Not sure what conclusion to draw, other than birds appear to be down significantly. Yes lots of crops still standing. Discussed with other hunters and most if not all experienced tough hunting (few birds). Things could change in 2-3 weeks, if it would quit raining and crops are harvested.
Opener
- Thread starter Deacon
- Start date
BRITTMAN
Well-known member
Working my way through part of ND (east side of river) one evening when the sun was out - after several days of rain. Saw one rooster fly from corn to grass 20 minutes before dark and two road side hens. 2-3 years ago would have seen 20 or more roosters.
Usually a posted, rural farm shelterbelt is good for spotting a bird or two. Nothing.
Usually a posted, rural farm shelterbelt is good for spotting a bird or two. Nothing.
only a pointer
Banned
HMMMMMM? safari has good reports in nd weird?
birdshooter
Well-known member
If I'm not mistaken, Safari was hunting in the Regent area and SW part of the state will continue to have good numbers as long as the habitat is still there. Night and day difference to east of the river though.
mnmthunting
Banned
Got an email from my friend South of Regent.
All His people that wanted limits got limits opening week.
He of course farms for pheasants. Planted many patches of Russian Olives 20-30 years ago (shame on Him)
Had a heck of a blizzard, pheasants with the heavy shelter did fine. :thumbsup:
All His people that wanted limits got limits opening week.
He of course farms for pheasants. Planted many patches of Russian Olives 20-30 years ago (shame on Him)
Had a heck of a blizzard, pheasants with the heavy shelter did fine. :thumbsup:
small munsterlander owner
Banned
anybody that actually hunted ND pheasant country got a report??? thats west of the MO river or at least west of the james river... got to get at least that far into ND or why not just hunt north western MN on the SD/ND border???
anybody hunting east of the james river in ND i expect to have very very poor results maybe a OK hunt at best but you have to hunt wear the pheasant are still living its just that simple...
im planing a early NOV-DEC hunt to check it out for my self once the crops come off for sure there is no way western or central ND is as bad or worse then western MN is...
anybody with ND pheasant country reports please post them to show us there is some birds left out there PLEASE thanks
anybody hunting east of the james river in ND i expect to have very very poor results maybe a OK hunt at best but you have to hunt wear the pheasant are still living its just that simple...
im planing a early NOV-DEC hunt to check it out for my self once the crops come off for sure there is no way western or central ND is as bad or worse then western MN is...
anybody with ND pheasant country reports please post them to show us there is some birds left out there PLEASE thanks
Last edited:
I have a random Thursday off, I will be heading out that way hunting only public land. Will report back. I went out opener south of Jamestown, and it was a lot of pressure. We couldn't find a piece of land that had not been hunted, so I don't have a very accurate judgement of how the birds are. We hunted a handful of prices of land that either had hunters on it that we didn't see at first, or had just recently been hunted.
small munsterlander owner
Banned
cool please send a PM or post a report im dieing to hear a ND pheasant country report not around fargo ETC. lol good luck to you also post how the crops are doing like are they 50%-90% off ETC. thanks much man happy safe hunting to you
hunting ranged from bad to really bad
Just got back from Hettinger area. Been hunting there for about 10 years. It is BY FAR the worse hunting I have yet seen. Where we usually move a hundred birds we saw maybe 5. It was a double whammy this year as the wet spring hurt the hatch and then the snow a few weeks back (up to 2 feet deep in spots) killed birds and totally flattened the cover in spots. One section we love to hunt was flat as a parking lot. We just stood there looking - what the heck??!!
We got some birds, but I estimate the number of birds seen was down about 70%. Maybe our hunt was affected some because there is a lot more corn planted this year and what birds there are were mostly in the corn. And it will be a LONG time before they can harvest the corn or sunflowers as the rains the last 10 days have the soil saturated with lots of new "lakes" in the fields. Actually the duck hunting would have been much better than the pheasant hunting, LOL. I prefer to hunt pheasants in the CRP with my dog, but we took to pushing corn just to see birds.
Let's hope it is a mild, clear winter and we can get back to the good days.
Just got back from Hettinger area. Been hunting there for about 10 years. It is BY FAR the worse hunting I have yet seen. Where we usually move a hundred birds we saw maybe 5. It was a double whammy this year as the wet spring hurt the hatch and then the snow a few weeks back (up to 2 feet deep in spots) killed birds and totally flattened the cover in spots. One section we love to hunt was flat as a parking lot. We just stood there looking - what the heck??!!
We got some birds, but I estimate the number of birds seen was down about 70%. Maybe our hunt was affected some because there is a lot more corn planted this year and what birds there are were mostly in the corn. And it will be a LONG time before they can harvest the corn or sunflowers as the rains the last 10 days have the soil saturated with lots of new "lakes" in the fields. Actually the duck hunting would have been much better than the pheasant hunting, LOL. I prefer to hunt pheasants in the CRP with my dog, but we took to pushing corn just to see birds.
Let's hope it is a mild, clear winter and we can get back to the good days.
wow, that's a primo area there too...sounds like the snow this fall was like a nuke disaster for the cover...a lot of the corn may still be there next spring if they don't dry out and fast....the corn will make a great snow fence for this winter....and feed for the few birds left.
birdshooter
Well-known member
I'm curious though what you may have seen north of there in the Mott/Regent area if you traveled thru that area?
From a couple of posts that I've seen here at UPH, things may have better.
From a couple of posts that I've seen here at UPH, things may have better.
I am guessing the farmers are going to just wait until the ground freezes and then get into the fields. Unfortunately for them (but good for the birds) much of the sunflowers actually tipped over and became unrooted because of the heavy snow and freezing rain together with saturated soil. Some fields were over 50% loss to the farmer, while some were still in good shape. The corn fared much better. The corn will be good cover until it is harvested. And the ducks are loving it too! Some cornfields were half flooded with 12-16" of water == Duck heaven!!!
From people I talked to, the area out towards Bowman and Regent weren't hit with the snow nearly as bad. The further west and north from Mott, Bucyrus and Hettinger the better, while Lemmon, SD to the east was really hit hard.
Did see more sharptails than ever - they are one tough bird and can take a lot. But they are not what we are after. We saw no huns this year. I would like to know how others do later in year, but for now I am cancelling my usual second trip for this year.
From people I talked to, the area out towards Bowman and Regent weren't hit with the snow nearly as bad. The further west and north from Mott, Bucyrus and Hettinger the better, while Lemmon, SD to the east was really hit hard.
Did see more sharptails than ever - they are one tough bird and can take a lot. But they are not what we are after. We saw no huns this year. I would like to know how others do later in year, but for now I am cancelling my usual second trip for this year.
Just got back. I was west of the James river but east of the Missouri River. I would say 75% of the crops are still up. Most of the corn is still up, less so for soy beans. Some may be waiting for the ground to freeze, although where I was at it was not as wet as I anticipated. I did not see lakes in the middle of fields. I did see people out harvesting. I'm sure there will be a lot more birds once there are less crops up. My dog kept wanting to go in the corn/beans, plus I could hear them in the crops as well.
It was hard to get a good judge of how the birds were for a couple of reasons.
1. I limited out by myself (with my dog) on the first piece of land I hunted. I found a nice piece of land with a young shelter belt right next to a bean field. Easy for one guy and his dog to take advantage of. Saw 6 birds in total after walking a 2 mile by 1 mile plot. I hit 3, found 2, one took off flying over a hill, couldn't see where it landed (or if it landed) after a good 45 min of looking, I called it a day.
2. I have never been anywhere in ND where we push hundreds of birds. I usually stay closer to fargo, with 2-3 hunts planned out west, and while the hunting out there is great, I never seen swarms of pheasants that people refer to, at least not on public land. I do love hearing the stories where there are so many birds you don't know which one to shoot at. That said, anytime I go west, I nearly always limit out, like today.
3. This could have been an anomaly. I had my "3" so I walked another piece of land with out my gun that looked equally as promising and did not see any birds.
Couple things I also noticed. A lot of plots that had been hayed, but some where you could tell the owners really saved a nice piece of habitat for hunters. So many times closer to fargo, you come across plots that do not look good at all. Hardly any vegetation, etc.
So far pheasant season 2013 hasn't been to bad to me. I dislike going hunting, stepping out of the truck, waking 50 feet and everyone has their limit for the day. You might as well go to a game farm. I like to hunt, ya know, plot the best areas to see birds, look for signs of birds, where is their food, where is their water, where is their cover, how's the wind going to affect the dog/shots/noise, what's the best position to be in etc etc.
Anyways. That's my report, kinda went off on a tangent. Any other questions let me know.
Oh, I also ran into some nice out of staters that had their limit, so they say. They could have been pulling my leg too.
Last edited:
pheasanthunt
Member
1- I Hunted similar area and agree with most of whats said about birds. We had some real good spots and some where we saw none.
2-We saw a decent amount of young birds and saw the most when we hunted standing corn. The crops where i hunted where 90% standing.
3- I think as the crops get removed people will start seeing more birds....Bird numbers were better than what i had expected, I was expecting a big decline and too me if you consider that all the crop was still up (last year everything was harvested), I thought numbers were only down slightly over last year...just one man's opinion.
Last edited:
small munsterlander owner
Banned
plots lands the best to hunt??? the get hunted the most i thought??? im trying to avoid them if i can there on every bodys hit list correct???
i also dont like a pheasant shoot but after a few days of being walked around in circles by pheasants every once in awhile i like to get a bird in the bag that didnt break my balls to get in hand lol
thanks for the honest reports guys & your views on things crops # ETC. i plan to hunt more tough terrain on my trip cattails with woody cover grass & crops near by or all in close proximity in my experience in MN the birds are not in the CRP or just grass cover i will skip that cover till a get a bird in the bag & want to hunt sharptails or huns??? the thick S*** is wear i will be looking for pheasants is this not a good idea in ND??? im not scared to work that cover for birds if i know they are there most guys just want to walk the CRP & grass...
i also dont like a pheasant shoot but after a few days of being walked around in circles by pheasants every once in awhile i like to get a bird in the bag that didnt break my balls to get in hand lol
thanks for the honest reports guys & your views on things crops # ETC. i plan to hunt more tough terrain on my trip cattails with woody cover grass & crops near by or all in close proximity in my experience in MN the birds are not in the CRP or just grass cover i will skip that cover till a get a bird in the bag & want to hunt sharptails or huns??? the thick S*** is wear i will be looking for pheasants is this not a good idea in ND??? im not scared to work that cover for birds if i know they are there most guys just want to walk the CRP & grass...