Weekend in southern Minnesota - Upland Game Hunting – Pheasants, Quail & Grouse - Upland Game Hunting – Pheasants, Quail & Grouse

I spent the weekend in south central Minnesota, it pretty much started snowing right away and then the wind kicked in. I actually hunted with the wind as much as I could because the snow and sleek were just pounding into me eyes so bad it made it hard to see anything. I got a bird right away saturday morning and should have been done very early but I blew an easy shot on bird number two
The weather got steadly worse as the day went on. One good thing about hunting in very bad weather is getting permission to hunt. I don’t know how many times I have had farmers look at me and say, “If your dumb enough to be out there on a day like today go ahead”. I got my last bird at the end of the day and by the time I got back to the truck my coat and my gun where covered in freezing rain. Sunday was great with the fresh snow, I hit a small slew with heavy cover, as we entered I could see the birds running ahead of was in the snow. I decided I wasn’t going to take any wild shots and get two birds on nice points. The first bird came quick but two other roosters flushed wild so I let them go. We circled around and worked back towards the farm, Lindy locked up and I walked in only to have the rooster flush and fly right at the farmers new machine shed I had to let him go, he sailed out into a plowed field which had a small clump of grass in the middle of it. Now I have tried this before and only had the bird flush wild way out of range, but I thought I would give it a try. I got out to it and the only thing we got out of it was a rabbit, the bird had disappeared
The next spot was a long creek, we didn’t get down it 100 yards and I started to see tracks, Lindy locked up and I flushed the last bird of the weekend. Hunting by myself allows me to hit alot of spots that most people would pass up, little fence rows and small slews that don’t look like much. On friday Mike said after we got our 4, that he would have never thought to hunt the place we did. You certainly can’t hunt spots like this with 4 guys and 3-4 dogs. This snow is going to make things very good if it stays, get off the couch and get to it!