This was a nice point-and-flush on a tight-sitting bird in a public area late in the season. Photo by Larry Brown

By Larry Brown

Before Jim, Roy and I had even gotten a chance to dive into the cover behind Roy's house, we caught sight of two or three dozen pheasants dropping into the heavy grass. What more could three anxious pheasant hunters want?

Half an hour later, we had our answer: more-cooperative pheasants! We waded the head-high slough grass behind my veteran shorthair, Donner, and Jim's golden retriever, Rocky, but the birds had all the advantages in that cover. And they'd been hunted before. Although several hens would have offered shots, the hunter-wise roosters didn't stick around long enough for any of us to get in range.

From the slough behind the house, we headed across a bare soybean field and into a patch of Conservation Reserve Program grass around a pond. Jim and Roy took the "low road," while Donner and I worked the slope above the pond.

Donner hit scent along the edge of the tall switchgrass, and before long he was locked on point. This rooster had chosen good cover, but he flushed over the adjacent, open field, giving me a perfect shot. Donner scooped him up and headed back on the run.

As Donner and I started downhill to complete the pincer movement with Jim and Roy, who were coming around the bottom edge, a second rooster flushed wild. He was too far out, and I let him go. Then another flushed, heading over the CRP towards the hillside Donner and I had just worked. My shot connected, but the bird didn't drop. However, I had a pretty good line on him, and thought we stood a good chance of finding him later.

Meanwhile, Jim collected a bird that flushed off the low side of the cover. We met up and compared notes. I told them that I wanted to work back around and up the hillside to see if Donner could locate the cripple. About halfway up the hill, Donner skidded to a halt, pretty much on the line I'd seen my cripple follow. "Dead bird!" I told him. He dove into the cover and came out with the leg-busted rooster. When you get dog work like that, you know why it pays to feed them!

Donner's younger understudy, Dasher, got her chance next in a couple of nice CRP buffer strips near Jim's sister's house. We followed one waterway to the road. Right before we ran out of cover, Dash managed to corner a couple of birds with nice points. Unfortunately, both were hens.

The next buffer strip - another of the 6-foot high switchgrass variety -- did hold a rooster, but the wind was at our backs, and the dogs didn't scent the bird, which flushed behind us. I took a fleeting shot over the tall grass and saw the bird go down on the far side. The cover screened all of us, including the dogs, from accurately marking the bird's fall. Both humans and dogs had to negotiate a hog-wire fence to get into the little pasture into which the bird would have tumbled. When I didn't see him anywhere in the short grass, I was immediately concerned.

"He must have come down with good legs, and in short cover like this, they don't leave much scent," I told Jim. We looked both upstream and down on the little waterway that ran through the pasture, but the rooster had more than enough time to make an escape, and the dogs never seemed to pick up a trail.

After lunch, we hunted more buffer strips along a couple of waterways that met in the middle of a harvested cornfield. I took my third bird just as we started: A pair of roosters flushed near the point at which the waterway went under a bridge on a gravel road. The first one was too far out. I went to my tight barrel on the second, and Dasher made a nice retrieve of a bird that fell stone dead. As I'd been a little off target on the two previous birds, that made me feel much better.

Jim collected another bird, at which point we decided to call it a day.

We don't usually think of good hunting opportunities being available near Iowa's larger cities. Between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City - only 20 miles south of there - and their respective suburbs, there are close to a quarter of a million people, which is a lot by Iowa standards. But it's historically a pretty good area for pheasant hunting, and there are a number of public areas where hunters stand a good chance of some late-season action.

I spoke with my friend and occasional hunting partner, outdoor writer Phil Bourjaily of Iowa City, about ringneck opportunities in the area. He immediately brought up the Hawkeye Wildlife Area. Located between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, just off I-380, this is one of Iowa's largest public hunting areas, sprawling over more than 13,000 acres. It surrounds most of Coralville Reservoir, but it also follows the floodplain of the Iowa River, back upstream (to the west) for several miles on the west side of I-380.

Phil pointed out that Hawkeye is quite good early in the season, after the crops on adjacent private land have been harvested and the birds filter into the heavier cover on the public ground. Nevertheless, it does get a significant amount of hunting pressure from area residents, and things can get tough as the season wears on. However, part of the area is a refuge and therefore closed to hunting until the end of waterfowl season. (The refuge boundaries are marked by yellow and black signs.) But the refuge areas are open to hunting after the end of the year, giving pheasant hunters a 10-day window before their season ends. Especially if the weather is cold and there is a fair amount of snow, quite a few pheasants will have moved into the refuges, and the hunting can be excellent for these birds that have not experienced pressure for a couple of months.

Tim Thompson, Iowa Department of Natural Resources biologist with the agency's Coralville Wildlife Unit office, also recommends Hawkeye. "The Hawkeye area was very good last year," he told me. "We had several relatively dry years in a row, which allowed our bird numbers to build up. It may not be quite as good this year because of heavy rains in the spring, and the fact that the water level in the reservoir is up well above normal, but there should still be decent numbers of pheasants.

"Hawkeye has an excellent combination of food and cover," he continued. "On private land, birds can often find one or the other, but not both like they can on the wildlife area. That really helps them make it through hard winters and keeps our bird numbers up even when they drop off elsewhere."

"Although the rains and flooding undoubtedly hurt nesting success this year, I did see some pheasant broods with pretty good sized chicks before the rains came. And I'm sure that some of the hens that lost nests due to rain and flooding will renest, so that there will be some late-hatch birds, as well."

Other than the refuges, there are no special regulations in effect on Hawkeye WA. Although it receives quite a bit of waterfowling pressure, pheasant hunters are not required to use nontoxic shot. (In fact, there are no requirements for non-toxic shot at any of the public areas we'll mention in this article.)

As at Hawkeye WA, bird numbers along the Iowa River Corridor have built up quite well over the past few years. It's been on the dry side of normal, and pheasant reproduction has been pretty good. This year may not be quite as good as last because of heavier rains and spring flooding. However, the habitat furthest away from the river itself - much of which consists of tall prairie grass adjacent to crops on neighboring private farmland - usually provides good action on pheasants, even late in the season. Also similar to Hawkeye is the fact that the heavier cover draws the birds once the crops are harvested, and especially when snow and cold weather arrive.

Phil Bourjaily says that though this is a particularly large area, and that the birds can be quite scattered here, it's definitely worth the effort.