I only made it out on Saturday evening. Walked a couple of my “guarenteed” spots to get aleast 1 rooster from. But only saw five hens. Was expecting more since the harvest is way ahead of last year, and I was hunting on private land.
Numbers way low in south central area as well.
However, unlike what you saw in Marshall area, where I was hunting, there was corn surrounding the entire acerage of CRP that I hunt. But in years past, even with corn standing around this acreage, you were still able to get enough birds up to keep the dogs (and hunters) interested. Not so this year. We only saw one rooster in the morning while sitting in a deer stand (7:30am)and heard nothing else crow. Over two days, only saw one hen while hunting and she wouldn’t/couldn’t fly.
The season is over in my book. I will spend the $$ to buy chukars at the preserve so that dog remains on some type of birds and then spend the other part of the weekend fishing pool 4 
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Was expecting more since the harvest is way ahead of last year, and I was hunting on private land.
I think that was true of a lot of people. On Sunday morning the WMAs and the public areas were totally empty. Usually these areas get pounded hard both days, but there was absolutely nobody out on Sunday.
Most years it gets better later in the fall after the crop is out, the fair weather weekend warriors quit hunting after the first 2 weekends, and the birds concentrate in the heavy cover.
This year I don’t know if that will happen. Opening weekend may have been the best hunting of the year.
Grouse
I posted a report on the hunting side. Considering some of the reports I’ve been hearing, we did very good. Its hard to say how the number of birds on this piece of land compared to years past. It definitely wasn’t like 5 or 6 years ago, but it was better than the past 2 years. I’m off to ND this week to hunt and then I’ll be back hunting MN for most weekends throughout the rest of the season. My realtives farm in the Willmar area and my cousin has been in the combine harvesting 2-3 thousand acres of beans and corn so far and hasn’t seen a bird yet. 
I typically hunt the Cottonwood/Marshall area with access to quite a bit of private land right on the Redwood river. My cousin who runs the farm said that they haven’t seen any pheasant at all…Therefore, I made the executive decision to skip Pheasant opener for the first time since 1990. I went up East of Mille Lacs and between my buddy and I and my lab (Frank) we shot 9 grouse, 3 wood cock and 2 wood ducks in about 8 hours of hunting…I’d call that a sucess.
My bro hunted the Marshall area and they got their limit on Saturday for 3 guys on private land by 11:30. They walked the same land on Sunday and didn’t see much.
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My bro hunted the Marshall area and they got their limit on Saturday for 3 guys on private land by 11:30. They walked the same land on Sunday and didn’t see much.
Shot them all?
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My bro hunted the Marshall area and they got their limit on Saturday for 3 guys on private land by 11:30. They walked the same land on Sunday and didn’t see much.
Shot them all?
Nope, they saw a good amount of birds on Sat from what he said. Probably a number of things, biggest being the hunted the same piece back to back days.
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