Recent content by nater

Reminder that youth deer season (statewide, today though Sunday) means FULL BLAZE for pheasant hunting, per below. Shirt/jacket + hat (if wearing one). A hat alone isn't enough. Never a bad idea to throw some blaze on your dog too. • All hunters and trappers in the field during the open...

One of the nicest opening days in recent memory, in terms of weather. Our group of 7 shot 2 roosters at the first spot this morning, and had a few other missed opportunities. Went out for a solo hunt to finish the day, and got multiple points on birds returning from the surrounding corn. Scared...

I hunt WPAs 50% or more of the time, so I always shoot non-toxic. 12 ga Federal Black Cloud #4s are my go to, though an IC choke for most of the season. I haven't patterned them in a while but they were lights out last year on actual birds.

Beans have been coming off in a hurry over the past couple of days. Looks like a full week of upper-80 highs ahead, with nary a sprinkle forecasted until next weekend. Wouldn't surprise me if the vast majority of the beans get harvested over the next few days. Good amount of green in the corn...

Pheasant numbers in the 2025 Minnesota August Roadside Survey were up nearly 50% from 2024 and 21% above the 10-year average, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “The increase in pheasant numbers across the state and all regions is great news,” said Steven Woodley...

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.

If I'm traveling and actually shooting birds--I'd much rather eat them in camp than stick them in a cooler and cart them home. Not to mention-- possession limits start to kick in if you're real lucky. Getting comfortable cooking wild birds with some basic seasoning and a little bit of butter or...

100% worth it. I also use my Instinct to track steps/exercise/sleep, as a GPS tracker for myself, read txt messages when I don't want to pull out my phone, as a timer for the grill/smoker/stove, alarm clock, and...to tell time! I've never loved wearing a watch, but I do kinda love this one.

Let the dogs out in the dark this morning, and they came back soaking wet from the dew. Figured the birds would flock to the gravel at sunrise, and I was right--I saw 26 hens with broods in the local stretch in an hour of driving. Only 7 hens without broods. Really good average brood size, with...

Saturday morning coffee drive through the heart of where I hunt: 31 hens, 16 with broods, 15 without. That's not a great sign heading into late July. On the flip side...that's still 16 pheasant broods, and there are a pile of adult roosters out there.

That's accumulated total precip from June 10 - July 14, including only stations that reported 90% of the time.

I've now had rain 26 of the last 40 days at my house in SC MN. This is concerning. Flooding/ponding have not been significant issues over that period, but that's a lot cold and wet for the chicks. I did see 8 broods on my morning coffee drive yesterday, with a good mix of age and brood size. But...

I saw the same thing turkey hunting/scouting. Nearly got run over by a herd of 30+ hen pheasants in March while scouting a WPA. Then when I hunted it in A season, was completely covered up in birds (none of them turkeys, unfortunately).