Another part of Kruse's late-season game plan to put more pheasants into the game pouch in the orange-shouldered vest is to hunt the field back to the vehicles.

"This is where a lot of hunters lose out," Kruse said. "When you have to backtrack to the trucks, you should hunt the cover again. Most hunters don't do that. You walk by birds that hold tight, and if you have tree groves next to the grass, you're going to have birds run into those trees. After walking the fields, send your posters up and over to push some pheasants back into the grass where you're going to be walking it back.

"You can't push all the birds out of a piece of cover," he continued. "In some good cover, these pheasants have a tunnel system and you can walk right past them as they're slipping behind you. We've all had pheasants flush behind us and wondered how that bird got past the dogs. They sneak through in those tunnels in the grass. It's their escape route and they use it every time they get pressured. Sometimes they get away with it and sometimes the dog gets lucky. So, even with dogs, you'll run right past a bird while tracking another, and some birds hold tight or run, while others flush. The birds that hold tight or run will be there for you on the return trip."

For many late-season pheasant chasers, the hunting party consists of a few guys who piled into one vehicle with one or two dogs, and these hunters are going to attempt to work a half-dozen smaller wildlife management areas (WMAs) and flush a rooster or two from each spot. It's a good strategy for the late-season because many of these smaller public hunting areas were ignored early in the season while hunters keyed on the larger swaths of CRP and public hunting cover. Some of those smaller WMAs and waterfowl production areas (WPAs) are holding birds because they haven't received any pressure in these spots.

In most cases, even the smaller WMAs are a bit too large for a few guys and a dog. It takes some strategy to keep those conditioned roosters from running out ahead and flushing out of range, or tucking into a sanctuary and holding tight while everyone walks by.

"You circle those birds," Kruse said. "You walk the outer edge of the cover and slowly work into the center. Your path will look like a big spiral into which you've corralled those pheasants to the middle of the cover -- and they start flushing."

That is, of course, if you've done all the other little things that you're supposed to do.

"With just a couple of hunters and a dog, you can let the dog control the hunt," Kruse said, "so you won't have to be barking commands at the dog, which will put those pheasants on high alert. Stay with the dog and let him flush those runners. These late-season roosters won't know how to deal with an aggressive dog and will flush when they realize they aren't going to be able to hide."

A small hunting party on a manageable piece of pheasant habitat -- like a small WMA -- needs to conscientiously strain the cover, which is seldom the case during the early season when hunters just scramble over a run of land.

"Late season in the smaller plots requires a more methodical approach," Kruse said. "The roosters are prone to hold tighter or run and flush out of range, so you do better if you walk slower until the dog gets onto a bird. This allows the dog to get the scent of a bird holding tight and get him running or get him to flush. While circling a field, you don't walk a straight line, but zig and zag a little bit and widen the distance the dog is working. For this type of hunting, a slower approach works better, but hunters seldom use it."