This is the week 7 recap for the 2025 Pheasant Hunting season. I did a two day solo trip to Iowa. The big question mark while planning this trip was the weather.
I was comparing forecasts from three different weather apps. My “go-to” weather app has been “Weather Underground” but I looked at a couple others. Weather Underground called for rain Monday afternoon, possible rain Tuesday morning with gale force winds by noon. The other apps said Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning would just be cloudy. They all agreed on the wind. It turns out that Weather Underground was spot on.
November 24th - Iowa
I had a dentist appointment early Monday morning. So I got a later start than normal. I planned to stop at a field that was about 2 hours from home which still gave me over 3 hours to hunt.
I arrived at the field and it was cloudy with a moderate wind from the SW. We headed out into the field and Stella got birdy pretty quickly. She tracked for a while but then lost the track. We continued on and I flushed a hen. Then it started to rain. It rained the rest of the afternoon. Not heavy but steady rain. Pretty soon my pants and boots were soaked.
We walked an edge and saw nothing. Then we started making a pass through the center of the field. Stella started to get birdy and we found a couple of hens. I had a rooster wild flush ahead of me but out of range. We continued on and were close to the truck. Rather than bail, we turned back into the wind for one more loop.
Stella got interested a couple more times but we didn’t find any birds so then we started heading back. Stella was out a ways and went on point. I headed to where she was. When I was about 30 yards from her, a rooster flushed and flew left to right. I missed.
At this point it was getting colder and we were both wet so we headed back to the truck. I dried Stella off and loaded her into her kennel. I didn’t bother to change as we were about 30 minutes from the motel. Once in the motel it was just a matter of turning up the heat and getting things hung up to dry.
November 25th - Iowa
Tuesday morning started out with dense fog and almost no wind. All of the prairie grass was wet with big droplets of dew (See picture below). It was extremely quiet as we started hunting. It started to rain and the wind started to come up soon after we started. By the time we quit, the winds were in excess of 20 mph.
Stella was getting birdy but the birds were running. We didn’t see a bird for quite a while. We finally pushed some into shorter grass (18-24″). Stella started tracking and was zeroing in when a bunch of hens exploded. We continued working the short grass when she went on point. I got over to her, she relocated about 10 feet then locked up again. So, I moved in and a rooster flushed. I dropped it on my second shot. Immediately, another rooster flushed to my left followed by three more. I fired once at the second bird, missed and then stopped shooting. I didn’t want to deal with having two birds down at once when I was by myself. Stella retrieved the first bird and we were on the board.
This was about 10:30 and the wind was building. It was still raining and we were getting progressively wetter. We continued for another hour, saw a couple hens but no more roosters. By 11:30 the wind was really starting to pick up. So we headed back to the truck.
By the time we got back to the truck the wind was blowing 20 mph or more. I got Stella dried off and into her kennel. I dried off my gun, cleaned the bird, fed Stella and changed into dry clothes. The inside of the truck was a mess with wet clothes everywhere. We headed home. It rained the entire way. At least, I beat the snow.
Video
Another less than stellar video this week. On both days it was either cloudy or cloudy and raining. At times, there were raindrops on the camera lens. Other times, the camera was pointing down either because I had my hat pulled low or because the angle on my hat was off or both. Either way, the camera captured a lot of looking down and missed the bird I shot. It has been a tough year for video.
Lessons Learned
- Weather Underground was the most accurate weather app.
- Pyke lightweight pants are not waterproof. I knew that going in but discounted the impact. Nothing wrong with the pants, I just didn’t factor in the rain.
- Pyke medium weight pants are definitely more water resistant but will still get wet in tall, wet prairie grass and rain.
- The Pyke Tongass rain jacket worked perfectly.
- Day 1 – The birds were in the middle of the field, not near the edges.
- Getting good video clips in the rain is tough. Raindrops on the lens. Me pulling my hat down to protect my glasses and having the angle on the hat mount to low, all contributed to missing some good shots.
Summary
My week 7 recap may give the impression that it was a negative experience but in reality I was happy to be out. Overall, I got wet but that happens. We saw some birds, got to spend quality time outside and learned a few things.
