RUSH COUNTY, Kan. -- College reunions are known to get a bit loud sometimes.
Few can rival the one some Stephen F. Austin alums attended Saturday. Mixed amid the whoops, laughter and hollers were scores of gun shots in the pheasant fields around Great Bend.
"There's a bunch of us that try to get together for hunts a few times a year," said Bill Feille of Bakersfield, Calif. "We hunted a lot together in college. That's what we still like to do."
It was his fifth time at the group's traditional Kansas pheasant hunt that started about 10 years ago.
"We started hunting up around Russell, on the (Walk-In Hunting Area) stuff," Steve Fruendt said. "We got some birds but figured if we were traveling this far, we wanted to do better."
Every year since the first, they've based in Great Bend and headed afield with local guides. Saturday was the fifth time they've opened the season with Rick Tomlinson on some of the 3,000-plus acres of habitat the guide leases in Rush and Barton counties.
"We've always hammered the birds every time we've been out," Fruendt said. "We wouldn't miss this."
Fruendt, Feille and three other college friends were part of the group of 13 that included many of their family and friends. They started the new season in a field of harvested corn and milo.
Action came quickly when a rooster pheasant flushed about 100 yards into the field. It fell after eight shots. A few minutes later, another close-flushing rooster fell to a single shell.
The hunters had timing, weather conditions and location on their side.
Unlike many recent opening days, Saturday's weather was cool with a nice breeze rather than hot and windy.
High humidity and recent rains made ideal scenting conditions for a canine group that included a Gordon Setter and five Labrador retrievers.
For months, biologists and farmers have been predicting the 2009-10 season could be one of the best in 25 years in many parts of Kansas.
Tomlinson's hunting grounds seemed to be at the center of where a near-perfect mix of a mild winter, wet spring and summer had combined for excellent hatching and brood-rearing conditions.
The hunters couldn't drop their guard all morning.
Typical of young pheasants on opening day, rooster after rooster held until the group was within shotgun range. Some were killed by a single shot and a few flew off untouched after three or four hunters tried their best.
Seven birds were carried from the first field after about a dozen opportunities. After that, bird numbers mirrored the lofty predictions.
Nine came from the next walk through a field where dense milo stubble met a weedy draw.
The third property was standing milo with several patches of lush conservation reserve program grass that gave the hunters 10 more pheasants.
The main tactic was to have the hunters spaced no more than 10 yards apart. That, and walking slowly and stopping before the ends of the fields, was done to keep from walking past tight-sitting pheasants.
The number of birds killed per field didn't do the overall population justice.
In one milo field, Dakota, the wide-ranging setter, flushed eight or 10 roosters far in front of the hunters who emptied their guns, then helplessly watched as three more roosters flushed within easy range and escaped.
Several times, groups of 10 to 25 pheasants flushed well out of range for no apparent reason.
About a dozen roosters, often shot at long ranges, were downed and not recovered as the broken-winged birds ran after hitting the ground despite the efforts of the dogs.
Previous years, when the group usually had six or seven hunters, Tomlinson guided them to limits of four each by noon.
At Saturday's late lunch, the group had about 36 of a possible combined limit of 52 pheasants. Optimism was high their streak of opening day limits would continue.
It didn't.
Action was slower in the afternoon. Some walks flushed no roosters within shotgun range.
The hunters quit at about 3:45 p.m. with 42 pheasants.
That total is probably well above the state average that is usually between one and two pheasants per hunter on opening weekend.
"We probably saw more birds this year than any other," Tomlinson said as the hunters arranged birds for a group photo. "But it's tougher to get 13 limits compared to six or eight. We have a lot of birds this year."
Brian Weaver, Feille and Fruendt promised they'd be making plans for their 2010 Kansas reunion.
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