Tips for Late Season Pheasant Hunting

Late-season ringneck hunting isn’t as glorious as opening weekend. Gone are the early season’s young, short-tailed roosters that make up most hunters’ game bags. Long marches across tall grasses or freshly cut crop fields no longer result in dozens of flushes and easy shots for walkers and blockers alike. Rarely do birds hold for solid points, allowing that classic upland experience to unfold for solo hunters. 

Instead, birds have been pressured hard, and many of the naive young-of-the-year birds have been harvested. Birds abandoned short cover and crop fields due to winter weather conditions and holed up in thick grass, cattail sloughs, and woody windbreaks for protection. Additionally, due to heavy hunting pressure, roosters are prone to run from approaching hunters or flush too far away for an ethical shot. 

This all sounds discouraging, right? Even so, my favorite time to hunt pheasants, besides the first two opening weeks, is the late season. While it’s not easy, pheasant hunting late in the year can be wildly successful.