CWU,
Hey now, not fair to be slamming a guy's dog! My dog is an awesome bird finder...when there are birds. Last year there just weren't any. But you are right, there was more Huns than usual, and I think I even killed 2 or 3 of them. I also hunt from sunrise to sunset, with about a 4 hour break in the middle of the day. Especially on opening weekend when it's 75-80 degrees at noon. Way too hot to be bird hunting. But I do know one thing...my GSP will hunt in that heat far longer than a black lab! And you should see him cover the ground. Thanks for the pic, I appreciate that, although I was hoping you would be in it I see you have an email address listed on your profile, maybe I'll send you a couple pics of my dogs. I've got a golden retriever also. She taught me how to hunt pheasants, but she's retired now (11 years old.) I really miss hunting with her...she was the best. I've had many good days of pheasant hunting, on nothing but wild birds. I don't even hunt the Columbia Basin anymore, because you never know if you're killing wild or released birds. I still don't think the later season will affect the number of birds killed. Most hunters will only hunt the first couple weeks anyway. So they will just be hunting two weeks later. I would guess that 90% of the birds are killed the first two weekends, so which weekends those are doesn't really matter. Even if more roosters made it through the hunting season, it would have very little affect on the following year's population, because the number of roosters in the Spring don't matter. It is the number of hens that make the difference, they have the chicks, not the roosters, and one rooster can take care of many hens (kind of like me :p ) It's the number of chicks hatched, and the number of chicks that survive their first few weeks that matter the most. You will notice on a really good year when the pheasants are just everywhere, 99% of the birds you kill will be juveniles. They are what makes for a good hunting season.