Pheasant Opener Roundup

I started the season again this year near Benson, MN with my Dad, Brother, relatives, and friends. Minus a few drops, the rain stayed south of the farm all day which is unfortunate because this area needs rain badly. The first couple drives netted a few birds, but a far cry from the numbers that this area normally produces. As we were walking shoulder to shoulder to set up for another drive, we flushed 3 roosters that all ended up hitting the ground. With my 2 in the bag, the rest of the morning my dog Jazzi and I walked through the thickest cover trying to get shots for others. We lost one bird, a couple guys missed some birds, and we had another that stayed low and never presented anyone with a safe shot. At this point the dogs were spent and we were as far away from the trucks as we could get. Most of the guys jumped in one of the truck and rode back to the other trucks. Jazz and 4 of decided to walk the trail back instead. This turned out to be the decision that made the day for us. On the way back my Brother called Jazzi over to hunt the edge of a cattail slough. This area had already been hunted by others in the group and I was surprised they never flushed a bird, but I also remembered that their dogs don’t hunt the cattails very well. After 5 minutes in the cattails, Jazzi had put up 3 birds and the guys dropped 2 of them. Neither bird went down very hard and we had already lost a bird in this thick cover, so I knew it wouldn’t be easy to find them. Jazzi found them both and we finished the trek back to the truck to give the dogs a break and head back to the farm to do some chores. A few birds were harvested in the early afternoon after they decided to walk down the driveway and then tuck into the grass just 100 yards down the driveway from where we were working. Before the sun set we made a couple drives in hopes of getting my Dad and a couple other posters a shot at a bird. Jazzi and I again were walking through the thickest cover possible and our efforts put up quite a few hens and a few roosters with 1 of them falling to my Dad and another hunter’s tag team shooting. For most of the day we had 9 hunters and 5 dogs, and the total bird count was 14.
We usually don’t hunt very hard on Sunday, but we gave it a couple hours and ended up with 4 birds. A couple guys, including myself, missed a couple easy shots. My Uncle and I had a tag team effort on a rooster that held very tight before Jazzi finally put it up behind us.
Overall, we had a great time again this year. We say less birds this year, but it is hard to say exactly how the bird population is doing in the area. With such dry conditions, the dogs had a harder time smelling the birds and with almost no water in the sloughs the birds were able to hide anywhere. I am looking forward to getting out again this week to hit some public land and see what we can find.

Saturday’s bounty minus 1 that I picked up right at sunset.

Sounds like Jazzi and you had a great hunt. Nothing like hunting over a good dog!

Nice job. I am dying to go. Cant wait.

Nice! Looks like you guys had some fun.

Late report from the Marshall area.

I’ve never seen so much crop out for the opening weekend. Never in 25 years of hunting this area.

And as Bigfife mentioned, I’ve NEVER seen it so dry. We hunted my uncle’s 1200 acres and he has a creek flowing through his land that normally holds several feet of water year-round. It was dry end to end. Over a mile of totally dry creek. Wow. The nearest water was a mile away. Sloughs? Dry. Stock impoundments still had a little water, but not safe for stock to drink. Pray for rain, brothers.

Saturday was very calm, a rare almost windless day for that area. We found the birds to be very spread out and I’m sure we were walking past many of them because the dry grass wasn’t holding a good scent for the labs.

As an aside, we came up on a group hunting an adjacent public area and they had a shorthair and were in 7th Heaven. The air-scenting shorthair was in his element working into a gentle breeze. It’s just such a beautiful sight to watch a big shorthair smoothly quartering with that head held high.

We did manage to collect 9 for 5 hunters on Saturday. Number 10 was my fault, I took out feathers and shot off a leg, but didn’t manage to bring the rooster down and he managed to get into other private CRP. We count the lost ones too, so that was the end of Saturday.

Sunday was more of the same, but with more wind. Birds were again spread way out, singles and doubles here and there. Only 3 of us were hunting on Sunday, so again I’m suspecting a lot of the birds manage to get around us in the cover.

As far as numbers of hunters out, I was surprised to see about half of the usual numbers of hunters out. Especially on the public land. And by Sunday, the countryside was empty. Entire big sections of public ground weren’t touched on Sunday. I think the lower bird numbers have the Weekend Warriors staying home and watching football. Oh well.

Hopefully, we can get in another weekend in November. As usual, way too many committments with deer hunting coming up.

Grouse

Grouse,

I enjoy reading your posts. It’s refreshing to see good grammar and punctuation. Especially in a world so dominated by posts that look like a 15 year old texting a buddy.

Thanks,
Mike

Whateva!

P.S. Call me maybe?

On a serious note, Mr Grouse is one of the many great members we have. His thoroughness and attention to detail is something I’m rather jealous of.

Just like I am jealous of Kooty’s dance skills.