I had a brief window of opportunity on Saturday morning, so while Grandma watched the grandkids, the FW, our pup, and I paid a visit to a west central MN WMA. It was overcast and very windy, which made scenting tough on a young dog, but the rain stayed at bay, so all in all, it could have been worse.
I would say about half the corn in the area was still standing. Unfortunately, the fields abutting this WMA had not been harvested yet. We parked at a far corner of the plot so that we could work our first push into the wind. Ripley got real birdy–I could tell that something was on the run in front of us. Eventually, a rooster flushed a ways out over private land. Oh well.
We continued to push on. We only had 2 hours before we needed to head back for some afternoon plans. Working back towards the truck was less than ideal with a strong wind. We tried to zig-zag as much as possible to let Ripley’s nose have a little bit of a chance. He uses the wind well, and you could tell that he was a little frustrated with me. As we got back toward the truck, he went on point. I flushed a nice hen. We kept going. There was a nice brush pile about 50 yards from the truck that looked really inviting. I worked Ripley around it as my wife came around the other way. She stumbled on a rooster. It caught us both off guard, and while we unleashed a few shots, that rooster got lucky. 
All in all, it was a fun morning despite not bringing home any birds.
