Quiet in here

Fall is coming like a freight train. Grouse opener is less than a month away. Pheasant quite a bit more.
I just ordered my grail gun from Scheels today. 20 ga Benelli Montifeltro. My old 20 Rem 1100 is over 30 years old and has been acting up a bit. Im taking it to a gunsmith this week to see if its repairable. However I always wanted a backup just like I do with my pheasant guns. Its going to be an adjustment since I have used the Rem so much but the new one has the same action as my pheasant guns so that should help. Im rambling.

Nice shotgun! I’ve got a 12 gauge Benelli Montrefeltro. Had it since 2007. I intend to use it for many more years.

Hard to say what the season will look like, at least for pheasant hunting. Mortality from last winter should be non-existent, but buccess might be very geographically correlated, as some areas in SW Minnesota, Eastern SD, and NW Iowa were hammered by torrential flooding right during the peak of the hatch. I can recall a similar June way back in 2014. The hunting was poor that fall.

Roadside counts in MN and IA are being done this month. That doesn’t tell the whole story but its at least something.

Yeah I’m not very hopeful for a good pheasant hatch in much of MN. I know they will renest but man it’s been all summer.

Its kind of too bad. With the fake winter we had, if some of these core pheasant areas had not received such a monsoon of rain in June, we could have been looking at quite the season.

It wasn’t quite as wet during June in the northern part of the pheasant range. Some of those areas up near Alexandria and St Cloud could be pretty decent this season, as they avoided flooding that southern MN did not.

I cant wait for the season to start and will be curious what the roadside counts say.

I’ve been looking for a left handed shot Benelli Montreltro for awhile now. I’m odd and shoot left handed even though im right handed.

Surprisingly I haven’t seen a lot of pheasants here in WC MN. Lots of large turkey flocks with multiple young instead of just two or 3. and last weekend I’m pretty sure I saw a bumper crop of ducks. Little ducklings all up and down the river.

The roadside count always seems like more of a guess to me. I drive the gravel road by my dads at least once a day at all different times. Havent seen a pheasant along the road in two months. Drive 50 yards down the field road and I see them everyday big and small. So the one day they drive down a certain road a coyote just chased them all into the corn and they see nothing. The day before or the day after could see a bunch.

Its true, it can be highly variable with the road side counts. There could be an abundance of morning dew on the grass one day and none the next, which would affect the count.

They use the same criteria every year though, so they control what they can. South Dakota stopped doing them several years ago altogether because they felt that a poor roadside count was essentially poor marketing. A lot of casual nonresident hunters would base their annual trip out there on the road side counts.

Best thing to do is to scout the area you intend to hunt yourself. Or talk to the locals that live there.

Saw a nice covey of 8-10 grouse along the road last Friday north of Mora. Definitely got me thinking of the upcoming season.

KP wrote:

I’ve been looking for a left handed shot Benelli Montreltro for awhile now. I’m odd and shoot left handed even though im right handed.

I hope you are left eye dominant.

CaptainMusky wrote:

I hope you are left eye dominant.

Haha I am!

I have not seen much for Grouse by my cabin in Wis so it will be tough hunting as usual. Also my old Grouse dog is plumb tuckered out. I may take her for a nostalgia hunt but its risky with her lack of hearing and stamina. My crazy Golden is my only hope! Planning to hunt Mn at least twice this year given the amount of birds I saw last year.

I’ve got a new pup where this will be his first season. More anxious than excited to see how it pans out. Know I’ll find pheasants on some of my SW MN trips but early season i usually hunt SE MN so we’ll see how the #s are and hopefully put him on birds. Want to sneak in a dedicated grouse hunting weekend but may need to put it off another year due to various conflicts.

My 2 cents with the roadside survey when you see high density areas someone at least saw a bunch or birds there. And when you see low density where you know there’s stacks of birds, then you get a fuzzy feeling that you have a honey hole

I love grouse hunting and try to make time for it every season, but dang the fall is a busy time. Between bow hunting and the best fishing of the season I always find it tough to fit in. The boys pushing to do more this year so I’ll be in the woods a handful of times I hope.

Bearcat89 wrote:

but dang the fall is a busy time. Between bow hunting and the best fishing of the season I always find it tough to fit in.

Just isn’t enough time in the day during the fall, is there. I hear you on that one.

suzuki wrote:

My old 20 Rem 1100 is over 30 years old and has been acting up a bit. Im taking it to a gunsmith this week to see if its repairable.

I wouldn’t believe any gunsmith who told me a 30-year-old 1100 isn’t repairable.

The only 1100 that I’ve ever personally known of that legitimately had to be put out to pasture was an 1100 skeet that had about a billion rounds through it. And even then, it was repairable, it was just a matter of it not being cost-effective to replace all the parts that needed to be replaced.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>
My old 20 Rem 1100 is over 30 years old and has been acting up a bit. Im taking it to a gunsmith this week to see if its repairable.

I wouldn’t believe any gunsmith who told me a 30-year-old 1100 isn’t repairable.

The only 1100 that I’ve ever personally known of that legitimately had to be put out to pasture was an 1100 skeet that had about a billion rounds through it. And even then, it was repairable, it was just a matter of it not being cost-effective to replace all the parts that needed to be replaced.

I think it will be fine and probably my first choice this fall. I love that thing.

You can’t beat an 1100. One of the best shotguns ever made. I’ll own one someday.

In my travels, (MN,WI,SD) I have seen a lot of young pheasants along the road. They look like road runners. And quite a few adults

I haven’t looked forward to a fall season this much for many years. My setter will be almost 9 months old and there are good bird numbers. Should be an excellent fall to get the pup lots of encounters and turn her into a bird dog.

I like the style she has displayed, even if it has only been for chipmunks and songbirds so far….lol

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Love that high tail. My Llewellyn isn’t nearly as stylish but boy has he put me on a lot of birds. He’ll be entering his 9th year showing our new pup what a veteran can do. Pups got style but we’ll see how his technique is soon.

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Lots of roosters cackling while sitting in the duck blind this weekend. Sounded like quite a few were younger birds. Fingers crossed they make it to late season when I prefer to chase them.

The 2024 August road side count is posted. It won’t let me post the link. You’ll have to locate it on the DNR’s website.

Statewide, pheasants are up 1% from last year.

However, zones are wildly variable. The southwest zone is down a whopping 29% from last year. I assume this is the zone that had massive flooding in mid June.

The northern zones, central and east central, are up 34% and 70%. Those areas did not have the floods in June.

Honestly the surprising thing is that the numbers aren’t lower than they are. Even with the huge decrease in the SW zone, it still has plenty of birds. Not surprising my hometown SE zone is down a lesser percent, but it will feel more devastating for that area. Overall I see nothing that will keep me out of the field (if thats possible) and I won’t be modifying any of my usual trips. If anything I’m more excited to see numbers slightly better than expected with all the flooding, with the understanding these numbers aren’t highly scientific.

What I think it does show is that weather can definitely affect reproduction. Drought is not good, and neither is a flood if it occurs at the wrong time.

Obviously mortality was basically non-existent last winter. It’s kind of too bad some areas received floods at the worst time. We could have been looking at a once-in-a-decade type season.

BTW Iowa’s count is down even more in the western portion of the state. They had worse flooding than Southwestern MN did. There is one zone in western Iowa down 72%.

Saying the southwest is down 29% isn’t really “whopping” considering it was up 101% the year before. It should be a good fall. I think I’ll get more birds than last year. But that’s based on where I park the truck and how I shoot.

101% is whopping too! lol

Any word on what the grouse numbers are like? I’m sure it varies by area but will be in interesting with the lack of snow on what that did. Looking forward to getting in the woods.

weedis wrote:

Any word on what the grouse numbers are like? I’m sure it varies by area but will be in interesting with the lack of snow on what that did. Looking forward to getting in the woods.

Tons of them supposedly:
“Mean ruffed grouse drums per stop (dps) were 2.3 statewide (95% confidence interval = 1.9 – 2.6),
which is similar to last year and the highest estimate reported in over 50 years.”

This spring the amount of drumming near my cabin was definitely a lot.

Lots of Grouse activity by my place, east side of Mille.