Follow along on a dogless prairie chicken hunt in Nebraska. This was early in a 5 day prairie chicken hunt in Nebraska and South Dakota. It was my first attempt at a combo of 3 chickens and a fall turkey. The previous "Double Limit of Prairie Chickens" episode, was two days after this hunt. If these two episodes don't convince you to get after prairie chickens, I feel bad for your dogs.
Follow along on a dogless prairie chicken hunt in Nebraska. This was early in a 5 day prairie chicken hunt in Nebraska and South Dakota. It was my first attempt at a combo of 3 chickens and a fall turkey. The previous "Double Limit of Prairie Chickens" episode, was two days after this hunt. If these two episodes don't convince you to get after prairie chickens, I feel bad for your dogs.
PRAIRIE CHICKEN & FALL TURKEY
September 17, 2009
I don’t understand you guys. I’ve looked through my podcast downloads and you guys don’t seem to be too interested in prairie chickens. Prairie chickens are as iconic as ruffed grouse, sharptails and the quails. Of course the only quail that gets much press is bob whites, which is another issue that’s difficult to understand. Hey, did I tell you guys that I’ve flushed two coveys of bobs in the Nebraska sandhills, a covey in central South Dakota, a couple coveys on both sides of the Iowa/Minnesota border and several in far northeastern Nebraska? I really want to take a combination limit of bob whites and prairie chickens. I guess that’s how I tie my tangent about quail into this episode. As long as we’re on tangents, I’m all geared up for the crappie spawn. For me, 14-16” crappie is the only fishing that rivals hunting. I really enjoy figuring out where the slabs are. I think I’d rather get into crappie than spring turkey. I got lime disease one year while turkey hunting and it about ruined my summer and spring turkey hunting.
Chaos and little Maybe are both in heat now, so I have to keep a close eye on their whereabouts. If it would ever dries out around here, I’ll start getting them some field work. That’s one good thing about this part of Iowa, a guy sure doesn’t have to worry about disturbing any nesting pheasants.
Hello, I’m Randy Shepard, and welcome to My Dog Hunts podcast. Please give yourself a pat on the back for listening to the only podcast that I subscribe to!
I can’t believe I never published this story. It’s kinda short so I think I’ll expand on it with more opinion regarding prairie chicken hunting.
I gave myself seven days. I hadn’t attempted to take any new upland bird dual limits in nearly 10 years. As Critter aged, I began hunting coyotes and deer more and birds less. Our hunts were recreational. We still shot a lot of birds together, but I didn’t feel like pushing her that hard anymore. Then after she died in 2003 I hunted prairie grouse every season and shot a few pheasants on the side, but I was doing a lot more deer and coyote hunting.
I got married in 2005 and continued deer, turkey and coyote hunting with an occasional prairie grouse hunt. I had explained bird hunting, dual limits and dogs to my wife, but I just wasn’t yet ready, for another dog. Then in 2009, I realized that having not finished taking dual limits was eating away at me. I was getting older and while Midwestern dual limits weren’t particularly physically demanding expanding to western states chukar, Hungarian partridge and mountain grouse would be. I understood that it might take me 10 years or more to finish the doable mid-western duals and by then I’d be near retirement and likely at an age that higher elevation dual limits might not be possible. I knew then that I needed and wanted, a bird dog. I don’t mind painting myself into a corner with my wants. I told my wife that I was heading to Nebraska and South Dakota to attempt any of three different dual limits including prairie chickens. That if I could claim at least one new dual limit in 7 days, I was going to get either a Lab or Springer pup and seriously pursue dual limits.
Most hunters might be surprised that I would choose prairie chickens for a dogless, dual limit hunt. Or believe that I would be pass shooting chickens. I don’t pass shoot chickens. In spite of what you may have read, I have been able to successfully and predictably walk up both prairie chickens and sharp-tail grouse without a dog, even into December. And as highlighted in my previous dual limit podcasts, I’ve many times shot a double limit of sharp-tails while hunting dogless.
I would be happy with any one of three different possibilities, I had never taken before:
Prairie Chicken & Doves
Prairie Chicken & Fall Turkey
Prairie Chicken & Prairie Chicken
Of the three, prairie chicken and fall turkey should be the easiest. Just shoot a limit of chickens and take a break from real hunting and shoot a turkey. However, only marginal turkey habitat runs parallel to chicken habitat, so I knew there would be some driving involved. I also knew that the central Nebraska Sandhills, was not the place to try this. I needed to find new chicken ground.
Believe me, there is anxiety in attempting dual limits but I believe that anxiety accompanies most worthwhile endeavors or they wouldn’t be challenging or worthwhile.
The anxiety of fall turkey is the bag limit and the fact that it’s far easier in my experience to shoot a prairie fall turkey, during the morning feeding period than later in the day. If you know where they roosted, you have a very good chance of finding them in the morning. They can roam an awful lot during the day. Just catch them out feeding the morning before and you can count on them being in the same field, at the same time, provided they don’t change roosts, and aren’t disturbed before they get there.
The problem with a.m. fall turkey is that you need a primary plan, a backup plan for your primary plan and a plan B. As I’ve mentioned earlier, shooting a turkey first means you absolutely have to shoot another limit of something that same day, or you just threw that turkey tag away. There are no byes or carryovers.
If I was going to shoot a limit of chickens with a turkey, I needed two areas that I could expect to shoot a limit of chickens, not just one. Then another plan in case chickens didn’t work. You can’t mess around with turkey tags.
The state of Nebraska had become a kinder, gentler place, for fall turkey hunters. They now allowed two fall turkey tags per license. It seemed that I could make one mistake.
It was hot at home and I traveled in shorts and deck shoes. I stopped at the Nebraska Game and Parks regional office in Basset and talked to Prairie Grouse Biologist Bill. (These guys are your friends. Internet forum scouting is bad, game department scouting is good.) Bill cautioned me that the prairie grouse hatch was marginal and I was still hunting a little too far west for dependable prairie chicken numbers. I would have to sort through a lot of sharp-tails in this area.
I was slightly disappointed with the forecast but still eager to start hunting. Maybe a little too eager. It was past noon and I just couldn’t waste hunting time changing clothes so I stuffed shells in the pockets of my Carhartt work shorts and assaulted the first piece of CRP Map ground in shorts, deck shoes and no socks. You’d think that an adult would know better.
I certainly proved that all adults didn’t know better. Four hours later, I was back at my truck with my legs looking like I just took them off and drug them down a gravel road. But….I did have a three-bird limit of just prairie chickens as suave.
I have to tell you about that hunt. I chose a two mile section with three, CRP center pivots. I started on the south edge with a tall bordering pasture. I started from the east because the wind was westerly. Remember, hunt prairie grouse with the wind at your back.
First you have to realize that western CRP isn’t the tall, thick cover, that wetter, eastern Nebraska and Iowa CRP are. Western grass is bunch grass. Bunch grass has the majority of it’s root system at ground level. This allows the plant to absorb moisture quickly, before it seeps into the sandy soil. Since it grows in clumps rather than a blanket, there’s enough open ground and visibility for prairie grouse. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m particularly alert when I crest any rise in elevation. Most of the time sharptails and chickens will be loafing on the downwind side. Even if there’s only a slight breeze.
At the second rise, a chicken flushed wild from the adjoining pasture and several more, nearer and to my left. It’s a comforting feeling when you pick out a field from home, and flush birds within sight of your rig. I said nearer, but not close. I only had a shot at the slowest bird, but I hit him well.
I was a mile deep, rounding the second pivot before I flushed another group. There were nearly a dozen chickens but again they flushed on the edge of range. I missed with my first shot, then a single flushed nearer. You can expect, that most of the time, prairie grouse will flush like popcorn and occasionally, much delayed. Hustle to the location of a wild flushing covey and especially in the early season may be rewarded with a shootable bird. This was an easy crossing shot, resulting in a refreshing puff of feathers and a dead bird.
I was approaching the last decent looking cover in the third pivot. I always slow my pace and wander a bit when I know I don’t have time to relocate. I didn’t want to walk by a bird in this field. I was also looking toward a bowl near the center of this pivot that I would turn to once I met the road. That’s when another large flock flushed. Most of them out of range as I was now working with the breeze in my face. Too far, too far there’s one I could try. I shot three times as fast as I could pump with both the second and third shot causing the bird to flinch. The breeze had turned much cooler, blowing in a gray sky. The bird was well behind the rest of the flock flying high over mowed hay ground. Fall, fall, fall. And he did. Folded up and came crashing down near a clump of round hay bales several hundred yards out. I could see a puff of feathers when it hit the ground and barely make out a little white spot. It was the first prairie grouse out of hundreds that I’d shot that towered.
I love the feeling of ejecting the shells from my gun and walking back to the truck with a limit of birds.
It was nice walking in the cut hay ground. Shin splints were a massage in comparison to the raw, burning scratches covering my lower legs. I wouldn’t be repeating this time saving measure again.
We all realize that everything in the quail deserts and most things in the ruffed grouse woods, scratch, tear and puncture even protected parts of your body. But even in the benign prairie, everything can be hard on bare skin. There’s prickly pear, poison ivy, yucca spikes, rose hips, sand cherries and sand burs to wear down your epidermal.
For the rest of the hunt, I wore my 9” Bean boots with a pair of wool socks rolled over the top, and shorts. That was the most comfortable hot weather outfit I’ve ever tried.
That August, I convinced my wife that a used Weatherby Patrician I’d found on the Internet would be an extremely thoughtful birthday gift. Especially so if gifted a couple months early. How could she resist?
It was a replacement. I still had a Weatherby Patrician I bought in 1973 with my first adult pay check. I shot thousands of clay pigeons and hundreds of birds with that gun. It wasn’t an expensive gun and certainly not a collector’s gun so it wasn’t surprising that I simply shot it out. I did find some replacement parts for it but the old girl required more internal organs than were available.
I had been shooting a Belgium Browning Superposed for many years and that gun accounted for most of my dual limits, but I was tired of being restricted to just two shots and hated to think about how many more dual limits I might have taken if I hadn’t handicapped myself with a double barrel.
My Birthday gun came with a 28” modified barrel which I quickly replaced with a 24” cylinder bore barrel I had modified from a 30” full choke when I bought the original gun. There were no “choke tubes” in those days, so I bought a replacement 28” full choke barrel for duck hunting. I might add, there was no Iowa turkey hunting in those days either.
Guns are my tools and although I love highly figured walnut and blued steel, you wouldn’t know it from the condition of my guns. The ruffed grouse woods nearly stripped the finish from my old Weatherby and severely altered the outward appearance of the Superposed as well. Hunting ruffed grouse south of Interstate 90 in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa was not a logging road stroll. We hunted steep, rocky side hills and took falls that would make any western states chukar hunter proud. And our guns looked it. The vented rib on my Weatherby looking like a roller coaster and I had an apple twig for a front sight for years. I remember I had shot a five bird limit of ‘ruffs in Minnesota and was hunting a piece of public in Iowa when I noticed that my front bead sight was missing. I snapped a twig off an apple tree, twisted it into the hole, and it’s till there to this day. I had forgotten about it and was shooting skeet when a friend asked what that was on my barrel. Many shooting instructors say that you shouldn’t “see” your barrel sight, I did not.
I saw few mourning doves that day so elected to move to the Nebraska National Forest that evening. I had shot several limits of doves and many prairie chickens there in the past and hoped I could possibly find a turkey as well.
Apparently there had been a severe hail storm in the area that summer. There were few sharp-tails and even fewer chickens. I saw one chicken fly across a two track before I started hunting and flushed three sharp-tails which I refused, before 8:00 a.m.. Those were the last prairie grouse I saw that day. I chatted with a few hunters who reported similar or worse results so I decided to sit on a water hole at dusk and hope for a few doves to make the drive worthwhile.
Numbers of prairie doves are not easy to find in the Sandhills, but I had shot a few “near” limits and finished out a combination limit of sharp-tails and doves at this waterhole a few years earlier. In keeping with the rest of the day, the pasture with the one good dove attractant was in rotation. There were no cattle and the windmill was locked off. No ground water, no trampled weeds and no doves. I slept on my cot under the stars planning to drive back to the my chicken area in the morning.
It’s said that the Sandhills are the second best place to view stars in the US and it would be hard to argue that point. I was sleeping with my head in a bowl of them. At daylight, I folded my bag loosely, planning to lay it out to dry later in the day. Without a breeze to dry things off, the fall dew was heavy. You do not want a milldewy sleeping bag.
I had plenty of time on the road to plan my day as I waited for flag men and pilot cars. I decided to pass by Calamus Reservoir on my way northeast. I had never been there and other hunters had mentioned that it used to be good grouse and turkey hunting.
It was still early when I stopped at the park office. There was a flock of semi-domesticated turkey in the parking lot. I entertained a poacher’s plan of dispersing these birds into an area open to hunting and achieving vengeance for unfilled Nebraska fall turkey tags in my past, when a boat towing pickup dispersed them for me.
I drove the north road back west, searching for a turkey, or grouse hunting area. I stopped in a mid-lake parking area and walked some pasture and trees kinda in between chicken and turkey habitat. The grass was too thick and tall and the trees to thin for either bird. I moved closer to the lake in heavier trees but the heavy dew constantly dripping down my neck every time I ducked under branches convinced me that there were better ways to spend the mourning. Like glassing for turkey from the road.
Finally, I saw a flock of turkey feeding on public land. This was a Wednesday and just the second day of the fall season so I was hopeful that no one would be bothering these birds until the weekend. I slipped into a finger of trees and found their roost. When I peeked out, they had left the field. I had possibly spooked them but I was still certain that they’d be back tomorrow and I’d be waiting for them.
I felt better about what a few minutes ago had felt like wasted driving. My fall turkey was virtually assured. Now I had to locate more chicken ground.
I decided to re-work some CRP that I had partially hunted a couple days ago. I didn‘t move any birds there then, but the cover had been thin so I only hunted about half of it. I decided to start in from the northeast corner and see if that was any better.
I loaded up the old Weatherby with 1-¼ ounces of 7-½’s and headed out in my silly boots and shorts. It was towards the center of the section that I got into birds. The cover was heavier here, along a shallow drainage, with small pockets of plum thickets.
I was surprised to not get into birds right away as the cover was good. Then finally as I neared a bend the first sharp-tails flushed a little wild, then more, in easy range. They didn’t fly far indicating they were juvenile birds. Soon I was into more grouse and my patience for chickens was wearing thin.
Then a pair of grouse flushed and flew crossing at 25 yards. I convinced myself that after all the driving, a little transgression would be good for my soul, and I shot a single. As I was retrieving the bird, I saw another single fly into a plum thicket, on a small bank, about 100 yards away.
I circled to a rise, approaching from above, and the grouse took flight below me and straight away. I thought I hit it well, but it continued to sail and land about 70 yards away in a small patch of tall grass. All the while, more grouse erupted from the thicket during those moments. They weren’t flying far, landing near another thicket just ahead. I knew my hunting was going to be over soon enough and I let them fly.
As I neared the crippled grouse it flushed wild, flew about 10 yards and died in mid-flight. That was easy enough.
With two grouse on my belt, I continued along the drainage and soon another pair flushed in range of my cylinder bore 12. I shot one of the pair, retrieved the pretty, near-white bird and left the section quietly. I didn’t want to disturb the birds anymore than necessary. This could be a Plan B later in the week if I had a problem finding more chickens.
It was just mid-afternoon so I drove back to Calamus to see if I could locate and possibly shoot a turkey before dark. I stopped along the way to take a couple pictures of my limit and clean the bird cavities. Just as I approached my intended turn off, a pickup with two camo’ed hunters pulled in ahead of me. It seemed that I wasn’t the only public land hunter after a turkey and this one had a guide. I didn’t see a camera man so don’t anticipate seeing this hunt on The Outdoor Channel. This made me question whether there’s more to killing a fall turkey than the see and shoot hunts I was used to in Iowa.
I drove another mile down the road and entered the river bottom timber. The cover was thick, and the mosquitoes thicker, but I toughed it out till near dark. I had a doe whitetail with her yearling feeding within 30 yards and could hear turkey chattering all around me, but with all the greenery, I couldn’t see a bird. There were jakes practice gobbling and hens clucking within range of my 10 gauge, but I just couldn’t see them. I didn’t hear a shot from the other hunters who were near the roost I located that mourning, so I was still confident for tomorrow.
I spent the night again at the little road side park stoking my confidence for tomorrow as I lay listening to prairie night sounds. There was the field I took a limit of chickens in three days ago and the grouse field that I left largely undisturbed today. Many years ago with Critter, I shot a limit of sharptails, pheasants and a fall turkey in South Dakota. A friend informed me that I could count the turkey and either pheasants or grouse as a combo limit, but not both. He sure was picky about an activity that he didn’t engage in. But he was right and it was okay with me. I knew that one day I would have another opportunity at one or the other and would make things right. Today could have been it, or maybe even tomorrow if I couldn’t find chickens.
I parked my pickup at first light and walked a shelterbelt alongside the dove field I had seen the turkey in yesterday morning. The roost trees were on the other side, so I knew I wouldn’t disturb them moving in. The sandburs were thick and it took some time to pick them from my clothes and arm’s length of my chosen hide. I was backed against a cedar tree with a good view of the cut field and pretty good view of an uncut field beside me. I estimated that it was about 50 yards across the cut field, so I was confident that I could shoot full width if I had to with my Ithaca Mag 10. I was loaded with 2-¼ ounces of copper-plated lead 6’s. Pretty devastating stuff out of a 32” full choked waterfowl barrel.
It was pretty quiet, so I busied myself pruning branches and weeds that might impede my shooting, when I had a McGyver moment. Realizing that a few more inches of elevation would make it easier to shoot over the weeds and that I’d be more comfortable with a hole for my feet, I began squirming around digging a sizeable hole in the soft sand with my fingers.
Finally with a nice hole for my feet and another 10”of height for a seat, I began studying grasshoppers through my 10x40 binoculars. I noticed that they spent the night on the underside of leaves and as the sun warmed, they gradually maneuvered to the top side and shifted into the sun. I also realized that I needn’t have lathered up with mosquito repellant this morning as it was cool enough that there weren’t any around. Another reason to hunt a.m. over p.m. for early season turkey.
The mourning droned on as I scanned the field edge and as deep as I could into the timber. I don’t wear a watch but began placing countdown time barriers on how long I would wait. I do that when fishing with live bait. “I’ll count to 100 and if I don’t have a bite I’ll cast again.” Of course the time limit was determined by how good the location looked. I did the same thing with the number of casts while fishing artificials. Of course, I always lied to myself by counting fast, slow and not counting poor casts. I can’t believe I’m putting this in a book except to emphasize the degree of patience required from a bird hunter while waiting several hours for turkey that may not show up at all.
“Another hour and I’ll have to go scout some more. They should have been here by now, Oh, relax, this is a nice way to spend a mourning.”
Then glasses up, yes, those little black blobs down on the end of the field are turkey! Soon I could count fifteen birds. They seemed nervous at first, occasionally moving back into the brush, then fully committed, they quickly moved to the center of the field and nearer my hide.
They were now about 100 yards out, drifting my way and on my side of the field. I was planning shooting lanes as they would soon drop into a small depression and I wouldn’t see them again until they were 25 yards away.
When I next saw them they had shifted to the far side of the field but were still working towards my position. Then when most of the flock was within 75 yards, they again moved towards my side of the field. Now my problem was going to be enough separation between birds to not kill more than one with my shot. There were a lot of pellets in a 10 gauge load. I had turkey within 30 yards but grouped too tightly and three jakes to the right but none would raise it’s head. It almost seems silly to be so excited about shooting a fall turkey when the outcome is expected, but that’s the nature and nuance of hunting.
Finally, one of the jakes raised his head for a look see and the 10 gauge boomed. Then there’s that brief panic between the recoil and regained sight picture. Did I get him? Is he dead? The confirmation that you did it right. You are killing animals and for an honest man there should be a hint of remorse for what you’ve done, balanced by the knowledge that you did it right. In the natural world, there are two purposes for prey animals. One is propagation and the other is to feed predators. We are the predator.
As usual with fall turkey, some of the flock scattered while others ran a few feet and then resumed feeding. The entire flock was drifting away with the exception of a lone jake who putted, strutted, and pecked at his fallen brother. You get the impression they don’t really like each other that much.
Although I had a second tag, I had no desire to kill another turkey today. I watched as the jake noticed that the rest of the family had wandered off and he too left the field.
With even juvenile turkey, they are pretty birds and it’s impossible to carry a tagged bird over your shoulder without feeling a little pride.
I stowed my turkey in the bird box and stripped off the camo at 10:00 a.m. I was wearing my hot weather bird hunting outfit underneath and was ready for chicken hunting. I really don’t like them, but when it’s hot I’ll often fasten a leather bird strap on my belt and stuff shells in my pockets to avoid wearing a vest. I don’t even remotely resemble an advertiser’s version of an upland bird hunter, but I’m comfortable and I kill a lot more birds than their posers do.
I drove straight to my chicken field in the hope that no one else had hunted it this week. In hunting public access there’s always the haunting feeling that you’ll find a parked truck just where you wanted to hunt. Or worse, that someone else had already hunted and left and now you were unknowingly scratching for leftovers.
I walked one third of the field without flushing a bird, as I had the first day, but then I was into a lot of chickens in a small swale!
The first chicken was a single that I didn’t hit hard enough. I diligently searched for about five minutes while others flushed around me. Out of frustration I marked the fall with my hat and trotted to some higher ground where I could see just how many birds were leaving the field. Another chicken got up at 30 yards that I did hit hard. I quickly grabbed him up and when I saw no more wild flushes, I went back to look for the cripple. As I continued to search two more chickens flushed at about 40 yards. I was wondering what the odds were to have chickens left by the time I found the bird or gave up.
When I had trampled the grass into a matt, I still wandered around hoping to not lose this bird. After relinquishing the bird to the predator gods I again returned for a last effort and then resumed hunting. I checked my chamber and magazine for shells and crested a small hill to another draw. Two more chickens flushed out of range but three more very near. I made a clean double with two shots, convinced that neither of these birds was going anywhere.
I had an anxious moment as I recalled that the last bird had clucked as it flew. I was afraid I might have shot a sharp-tail. Clucking is a common trait of grouse. I had read that chickens occasionally cluck, but I had never heard it before. A sharp-tail would ruin this day.
Approaching the bird I couldn’t help but notice it had a white breast. Sharp-tail white. But it’s legs were yellow and it did have horizontal black bars, not v’s on it’s chest. I then laid all three birds together on the ground to compare them. The first two birds were indeed pure chicken but it appeared that the last bird was a sharp-tail chicken cross. I had read biologist reports of cross breeding but this was the first one I had seen. Light colored breast or not, it was chicken enough for me.
I was back at my truck at noon with a three-bird limit of chickens and a fall turkey. Although in reason this should have been as easy a combination limit as it was, it was usually the “easy” ones that haunted me for years. I had fully expected that out of the three possible dual limits this trip, chicken and turkey would have been the one I would get. But I’ve had some spectacular bird hunting seasons and still failed to take a single new dual limit so I was beyond taking any of them for granted.
The weather had been warm but I’ve never hesitated to hunt in hot weather. With or without a dog. When Critter was alive I hunted her early and late and hunted the hottest part of the day alone. There are those who say they wouldn’t bird hunt without a dog. That it just isn’t the same. I agree with them. Bird hunting without a dog isn’t the same. It’s more challenging, but just as rewarding, only in a more personal way.
When dogless, you do it all. And generally speaking it takes greater knowledge of birds and habitat to be successful without a dog. I love hunting with a dog as much as the next guy, but I love bird hunting too much to not hunt because I don’t have a dog or because it’s too inclement for a dog.
Upland birds can be ridiculously easy or impossible. You never know if the next step is going to put up a limit of birds or if you won’t see a bird all day. Or as in Kansas two years earlier when I hunted for five days without shooting s single bird. Savor the good days. Take from them everything that you can for there may not be another. Believe me one day the memories of those days will be more important to you than living them was
IN SEARCH OF CHICKENS
(And How Not to Shoot a Hen Pheasant)
For a bird hunter living in eastern Iowa, I’ve shot a lot of prairie chickens. I shot my first chicken in Nebraska in 1986, 37 years ago. The following year I shot chickens in all three major chicken states, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota.
I’m an odd sort, after a few years of prairie grouse hunting, I became species specific. I intentionally targeted just chickens or just sharptails in my bag. I not only had to immediately discern between juvenile pheasants and prairie grouse but also the more subtle differences between sharptails and chickens. I learned to notice subtleties in game bird flight and sound that most hunters could ignore. In all of the specific dual limits I’ve attempted, I have not once shot a sharptail that I thought was a chicken, vice versa, nor have I ever mistakenly shot a pheasant. If I can do this with my poor vision and hearing, so can you.
There’s really no excuse for confusing a hen pheasant for a prairie chicken. Prairie chickens are chocolate brown on the back and sides, blending to a gray breast with horizontal dark bars. The bars aren’t identifiable in flight but they do lend to a darker appearing breast. Hen pheasants on the other hand are medium brown all over with a yellowish tint to their breast. Prairie chickens have short rounded tails with a heavy, dark brown band across the tips. You may recall that early settlers referred to prairie chickens as “Square Tails” and “Yellow Legs”. Chickens do have yellow feet and fully feathered legs which pheasants do not have, but I doubt that you’ll notice that in flight. I hope you all realize that hen pheasants have pointed tails.
Pheasant broods in September will not even vaguely resemble chickens. Pheasants nest a couple of weeks later than prairie grouse and by September, young pheasants aren’t nearly as developed as juvenile grouse or chickens. Pheasant plumage is still mottled and they fly clumsily. September pheasant chicks flutter along for a few yards gradually losing momentum and altitude and clumsily crash land. There’s nothing controlled or graceful about a juvenile pheasant. Most juvenile roosters will be developing color that chickens never have.
If you flush a bird that is not a strong flier, Don’t Shoot! Even juvenile chickens are strong fliers from the first week of the season, juvenile pheasants are not.
In flight, the difference is much greater. Prairie chickens come up from cover at a steady rate, they don’t seem to accelerate like pheasants do. Also, chicken wing beats are deeper sounding, as all grouse are. Maybe you’ve noticed that pheasants have a metallic sound to their wing beat. In flight, prairie chickens see-saw, rocking gently back and forth as if they only have full power in one wing at a time. At more distant flushes, these tips may not be as helpful, but if the bird appears to be short, dark and stocky with an irregular flight, everything that a hen pheasant is not, it’s a chicken. I doubt if many of you will be hunting prairie chickens without first having a lot of experience with pheasants.
When hunting the early prairie grouse season in Western Nebraska and South Dakota, I never worried about shooting a hen pheasant. But as I transitioned to eastern Nebraska, pheasants became more of a reality. But I still expected to shoot on every flush. If you’re going to be a successful prairie grouse hunter, that’s how shooting is done.
As always, if in doubt, don’t shoot and if all this fails and you can‘t identify the bird in your hand, prairie chickens have dark meat.
Prairie Chickens South of Interstate 80
In the 1980’s I spent several seasons hunting pheasants and quail in southern Nebraska and North central Kansas. I lived on the state border for a year just to do more pheasant and quail hunting. I did most of my Kansas hunting with a friend, Larry, from Phillipsburg. On occasion we would cut across a cut milo field to a favored pheasant or quail draw and it seemed that invariably we would flush a prairie chicken or two. Of course, no one shot because we weren’t hunting yet. But the flush would invariably be met with a chorus of “Hey! That was a chicken!” as the bird sailed out of range.
I realize the accepted chicken hunting practice in Kansas is to post around a stubble field and pass shoot the birds flying in and out. My experience hunting chickens in Nebraska was that all of the chickens flying into a field for the mourning feed do not leave. There are some lazy chickens who negate the need to fly in and out for a morning and afternoon feed by spending the entire day in the stubble field. Those are the birds that pheasant hunters flush during mid-day.
My limited experience of pass shooting chickens, coupled with readings is that as an individual, it’s a waste of time. I have read many accounts and invariably a few members of the party get some shooting, many get none, and no one shoots the two-bird limit. If you’ve read the same writing I have, I’m sure you’ll agree. Pass shooting chickens can’t be the best way to hunt prairie chickens.
My friend Larry had a different twist. They didn’t hunt in groups. Usually just one or two guys would sit a field before they started after pheasants or quail. They didn’t post around the outside edge, they hunted chickens like ducks. They headed to the highest spot near the center of the field and sat in the stubble. It’s that simple. With a two bird per man daily bag limit, they shot a lot of limits of chickens before the sun was up.
I haven’t hunted Kansas for many years, but I plan to return in a couple of years to shoot a combination limit of chickens and bobwhite quail. For chickens, you’ll find me in the middle of a milo stubble field at day break and walking the same stubble in the afternoon if I’m short a bird.
The best advice I can give you when pheasant hunting in Northcentral Kansas is to forget about the roosters, they identify themselves. This area offers one of the best possibilities for a non-prairie grouse hunter to shoot his first prairie chicken. Don’t let it pass you buy because you don’t know what to look for. Expect to flush prairie chickens.
If a single brown bird flushes, expect it to be a chicken. In my stubble field hunting experience I’ve seldom flushed more than one or two chickens together during mid-day. You will need to abandon the initial, “Don’t shoot! It’s a hen mentality” and embrace a “Shoot that chicken!“ mentality. Shot refusal should come when the gun hits your shoulder. This gives you the added split second for positive identification. If you wait for identification and then raise your gun the chicken will likely be out of range and the opportunity lost. As a conscientious hunter, you will not accidentally shoot a hen pheasant, but you may intentionally shoot your first prairie chicken!
Let’s go shoot some Chickens!!