Start of Minnesota 2025-2026 season countdown

One positive this season - no emergency haying/grazing on anything! A lot of the ditches around me still haven't been cut, either because of rain timing or because the cattle guys already have more grass than they know what to do with. There are some positives to season-long growing rains.
 
I spent a decent amount of time today traversing the hunting area I frequent each season. I was able to secure permission to hunt at 9 out of 10 locations. The only spot I couldn't was because no one was home.

Each landowner said they have seen and heard birds. Some more than others. One said he thinks there is more than last year, and last year was my best season since 2018.

Also, one landowner said he saw a covey of Hungarian partridge. I was shocked by this. I have literally never seen a wild hun in nearly 25 years of upland hunting.
 
Fall is a crazy time of year for my family and I. Can’t really get to crazy with my hunting until November but I’m getting the itch. We took the Springer to a slough this afternoon to throw the dummy for some water retrieves and was great seeing her romp through the cattails.
 
Just a few weeks left until the opener - how is everyone feeling about the season? Personally, I am very optimistic. I am hearing good reports of lots of birds from where we hunt in SW Minnesota, so that is great. Will still be a lot of crops in the ground for the opener, but that’s OK, and once all the crops are out, it should be really good. My dog is 4 years old now, so she is rounding into her prime, so I am excited to get her out too. Looking forward to a fun season!
 
MNhunter4ever said:
Just a few weeks left until the opener - how is everyone feeling about the season? Personally, I am very optimistic. I am hearing good reports of lots of birds from where we hunt in SW Minnesota, so that is great. Will still be a lot of crops in the ground for the opener, but that’s OK, and once all the crops are out, it should be really good. My dog is 4 years old now, so she is rounding into her prime, so I am excited to get her out too. Looking forward to a fun season!
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I'm optimistic too. Statewide dnr survey numbers are up almost 50% over last year. Most of that was in the SE, but SW showed a good jump too. All 6 regions showed at least a double digit percentage increase, with the SE region showing a triple digit increase. Can't ask for much more than that.

Winter of 2022-2023 harshly wiped out some areas. Nice to see those areas coming back. If we have another mild winter and a reasonable spring/summer next year, it could get *really* good in places.
 
Last season was the best I've had since 2018. The area I hunt is up 85% from last season according to the DNR. I'm skeptical that this year can be 85% better.

My lab is 13.5 so we cannot hunt in warm temps. Has to be under 50 degrees. Last year I got 10 hunts in between mid November and the end of the season.
 
gim said:
The area I hunt is up 85% from last season according to the DNR.
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The info I read said it was up more than that in the SE region. I thought that was your neck of the woods? Asking, because I'm wondering if there is conflicting information out there.
 
I live north of Duluth and I'm an avid pheasant hunter. Every now and then I see pheasants on my land but I'm sure they are escapees from the game farm, Old Vermillion Trail about 8 miles from my house. I'm going to OVT on Thursday to get my 17 month old red lab on some birds before the pheasant opener. Hard to believe but in the late 80s and early 90s there were wild populations of pheasants around Duluth because of the grain elevators in the Twin Ports and all the grain traffic into the Twin Ports. The hard winters of the mid-1990s killed them all off.
 
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