have a place on the land. And they're, they're wonderful birds and you don't have to be a hunter to enjoy them go here in the springtime and watch them dance. So yeah, it was a great hunt and. So Lark saw a little sabbatical here before pheasant season starts up. She's had a lot of miles this year already. And we might try and do some woodcock hunting next week before pheasant season starts, especially this weather cools down a little bit. then the big thing is going to start pheasants and that's what we're here for today.
That is what we're here for. do want to get real quickly. You've been to North Dakota twice. How's North Dakota been for you?
It's been good. know, I'd describe it like this, couple of three day hunts and you know, on a, on a trip on a hunt, can usually expect a great day, a good day and a poor day. That's about what I had. that's, and that's, that's to be expected. It was warm up there in the trips to North Dakota, not horrible.
The type of warm where you're done at 10 or 11 and you're not going out to the last hour. And it was wet too. had some wet one day, hunted in the rain. It was just miserable. You know how much I hate.
Speaker 2 (14:16.014)
Was that the opener? Because I was out on open on the second day. I was out on the opener and I hunted in the rain and it a soak to my underwear.
Speaker 1 (14:23.278)
It wasn't bad for us until the last day and then it was one of those sideways little drops just soaked you and it was just miserable. oh, lo and behold, no birds for me that day. But it's been good up there. Yeah. Nice numbers. I'm hoping to get a little swing in in late October for some sharp tails up there. I was trying to practice what I preach and get out there for some October sharp tails.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been, I have been up to North Dakota once and I would agree with you. It's been good. The weather has not been ideal, whether it be wet or whether it be warm. you know, when you're walking the prairie, it's always pretty fun. all right. So we are going to get into, Carps mix it up. But before we go there, I want to recognize Purina.
ProPlan as the national dog food sponsor of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever's Wildlife Habitat Mission and the presenting sponsor of On the Wing podcast. All of my pups have always eaten Purina ProPlan, not just because Purina supports the Wildlife Habitat Conservation Mission of our organization, which is incredibly important to me and should be important to every bird hunter out there. But the most important thing is that Purina ProPlan was created for the working bird dog by the world's best scientists and nutritionists. Learn more at ProPlanSport.com. All right. Pheasants Forever Journal's Tom Carpenter delivers strategies to mix it up this season. We got five of them. So number one on your list, Carp, is ditch the plan. Ditch the plan. Tell us about ditching the plan.
Speaker 1 (16:18.518)
Well, we always go out to and let's do, let's talk about what most of us are listening, doing this podcast and listening to it. call us blue collar public land hunters. know you are. I, everybody probably has a couple of public land access spots they can, or private land they can get to. But for the most part, you and I and folks listening are public land hunters, which is often a lot of the best habitat. And it's often big spreads and.
We go and we, we look at it. Maybe we look at our onX a little bit or, we for sure eyeball it and we, we make a plan. And I call ditch the plan as I'll make a plan and then about five minutes in it's, it's toast. I'm doing something else. I'm either following the dog or I get out there and I see different things. If there's a, especially if there's a little terrain to the land.
And you see swales, you see lowlands, you see things that you don't see from the road, or maybe you didn't notice if you were checking onX or anything like that. And I just start, I just say the hell with it. And I start following the dog and I end up following the dog and not really, and I guess the point here is don't stick to a rigid plan if your dog wants to do something else.
or you see something good or you say, I'm going to come back and hit that. Just do it. Cause the, the, the early you are in this earlier, are in a swing, the better your dog is doing the fresher you both are. You're there to get a pheasant. Go do it. Hit that spot. Go hold those willows. I got to hit those. that line of cat tails that I think are dry, but they edge up to this blue stem. And I didn't realize this crop edge comes that close there.
I like to just ditch the plan and go and see where we end up.
Speaker 2 (18:14.508)
So in the article, you called it the wander, which is wonderful. And I totally agree with it. I love it. This is my favorite way to hunt. It's particularly easy to do a hunt this way where you abandon the plan and just wander when you are flying solo, when you are hunting solo. Yes. How do you approach it when you're walking in that line of, It's relatively easy also with another person, or you can just sort of flag and like, I'm going that way. But when there's a group, how do you handle it when there's like five people and you just want to go hit that cattail slew and you know you're going to either completely abandon everybody or you need to figure out how to react back to them. I like hunting with groups. I like a social occasion too. Like you, I prefer just to be on my own with my dog or have a buddy or two and we each go our own separate directions. Like you hunt the west half of this piece, I'm going to hunt the east half. We'll meet up somewhere. But let's save that for the last tip.
because the last tip addresses that. I think when you're with a group and you have a plan and there's a field general and there usually is, you got to follow.
Speaker 1 (19:44.744)
Yeah, yeah. It's usually not me, but yeah, you've got to feel general and we'll get into that. Maybe I'll give you some stories of that. So to answer your question, I think with a group, you're sort of out of the wander mentality. You do have for safety and organization.
Alright, we'll come back.
Speaker 1 (20:10.282)
And if you got a group, there might be different levels of hunter skill there. And maybe some of the folks don't have a dog and you want to get them a point or a flush and a shot. And you sort of got to follow, you got to follow the general's orders. Sometimes we have to be good soldiers. I prefer to be an independent mercenary.
That's funny. Anybody that's listened to a Rooster Road Trip podcast over the years know that. No, they're just giggling right now because on the Rooster Road, Andrew is the field general, right? And I'm always the person that just wanders off. And not only do I leave the team in the dust, they're like, Bob, there's no camera with you. is, it doesn't have, so I'm, you know, you would probably be a better soldier than I am. You're late.
Speaker 1 (20:57.838)
What? In that occasion I would be, that's for sure. Yeah, this one, just embrace your wandering mentality and go wander, have fun, let the dog do the work. have never, I have regretted forcing my dog to think that I'm smart and go, I shouldn't say never, but I've never regretted just letting the dog have its head.
Speaker 2 (21:03.691)
Alright.
Speaker 1 (21:27.766)
and follow my dog, but I have regretted just going and making that dog do what I think is right.
All right. Number one was ditch the plan. Number two, ditch the plan. the Texas two-step. Number two, and I love this one, create some chaos. How do you create some chaos?
Ditch the plant, do the wander.
Speaker 1 (21:53.666)
Maybe this is the one that I said was last. So this is a good lead in it. And that is when you are with a group story, have a good, a good group of us get together in December every year, South Dakota, big bait, good size blocks of habitat. And there's usually four of us and, it's a social occasion. It's probably the highlight of our outdoor year. We're hunting pheasants is.
with my good friend, Eric Johansson, Corey Sauerwein, and my friend Anthony, and Jared Wicklund, P.I. And we go out and we'll see a block of cover. And we do the bob. We just each go our own way. We sort of say, we're starting here. We're going to end up over there. We usually spot a truck on the other side and we just hunt. And we don't try and organize much, if at all.
And it's great pheasant country. see a lot of birds, but the birds just sort of, they don't know what's going up or what's going on. And they just start flying and some go here and some go there and some fly ahead and some fly back and people will go back. People will go to the side and these birds can't figure out what's going on. It's not like when you train, you get this line and you're yelling a little bit and you're moving along.
And you can't always do it and everybody has to have their own dog. You can't just leave somebody who doesn't have a dog off on their own because they'll never get a bird. but we'll just go hunt and just, it's chaos and it's so fun. It's unbelievable. And you can do that anywhere with a friend or two. And, and you're not trying to do that coordination. You're not yelling a little bit. You're not waiting for somebody. You're not, you're not, you're not getting frustrated by trying to coordinate everybody. And, you know, I'll frequently get birds that way. You'll see them go and they're pheasants. They're not like sharp tails. They're not flying for two miles. Sure. They go down in a couple hundred yards and say, I know there's a rooster that way and whoop off, off somebody goes. And I think the power of it is the pheasants can't figure it out because you're all hunting silently. You're all hunting alone. They fly. They don't know somebody's over there. And, it's just fun because you don't have to coordinate and it's chaos.
Speaker 1 (24:16.918)
and it's so fun.
So two things that I would, so number one, you have to coordinate a little bit because you have to, so you need to, the other thing that I was gonna say is you need big spot of land because then you can coordinate, like you stay in that quadrant, the Northwest quadrant, you stay in the Southeast quadrant, you stay in the Northeast quadrant, and anyways, you create these quadrants.
For safety purposes, don't cross the railroad tracks. Don't go on the other side of that spot. And if everybody knows that and you stay safe, then the world is your oyster.
Exactly. And everybody's happy. Everybody's one man, one hunter and one dog. And you're getting your own birds, but you have your friends over. You see your friend get one over there. Or your friend sees eight that go wild and they come in your quadrant. And this friend sees eight go way over there and they head that way. And you're just all out there doing your own thing. And you can go back through the same cover. and do it again. And I like that too.
Speaker 2 (25:31.054)
How often do you do that, just as an aside? How often do you hunt the exact same cover you just walked through? you know, I'd say 20 % of the time. Okay. If I think it looks good, I'm just like, I'm going back through. Or if the word is a little bit different.
Yeah. And I'll often turn on my, and I've done a lot of tips on this, but I do it more and more. I, and I did it up in prairie chicken hunting and I do it sharp tail hunting. I'll turn on my tracker. Yeah. And it, when I'm doing a wander, but you, and, and I will look at that tracker after 45 minutes ago. Wow. I didn't hit a whole quadrant. And I'll turn around and go back through it. So it's sort of going back through, but You know, I think about that in, in prairie chicken hunting and that might be, I might be in a sharp to hunting. might be in a thousand acres. and you need that big country for, for, for prairie grouse and you'll see these gaps, but you can do it in pheasant thing. You might be in 200 acres in pheasant country and you can still see those gaps and it's a smaller, it's a smaller scale, but you can still say, wow.
Speaker 1 (26:46.326)
I didn't hunt that whole seam over there. I didn't go back through it because I didn't find any pheasants here. I know they're here because it's, it's a good looking cover. They're going to be pheasants here. Especially I think, I think it's going to be a good season, this year for pheasants. We all saw that in the pheasant forecast. think hunting is going to get better as the season goes on for all of us. Corn is never an excuse, but we're going to have a lot of crops up early season. We're, we're all of us listening are going to get birds. but it's going to get better. so that's just sort of an aside that don't be a one and done hunter this season for pheasants. Yeah, no way. All right, we will get to number three in a moment. Before that, I want to thank Grain Belt Premium for bringing us premium moments from the field. Grain Belt Premium and Premium Lite are the pheasant friendly beers. The new Pheasants Forever camo cases are available in stores right now. All hunting season in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota. and South Dakota. Good land, good beer. And today's story comes to us via Facebook from Tony Rogers in Minnesota. And Tony writes in, my premium moment from the field came on a late season December hunt when my year and a half old chocolate lab named Riggs and I hit the road for Aberdeen, South Dakota. We embarked on a five and a half hour drive in hopes of bagging our very first ever wild pheasant together. Two rookies bright eyed and bushy tailed hitting the fields not knowing what the late season hunt will bring but we were excited and fortunate enough a friend gave me a couple of onyx pins to try that morning. So Riggs and I woke up early Thursday morning in Aberdeen
Speaker 2 (28:51.68)
and headed to our first pin. We struck out at that first pin and six and a half hours later, 23,850 steps later, countless miles on the truck, we had burned through all of those buddy's pins, but it was the golden hour and we were hunting an Aberdeen Pheasant Coalition strip of land. And on the last pass back to the truck, rigs got hot. and a single rooster flushed. I connected at 30 yards and Riggs brought that bird back to me, our first wild bird together. To some folks, a single bird wouldn't be worth the time of spending all day and countless miles, but for us, the effort and the drive of Riggs and the joy of that bird will last a lifetime. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Tony Rogers, thank you very much for writing in for that Grain Belt Premium moment. That's what it's all about. We got a Grain Belt Premium prize pack headed your
That story gives me tingles. That's a great story. mean, isn't That's almost the best roosters are trophies and every rooster is a trophy. you know, who was it? Was it Aldo Leopold that said, a trophy is, is proportionate to the amount of effort put in for it. And I, and I would add to that, that a trophy is, all in your memory is etched. Even the more effort you put in, the stronger that memory is at. That's a great story.
Speaker 2 (30:38.678)
Yeah, yeah it is. Even sometimes the misses will last forever too because of the effort and just the opportunity to get a chance. All right, number three on your list for mixing it up. Number three is thin it down. That one maybe isn't as intuitive. What does thin it down mean for a pheasant hunter strategically?
Someday I'm going to write a story, be it a Carp's Corner or a feature, but the theme, even the title just might be simply combat. And what I mean by that is I talk about often hellholes and we all know that's where the pheasants often are just by their nature, but also by hunting pressure. Especially late season in Aberdeen where Tony was on.
Yep. And this one has always been on my mind, but it never really crystallized until last year. And it was December and it was post to, it was after this hunt I described earlier where the friends and I get together and we often do the chaos hunt. And it was on my way home, public land.
South Dakota, not, not actually not that far for it in that North Central Aberdeen at Northeast North Central Aberdeen area. And Lark and I had hunted the morning away and it was just some of the most, the most beautiful spread of WPA land I'd ever seen. And I knew there were pheasants there and we did find one little pocket and we got a roost. We had one rooster from.
Speaker 1 (32:23.832)
pretty much in its very, it's December, but it was mild December, but it was cool enough that, you know, we just haunt and haunt and haunt. didn't bother the dog to be out. And we, but we had been hitting some of these on the verge of being hell hole spots, you know, the cattails, the big kosher spreads, you know, the thick stuff, the stuff you'd think in December. And, but I've seen it, I've seen it in October too. And it was lunch. was time for a break. And you know, it wasn't that far to get to the vehicle. And I could have hunted this seam of hard, tough, sort of icky cover back. And I said, screw it. We're going to go over these hills. And they, they, they looked like, they looked like where you would hunt. Prairie grouse. And so it's noon on a December day and we're coming across the last hill, 50 yards from the car. It's brome grass. 12 inches high and Lark just locks on point, just whips. And I'm like, and I thought, well, I better be ready. And, and I didn't quite believe it, but I knew I, I knew I had to. And lo and behold, great big rooster is out there in the brome on the middle of a December day at 35 degrees. Right. I don't know what I was doing coming back from feed or just decided, man, it's a pretty nice day. I'm just going to hang out here.
And it might have something to do with hunting pressure. well, hunters have been hammering those hell holes. I'm going to be up here. I was surprised enough that true to form, I missed the first shot, but I got it on the second. And then we had two roosters going back to the car and I'm like, that's pretty good. we know we got all afternoon to hunt, but sometimes they're not where you think they are. I also recall a time. This is Southwestern Minnesota in the Marshall area, very popular, Fezzan area. Good, good hunting, but highly pressured. And I spent a morning, this was late October, just hitting the hard stuff, the tough stuff and the cat tails and you know, just the birds knew the jig and, and once again, we're hunting back and I was trying to hunt some of these seams and brush lines and stuff like, like that. And I thought we're just going to.
Speaker 1 (34:48.524)
walk across these fields back. Same thing. and a little more, a little more natural that a bird might be out, but it's the same type of cover. You're like, there's never going to be a pheasant here. And she worked a bird and pointed it. And I'm sure that bird was like, crap. know, the jig is up. Why is this guy walk, why is this guy walking through in this dog where, where nobody ever bothers me. And, and so I like to thin it up and, and.
The jig is up.
Speaker 1 (35:18.27)
So don't pass up these areas that look a little too pleasant for birds, especially if you're not finding them in the hell holes and the hard stuff and give it a try. Because pheasants like light grass and they will be out there and you've just got to be there and give it a try. And it's not going to wear and tear your dog quite as much.
Oh, lo and behold, I often do it at the end of a swing when the dog is sort of tired. You know, it's like, yeah, let's, I'm sort of tired too. I'm ready for a break. That was, that was with that December one. was ready to sit down for an hour and, put my little stool out in the sun and eat some lunch and let the dog rest. Um, in the early fall, she'd be in the shade in December. She's laying, she'd lay in the sun and, and that's where we found it in that little brome grass, 50 yards from the vehicle. in your sorta time.
Speaker 2 (36:10.434)
You've alluded to a couple of variables here that would point a person to finding them in the thinner cover, at least in my opinion. Pheasants do quote unquote loaf. There is a loafing time, particularly when it's a nice day, even if it's a colder December day, but if the sun is out and it's midday and they've kind of gotten their feed.
they are not ready to go to roost. You know, that midday thinner cover, they capture a little bit of sun's energy on their feathers.
I said that that you're you nailed it. I'm sure that's what that bird was doing because we were about 120 yards from crop stubble at that point. And I'm, sure you're absolutely right. That bird had probably roosted in a little, a little thicker cover because pheasants won't roost in the cattails, they might not night roost in the cattails, but they might, and they might not roost where I found that bird, but I I'm sure you're a hundred percent right. mean, the, the, the night was probably.
18, 20 degrees and the day was 35 with a bluebird sun. And that rooster was like, I'm going to, he didn't think this, but biology told him, sit out in this sun and save yourself some calories and don't burn them up. And that's what he was doing out there.
But it's to your point, like, you know, if you're a bass angler, you figure out patterns where they're at today. Same is true with pheasant hunting. You know, you're hunting the hellholes. Like, where the heck are they? They're not here. Well, don't just keep hunting the hellholes. mix it up. Mix it up. Number three, thin it down. Number four, force the new in.
Speaker 2 (38:05.74)
This maybe is somewhat predictable, but it's almost one of those things we gotta, as bird hunters, remind ourselves over and over and over to force the new. Tell us why.
Well, we all, as we alluded to some song lyrics here, this one is, if all I wanted were memories, I'd rather drive a bus, Rick Nelson. And it's fun to hunt memories, but it's more fun to shoot birds. And it's to me, thrilling to find birds in new places that you don't know. And it's, there's a big tendency with all of us and I have it too.
You know, these spots, you have your milk run in a certain area and you, you hunt these spots that you've hunted for forever. We'll say for years and years and they're good, but sometimes cover changes subtly and the pheasants aren't there. Sometimes, cover changes subtly, like meaning it's, it's aging or something like that. And pheasants have specific desires and wants and needs for their habitat.
They also get pressured and good spots are good spots, especially public land and the birds get hunted a lot and they end up somewhere else. So what I like to do is, and I can't, I can't, I can't fake it and say, I always do this, but I'll often have a day and I'll say, I am not going to hunt what I call a milk run spot, a spot I know until I hunt somewhere else.
it, cause if you go to the milk run spot first, you might just say, yeah, this is good. I'm done or yeah, this paid off and you haven't added to your, your wealth, whether it's I'm holding my phone right now and looking at my own eyes and my dad, my pins. And to me it is. It is the, the, the hunt like that culminates when you, you put that pin on your thing. I got a rooster in this new place.
Speaker 1 (40:10.198)
And it also keeps you finding new places. Now what's your hit rate? One in three, maybe one in two, but that's worth it. And you're expanding your repertoire because your milk run spots are going to run out or something's going to happen. Somebody's going to be there hunting that day. So, or the birds aren't there that day, or it's becoming too brushy. Like, man, the birds used to be here 10 years ago. And I like to force the new. and find a new spot. you can, so that's macro, just like I've, I'm going to hunt a WMA or a WPA or a walk-in or whatever public land it might be, a place I've never hunted before. And it's, you need to do that to keep, keep some very, keep some spice in your present hunting life and to expand that milk run of spots. Cause your milk run is going to age out or run out or something.
So 100 % agree with that. think it's, correct me if you think this is off, but as a roughed grouse hunter, I believe they grasp that aging out quicker because it's more visual to see rough grouse habitat age out. You you're looking for those silver dollar size popl or aspen and as... the trees start to age out and get older and thicker and different species move in, the birds disappear and the habitat changes. it's like, all of a sudden it's not early successional habitat. It's a little harder to comprehend that when you're a pheasant hunter or a quail hunter. And visually, you have to remember, like, geez, there's a lot of brome here and it hasn't been burned or there's a lot of shrubs taken over. that's one thing that.
Just to keep in mind, you do need to recognize that habitat is constantly changing. And if you've been hunting these milk-grown spots for 10 years, things are likely changing. The other thing to your point about forcing something new, you learn at a faster rate, or we learn as hunters at a faster rate when we're experiencing brand new places. You're teaching yourself.
Speaker 2 (42:36.44)
the trial and error of experiencing something new in your habitat, right?
And you're not hunting the memories. mean, you're, coming over this hill. I'm thinking of a specific spot in far Western Minnesota. And I'll say a spot I have in mind in Eastern South Dakota too, that it, you come over a hill and you go, I've shot two pheasants in this, in this coolie in this, in this draw before. And they aren't there today. And you're like, crap. Well, maybe there's a reason that they're not there. And I also. And another reason to force the new is sometimes you run a spot runs out and you don't hit it. And then it's good to come back to it see what happened. I have in particular in mind a place that this is probably five, six years ago now, a favorite spot. We came, was a couple of weeks into pheasant season. It was just grazed at the hilt. It was just barren and it's like, crap. And, I.
I looked at it and thought, God dang, this is going to be good again. And then the next year, pretty good. Three years after, wow. Three, four years, still good. And then it starts aging again. And we're like, and I'm like, let's, let's get those cattle back out here. So yeah, really important to keep in it vibrant.
Speaker 1 (44:01.9)
And so look for that management too. And if you had a spot and it sort of aged out or it's like, you know, do some research and that can be as simple as in your vehicle and drive by it and say, wow, they burn, they must've burned this is here. This is looking good. that's why, you know, pheasant habitat and the mission is to create new places for pheasants. But part of the pheasants forever mission is to reinvigorate places that need it.
And, you know, lot of our game and fish departments do that wonderfully. I think in particular of Iowa, which I think has, does a stellar job managing their public lands in this fashion.
all right, we're going to go to number five. Before that, you brought up one of your favorite tools and number of times. Onyx is also a proud sponsor, well, national sponsor of the organization and a partner of on the wing podcast. If you're a bird on her chances are you're already using the Onyx app and you should be, Onyx supports the conservation and hunter access of our organization.
They have donated millions of dollars to open up more than 390,000 acres across 26 states. We're proud to partner with ONNX on the PATH program, Public Access to Habitat program, which has already opened up more than 100,000 acres of high quality habitat and private lands in South Dakota and Nebraska and new this year in North Dakota.
and in Oklahoma. Onyx is helping to make real boots on the ground impact. If you want the best tool in your pocket, in your game vest, go to the show notes, you'll find an Onyx Hunt link. And if you use the code PFQF, you can get 20 % off your membership at Onyx. If you're not already a member, please do so.
Speaker 2 (46:11.5)
They are a fabulous partner of ours. All right, Carp, number five, and don't forget to tell people where they can find the entire article that goes with this podcast as well. But number five, make an adventure. The look for this story in the and you'll hear some of what we echoed in here. You'll see a lot of the word, you know, you've heard a lot of the words that I don't that don't need to be in the story, but it's in the fall issue of Fuzzans Forever Journal should be in your mailbox very soon after you after you hear this podcast. If you want to join and you if you join at this point, you won't be on the list because that list is already sent out for that magazine.
But give me a drop me an email at tcarpenter [at] pheasantsforever.org and say, heard the podcast I joined, give me that, give me that fall issue. Cause there's a lot, there's a lot, there's a lot of additional great, it's the pheasant hunting issue. And if you're new to getting into pheasant hunting or you just love pheasant hunting and you have for your lifetime, there's, this magazine is for all the above and you're going to want to see this, this issue.
So make an adventure and this sort of harkens back to, force the new and that is try something new in the, in the sense that, you know, I, I hunt pheasants in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota is my core. I get to North Dakota every once in a while.
I've been out West a lot, I, and I have to practice what I preach here, but I've always found great satisfaction. I forced the newest sort of a micro tip, like the places you go, the regions you like to hunt, dig out new spots, make an adventure is go somewhere totally new. If you've never been to Montana, peasant hunting is different there. If you've never been.
Speaker 1 (48:27.68)
out in Idaho or a place like that or Eastern Washington. Southern Kansas, yeah, a lot of people don't think of Kansas. mean, great pheasant hunting, but it's a long trip for many people. They, they stopped short in Iowa, the Dakotas, know, Kansas, if you've never been to Nebraska. I don't, I also say this and people don't listen, but if you never come to Minnesota for a pub as a non-resident, Northern Kansas.
Speaker 1 (48:57.016)
Come try Minnesota, millions of acres, hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in birds and over the counter license. You don't have to pick a time period. so try somewhere new, try somewhere different, make it, it's an, it's an adventure and it, it just adds to your total pheasant hunting life to hunt them in new places. I've, I've hunted them virtually, you know, everywhere across the core range and much of the fringe and some of it not much and I'd like to go back and there are a few places I've not been and I'd like to go there too and it doesn't have to be come an every year thing but it wouldn't be pretty cool to say I finally went to Montana and man was it different. The covers not as sick but then you got the know it's Montana is as varied as, and we're just sort of using that as an example, but what a hoot it would be to go out and do something different. Go to North Dakota, Western North Dakota, if you've ever been there. Go to a different part of South Dakota, head up to Northwestern South Dakota where you might get some prairie grouse, but you can, you could do it both, you know, and hunt these areas where, you know, pheasant hunting is very bucolic. I'm in farmland. There's a farm over every hill. It's beautiful.
But you can get to places where it's just, call it wild ass. It's like, yeah, there's pheasants out here in the middle of nowhere too. know, two, three miles, excuse me, two, three miles from a crop field. It's like, wow, what kind of a rogue bird is this? So make an adventure, try something new. Don't, don't wait. because we all know our time is limited and you never know when. that adventure is just going to be out of your reach.
Speaker 2 (50:53.888)
Or unexpected. What I'm thinking about when I say unexpected is, if I recall correctly, so you've been editor of the Pheasants Forever Journal for eight years, seven years? Coming on eight. Coming on eight, okay. My memory is that the number one trip you came back from where you're like, saw more birds on this trip than anywhere else, I want to say was Illinois. Yeah. I mean, I would say not anywhere else, but as many as I've seen in some great places in both Dakotas and Western Minnesota and Northwestern and in many places of Iowa. And it was like unbelievable how many birds were there in Illinois. And I actually, I didn't get one of those birds mounted, but I have a special mount, my friend there, Mike Bly did. father of Jason Bly, he was a, call him Jason, the Prairie Papa. He's the guy I go to and I'm like, what the heck is this plan? You know what he, and they're, they're that type of Prairie freaks. call them and yeah, Illinois. now you're probably going to have to get some, some friends in. There's not a lot of public opportunity there. is some via, you know, limited entry day pass draw hunts on the public lands, but yeah, Illinois and, Indiana has some decent hunting too, if you're, if you're down that direction, especially with our great PF crew and some of their work they're doing there and on quail too, by the way, in Indiana, but, just make an adventure and, and hunt this bird that you hunt at home, whether home is Iowa or Minnesota, or maybe you're in Eastern South Dakota, or maybe you travel in from Illinois or Indiana or Ohio. And you come to these places, why not go a state farther, try Montana, get up to North Dakota and just say, yeah, I've hunted pheasants in Montana, North Dakota, Illinois, Northeastern Colorado seemed to bounce up a little bit this year. It's been tough out there with drought. Kansas had a little more rain. And by the way, you can go hunt them in January and some like in Kansas.
Speaker 2 (53:12.354)
You brought up Montana like 16 times. Are you going to Montana?
No, but I'm planting the seed, probably before my, I want to get that back out. I'm going to figure out a Montana over the next. Montana is a special place. Bird Hunter, you may not think of Montana. You think about Big Game and the Rockies, but if you're a bird hunter, you gotta get to Montana at some point. And I'm not, I'm not a Montana expert, that, that, that's probably, probably what I'm planting the seed in my own heart here is okay, got, got to my ass back into Montana and, and hunt those birds and that diff, it's just different. I mean, just think about walking in the shadow of the foothills of the Rockies. You never know if it's going to be a great big old rooster longtail or a cove of huns or cove of sharpies or heck, know, who knows? You know, it's just a fabulous place to go bird.
Speaker 1 (54:11.064)
So that's not a tactical tip, but it's just life advice, life insight, just do it. Experience something new. Make an adventure. right. So as we round third and head towards home, I was thinking about, you've been on, you've probably been on more podcasts than anybody else. And I've never asked you this question. It was kind of the foundational question. The close for the opening day film that the second iteration of opening day film that I just put together with my family, opening day in Michigan. I don't, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 1 (54:35.234)
What are you trying to analyze? In the close is, you know, you have, at the end of the podcast, I often ask folks, you got one final hunt to go on anywhere with anyone. What are you going to hunt? What bird? What place? And I don't think I've ever asked you that. So today I am. What's, you got one hunt anywhere for any bird with anyone. What's the Tom Carpenter answer? I knew I, and I've been thinking about this. So this, and I haven't come up with a real answer. So I'm going to have to take it off the cuff here and I might be punting a little bit. But if you asked me right now, coming off three weeks of Prairie Grouse hunting, I'd probably tell you a sharp tail hunt. If you asked me, December, after hearkening back to our. I just got tingly hearing about 28,000 steps and then a rooster at the end of the day. mean, I can't remember our listeners name, but that makes me tingle. Um, so you're asking me this question, as I said, coming off Prairie Growsome addiction season, but I'm heading into pheasant addiction season.
Speaker 1 (56:13.262)
I would say it would be, I'll probably have to. You've hit a hard one. Okay. So I'm going to tell you this. Okay. I love pheasants. Everybody knows that. I love sharp tail grouse. Everybody knows that. I've just come off a prairie chicken hunt. I came, I wrote a text to my, we had lunch with my friend Ross higher up in Northwestern Minnesota. responsible for so much of the great things that have happened with grasslands up in that corner of the state. And Lark and I were taking a break on one of these warm mornings. was getting to the end of the morning and we're sitting below one of those little red bushes out in the prairie and she was in the shade panting and cooling off. And I'm like, we just got to sit here half an hour and Ross had texted me and I texted him back and it was a long, long text. was almost like writing a story because I was like, I don't have nothing to do. It's one of my best, one of my great friends that I've just developed over the last few years. And I was prairie chicken hunting at the time and they are so special. They are sort of the barometer of grasslands in our country from where all the range they used to be. where they're constricted to now, little corner where I hunt in Minnesota, central South Dakota, part of Nebraska, and into Kansas. And I just, and I wrote a line and I thought, I'll probably use this in a story sometime. And I wrote, if, if sharp-tailed grouse are my true love, prairie chickens are my lover. And so I'm going to tell you right now, I do a prairie chicken hunt.
Speaker 1 (58:11.298)
because of the extreme challenges they're having related to our national grasslands, national grasslands, meaning grass in our country. I would hunt prairie chickens. I'd do it alone with my dog. It'd be a late afternoon. It'd be beautiful short grass. now sidebar, I'd be, I'm hard pressed and some people would probably hear me surprised to say prairie chickens, but.
Pheasant hunting is often like combat and hunting grouse, prairie grouse is like a tea party. It's pleasant. And I've done enough hellhole stuff in my life. I've recovered from duck hunting addictions. I've recovered from big game hunting. I've recovered from many things, but I don't ever want to recover from prairie grouse hunting. So at this moment in time, at this moment in time, I'd say. give me a lonely hill and short grass and some prairie grouse up ahead. And I love sharp tails most, but the prairie chickens are something special and I do that. I love it. I would venture to guess you're the first person to ever compare prairie chicken hunting to a tea party.
Speaker 1 (59:34.734)
I just say that in the sense, sometimes you get done pheasant hunting and I think of December pheasant hunting and I think the best part of the hunt is when you're done at the end of the day and you're in a restaurant having a meal or where you're sitting around with your friends at camp and you're cooking, you've had something in the crock pot all afternoon and you come in and the birds are clean, then you happen to get, and you're like, oh my God, I conquered it. that I know.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04.568)
Prairie growl signing, you do have to do the conquering, it's just not as tough on. Oh yeah, with pheasant opener coming up here as we record it, we're about 10 days away from the Minnesota opener. And I know there are muscles in my legs that are not been used, right? Because there are different muscles, rough grouse hunting through the forest, there are different muscles and endurance that you need to chase sharpies up and down the prairie. It's that, you know, the grass that's... grabbing you in the hip flexors. Bull rushing through bull rushes. Yeah, it's pheasant hunting is a different level of exertion and get ready for it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:48.962)
Now ask me that question in November and I'd probably say, give me a golden hour. So I punt, I'm punting a little bit, but I committed. do you like that?
I like it. Either way, thank you for listening. Thanks to Pheasants Forever Journal editor, Tom Carpenter of Terrific Story. Mix it up and you'll find it in the fall edition of the Pheasants Forever Journal. But either way, no matter what you're chasing, I'm Bob St. Pierre to remind you to always... Follow them. Something good will rise, folks. Thanks for listening.