Opener ???

We hunted yesterday and today south of fredonia. We have only flushed 7-8 roosters. It is bleak out there.

The duck hunting is excellent.

We may pick up camp and try further west to try and get into some more upland birds. Any suggestions?
 
Was on the WMA hugging Lake Sakakawea directly South of Ryder. 6 hunters, 5 dogs, flushed single-digits, half of them hens and only had 2 roosters in the truck by 12:30. Walked with a Britt, a GWP, Drahthaar, my Vizsla, and a Lab. It's going to be a challenging season...birds were flushing well ahead of us and ducking for pretty extreme/thick cover.
 
I think Lazlo has been hunting at his place in Zeeland for the past week. He should be back soon and have a report for us. I hope. I'm headed up that way on Friday.

JLMyers
 
I hunted west of Bismarck for the opener and we did good (got 22 for the weekend) birds seemed to be in pockets. Either you found them or you didnt either way the numbers are down and we are all gonna have to put on some miles to find birds. On the plus side the sloughs are all full so do not have to walk any of them damn cattails! Another hard winter and we may all be visiting SD at some point next year!

-Another note my dad hunted all last weekend and only seen two roosters.
 
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Southeast area, Ellendale vicinity

Just returned. Three hunters and 2 Spaniels. Four days of hunting the same locations from the previous 6 seasons. POOR plus Poor. Personally, the only rooster( with color) sighted for me was from the vehicle. A dozen hens afield and a few almost going to grow up to be a rooster someday. 2 very young cocks taken. Talked to farmers taking off crops, unbelievable. Just a few birds seen in hundreds of acres of corn and beans being removed. It is definitely tough going for the upland game hunter. Never really had to shoulder or fire my gun. Plenty of ducks should you prefer water sports. Mortality rate in this area. Our estimation: 90% PLUS. Hello SD.
 
Hunted 2 to 3 hours a day for the first 6 days of the season in the SE part of the state. In the areas that I hunt I would say that the population is about 50% lower than last year. Disappointed to see the number of birds lower, but still pleasantly surprised there were huntable numbers of birds, considering the past three winters, wet spring, and habitat loss in the area. Ended up shooting 9 pheasants, a mix of both young and mature birds. Also was unable to recover 2 and of course, missed a few also. Saw a handful of grouse and did not see a single partridge.

The best hunting I had was concentrating on small cattail sloughs within combined corn fields. CRP was not as productive. I would estimate that during the time I hunted 90%+ of the soybeans were combined, with corn nearing 50%.

Hunting pressure was fairly light considering the large amount of public land in the area that I hunt. Of course, on the weekends there were a few parties hunting on the public land first thing in the morning, but they thinned out by mid-morning. Other than that, a few locals would hit some of their spots throughout the week. Many waterfowl hunters however.

Overall, I was satisfied with the first week of the 2011 ND pheasant hunting season. I will be taking a couple weeks of vacation in November for pheasant and deer hunting, hopefully I continue to be successful. I will try to load some pictures here later.
 
I just returned from a week of hunting in the SW area of ND and we did great! The bird numbers are down there too, but we found birds in PLOTS. The areas with food, water and grasshoppers held the best numbers of birds. The grass had to have a good nuber of grasshoppers because most of the birds we found were young and still feeding on the hoppers. I also noted a lot more hunters were in the area this year. We saw licence plates from Min., Wis., MI, PA, NY, AR, Montana, WY, OH, IN, Iowa, AND LA.
 
opening couple of weeks

Just got back from 2 weeks in ND. Hunted 11 straight days. Did pretty good but numbers were way down. Had to hunt longer and shoot better for limits. Almost all birds taken were young and immature. Hunted my 7 month brittany. He was great and did some excellent stuff. Little wild at times. Places in close proximity to corn seemed to be the best. First light worked best too. Birds would fly into corn as soon as it was light.
 
HUnted South central ND I di real good better then ever to say the truth. I did shoot better but seemed to get lucky and get in on groups of birds. Found them in fence rows and water hunt in cattails.
Talked to others who had very little luck.
Had a group that was going to stay at the house but emailed me and canceled. They were out there the same week I was and the 4 of them got 9 birds in 5 days. They went home early and not coming back.
Didn't see any along the roads but 1 time six roosters no hens...that was fun!!!!
 
Lazlo said:
HUnted South central ND I di real good better then ever to say the truth. I did shoot better but seemed to get lucky and get in on groups of birds. Found them in fence rows and water hunt in cattails.
Talked to others who had very little luck.
Had a group that was going to stay at the house but emailed me and canceled. They were out there the same week I was and the 4 of them got 9 birds in 5 days. They went home early and not coming back.
Didn't see any along the roads but 1 time six roosters no hens...that was fun!!!!
Click to expand...

must have been that big pudelpointer and WHV that put you on all those birds!:thumbsup:

will PM you tomorrow with where to go.......:cheers:
 
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