I don't even have live animals showing up at my feeders today on camera. I think they are popsicles.

Didn't you watch the news? We all dead out here cause of this cold…

Well, I'm not one for a "going live" post but I did get out. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because the action happened too fast to post, I was too busy missing birds, and cell service was spotty.

Backstory: my brother and I had originally planned to hunt with a buddy about 85 miles south east of where I live. When the weather folks started calling for the winter storm of the century and a -23 wind chill, everyone started to chicken out. I proceeded to accuse everyone in the snapchat group of being a bunch of pvssies, as Im the oldest one of the bunch and I catch hell for being old. (all in good fun) So that plan got scratched. Like everyone, I was fully prepared to hunker down and ride out the storm of the century in the house, and send out snowpocalypse updates via Snapchat.

Saturday morning I started my cheese chicken and veggie casserole in the crockpot. By about midday Saturday it became evident the winter storm of the century was going to be nothing more than the dusting of the decade.



My brother calls and asks if I want to go hunting with him and some of his buddies out west. I can't say no at this point as earlier in the week I was talking chit on everyone for not getting out on a day when we don't have to worry about stepping on rattlesnakes and the dogs getting bit, which was a legit concern a month ago. I agreed to go, and gave the state a few hours to get what dry fluffy snow we got cleared off US hwy 54 so I could make the 130 mile trip southwest to my brother's place. Loaded the crockpot up and let the casserole finish on the way out.



We got a late start Sunday so it could warm up some. German shorthairs are not built for the extreme cold. It was about 10 degrees and fairly calm when we started. It made it clear up to 22 degrees, which made us want to shed some layers. Theres nothing like the feeling of your nose and feet freezing but sweating at the same time. The guys we were hunting with are hard core. They broke out the snow camo pickups. The pheasants never saw us coming.



We drove all over western Kansas hitting their hotspots, we even shot a few birds in the mountain time zone. I've done a lot of pheasant hunting in the lean and good times. I've seen years when we felt like we were covered in birds, but I have never seen this many birds, ever. We hit a lot of abandoned farmsteads that were overgrown in weeds and surrounded by wheat fields where the roosters would flush like coveys of quail. It was nothing for 30 birds to get up at once, and it happened over and over. These are all wild birds, not pen raised like they like to do around where I live. We had 6 guys and everyone got their limit of 4 roosters in about 4 hours of hunting. My feet were wet and so cold that I couldn't feel my toes but it was a blast. 2 of the guys had family obligations so they took their birds and left before we could get a picture, so we show the remaining 4 limits plus a few quail here.

Username checks out!

Thank you for the best hunting post in a long time!

Good thread! Makes me cold just looking at the pictures.

El Gato Charro said:

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Username checks out!

Thank you for the best hunting post in a long time!

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I did send out Snapchat updates during the day. The first one that morning was a picture of my brother, who is 9 years younger, letting the dogs out in the 1 degree weather to potty in the snow. The caption was "He wanted to get the ptarmigan hunting experience that he missed out on in Alaska" since he was only 2 years old when we moved.

All jokes aside, he is a hard core hunter. He starts out in September for dove season, then in October hunting grouse in Montana, has hunted pheasant and quail every weekend since the season started in November except for the weekend he shot the Elk in Oklahoma, the weekend he shot buck in Kansas and the weekend we had our family Christmas. He will finish out bird season this weekend and next weekend he will start slaughtering coyotes at night. His whole fall and winter schedule revolves around hunting.