WMU 152 Observations

[jednastka]

Just came back from a full two-day bird hunt in WMU 152, south of the Red Deer River.


First the good news. In two days of hard hunting, we put up 150-170 sharptail grouse. I've hunted this area for over 40 years and have not seen numbers like this in a very, very long time. Flock size maximum was about 20 birds, with many singles, doubles, etc. Birds were very easily spooked, because the days were quite windy.


Only saw one flock of 10 Hungarian Partridge.


The only pheasants we saw were farmyard birds when we moved from one location to another. Snow was on the ground, and when we walked for birds, we saw very few rooster tracks.


Probably the biggest surprise was that we did not put up, or see any deer! We walked about 15 km each day, and saw very few deer tracks or other sign. What's happened? In the past, we would put up5-10 deer per day, and some very, very large mule deer bucks as well. This time, nada.


Vic

[1shotwade]

We were down in that area end of sept. I could not believe the sharpies we saw. Also noticed the deer were in pockets .

[Positrac]

Not 152 but I just came back from 4 solid days of bow hunting in 118. I saw tons of Sharpies but deer numbers were down there too.

[tracker]

Too many tags issued, too many hunters in 152 in the limited areas that allow hunting. Bird numbers were great this year but the number of bird hunters has also increased exponentially from my observation from hunting in that area for the past 20 years.

[ward]

Originally Posted by tracker

Too many tags issued, too many hunters in 152 in the limited areas that allow hunting. Bird numbers were great this year but the number of bird hunters has also increased exponentially from my observation from hunting in that area for the past 20 years.

You can probably expect a few more Bird Hunters next year.