Only one bird today. I was looking forward to hunting the first snow. Some of my best pheasant hunts have been during snow. Didn’t start snowing until mid morning, that may have somwething to do with it. Sunday should be a perfect day to get out.
Five of us and three dogs were in western MN today by Montevideo and we saw over a hundred birds in cattail sloughs. Despite the blizzard conditions which we thought would hold the birds, the birds were extremely spooky. 90% of the birds flushed well out of range. The good news was that they didn’t fly far in the blowing snow and we could see where they landed. Once we kicked the big flocks up a couple of times, the birds scattered enough that singles started holding long enough for the dogs to flush them in range. We ended up with seven roosters and some very windburned faces. All in all it was my favorite hunt of the year. As I type, my two dogs are snoring and completely wiped out from a full day of busting through cattails and snow.
We also had the most bizzare thing happen. A hen flushed into the blowing snow and flew across a road directly into a powerline. She crashed to the ground and one of my dogs retrieved her. She was still alive when I pulled her out of my dogs mouth, but in very rough shape. I thought that I should keep her but didn’t want to risk it so I waited until my dog started hunting again and set her on the ground. Five minutes later my buddies dog walks up to me with the hen in his mouth, still alive. This time I made sure all three dogs were gone and I tucked her in some grass, most likely to become coyote breakfast. What would you have done? I know that falconers can keep hens because they can’t exactly descriminate between roosters and hens. We didn’t shoot this bird so it wasn’t our fault. A wounded or dead hen pheasant isn’t worth calling the CO over like a deer hit by a car.
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