2021 Season

Munster927

Munster927

Well-known member
It's quiet on the Minnesota front lately so starting a thread. We got a little over 36 hours until go time. Post your 2021 season highlights, lowlights, pictures and general commentary as the season progresses.

Shoot straight and good luck 🤞
 
All the MN hunters are posting on the Dakota forums, or, by now, are racing to the Mitchell Cabela's hoping to score some ammo. LOL

For myself, I might drive out and check on the crop harvest. I'll take the gun, but probably just look around.
 
Rogue Hunter said:
by now, are racing to the Mitchell Cabela's hoping to score some ammo
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LOL that's probably accurate.

I haven't hunted a MN opener since 2012. Been too hot and there's too many crops. Although the temps look more favorable tomorrow, the crops are still mostly standing where I hunt in East-Central. Plus my permission does not start until after firearms deer season anyways, so I will not be bird hunting until mid-November.

Good luck to those hunting tomorrow.
 
gimruis said:
LOL that's probably accurate.

I haven't hunted a MN opener since 2012. Been too hot and there's too many crops. Although the temps look more favorable tomorrow, the crops are still mostly standing where I hunt in East-Central. Plus my permission does not start until after firearms deer season anyways, so I will not be bird hunting until mid-November.

Good luck to those hunting tomorrow.
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Ouch! Though I had it bad not starting until next week.
 
Rogue Hunter said:
Ouch! Though I had it bad not starting until next week.
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Its fine. The best hunting doesn't happen until crops come down anyways. Most of the land I have permission to hunt is also hunted for deer so it would be very disruptive if i was trouncing through there with a dog prior to the deer season. In fact, if I was doing that, I would probably lose permission to hunt at many of those locations.

The birds will still be there when I start hunting in November and once the calendar hits Dec 1, I can really make some hay because the bag limit goes up to 3 daily.

As stated in another thread, I wish the season would extend further into January then I could get another week or two of hunting in.
 
I will probably get out tomorrow just to run the dogs. Opener isn't all that appealing to me. My family is almost done harvesting crops so that is about the biggest reason I see doing some walking tomorrow. Good luck to everyone on the upcoming season. I always wish I had more time to go.
 
Rude One said:
I will probably get out tomorrow just to run the dogs. Opener isn't all that appealing to me. My family is almost done harvesting crops so that is about the biggest reason I see doing some walking tomorrow. Good luck to everyone on the upcoming season. I always wish I had more time to go.
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As a fellow UPHer once advised, always make a little time for howling at the moon.
 
I got out early this morning and attempted to save a spot for myself by being the first one in the lot. Didn’t work, had a group pull in at shooting time so we tried to agree on a plan… but that got messed up by another group who parked on the side road and cut us off. So I called it a morning after 45 minutes of hunting. Saw two hens. After lunch I went back to the same spot and shot 2 baby roosters, barely any colors….. and put one more on the way back to the truck. Over all a good start a bonus is the combines were running hard this afternoon
 
Hard to ask for better weather and conditions for a MN pheasant opener. I felt an incredible sense of gratitude being out on the prairie with my dogs again. At the end of the day I was grinning ear to ear watching the pup run through a patch of milkweed that was blowing like snow.

Hope everyone who got out had a safe and memorable hunt today.
 
Great weekend to be out! Found decent bird numbers. Dnr really needs burn some of the fields and get them back on track.
 

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Couple take aways from the 21 opener.... took the boys(3) and (7) out Saturday a.m. we walked for pry a hour and headed back to truck. Was 6 other trucks parked withing few hundred yards of us. Very few shots..... I know it's early and it pry ain't that big of a deal but we had to sound like a class of kindergarten kids heading to lunch coming thru that grass. O well. They had fun. All that matters.

Shot 2 birds each evening. 2 separate spots . Both with standing corn adjoining.... I think bird numbers are similar or maybe a touch better then last year from what I've seen so far ...

Habitat on the other hand took a ass kickin.... grass is short and sparse. ..... birds will be in the cattails early this year . Imo.
 

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Great opener. Sometimes it's too easy as was Saturday but no complaints. Two shots, two birds within 10 minutes. I did have to work a bit harder for one on Sunday though. A lot of other hunters around.
 

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Went out west of Elk Lake. Hunted several hours. Saw 4 hens , two roosters. All were running, as if been hunted hard
for weeks. That kind of surprised me. No shots. No birds in hand, beautiful day, and blessed with wonderful dog work.
 
Hunted SW of Canby today at a friend's farm. He has about 3 quarters of CRP but much of it got hayed off this summer. There was still a decent amount of grass that didn't get hayed but that was knee high at best. It was quite dry in that area this summer and I also think it affected the hatch. He said he has seen very few birds. Beans were all out in the area and some corn also. There were two fields of standing corn adjacent to his land so might be better after that's harvested. Anyway, the dog and I walked around for a couple of hours and never saw a bird. A lot of the other CRP or public land in the area also had quite short grasses. If we get any snow at all that grass will be flat and provide no cover. Quite disappointing.
 
That is sad to hear. I hope you find pockets that are more appealing. I will continue to monitor.
Stay safe, keep dog(s) hunting, and shoot straight!!
 
My opener was a bit of a mixed bag. Saturday morning started out slow, no shots fired and only 1 hen kicked up in a 2 hour walk on a WIA with CRP and a cattail edge at the back side with 5 guys and 4 dogs. Second hunt of the day was a short one pushing a cattail edge, we saw 2 roosters. One flushed wild and another my hunting partner knocked down but we couldn't find, it had legs still and must have ran into the cattails. On the way to the last spot, a rooster sailed across the road into a WPA that I was able to mark well. I grabbed 1 dog and ran out there. My dog locked up on point as we got to my mark, it flushed and I missed 3 times and cursed myself out on the walk back to the truck. Last walk of the day made the day count however. Another 2 hour walk until sunset, we knocked one down in the corn we pushed on a WMA. Then picked up 4 birds all towards the end of the walk in a slough. I got 2 of them and my hunting partners picked up the other 2.

2nd day we started out at a WMA and picked up 3 birds on a relatively long walk. Took a long break in the afternoon then hit another WMA for the evening hunt, 2 birds should have met their end there if we were better shots. I missed one that will haunt me awhile and another was missed. So 3 birds in total on day 2.

This morning we did one walk before heading back for home. Kicked up a few hens and one rooster that was missed. No other roosters.

All in all I'd say it was an average opener for my group. I've had better but I've had worse. In my area, we really didn't see alot of hens but other people we talked to said they were seeing alot of hens so must be dumb luck on our part. But I think I could count on 1 hand how many hens we saw.

Hunter numbers in my area also seemed low. The hotel we stay at is usually packed with every parking spot filled. Wasn't the case this year. Still busy, but there was room in the lot. Out on the road I didn't see as many hunters at the public parking spots or seeing much orange just in passing on the road.

Seemed like a fair amount of crops still standing in the area too (50% maybe?). But harvesting was in full swing so in another few weeks it'll be all down.

I have some family obligations next weekend and some work at my hunting cabin up north the following weekend and deer opener is after that so no pheasant hunting for me for a few weeks but I can't wait to get out again.
 
I hunted with my neighbors and son-in-law on Sunday afternoon. We saw 9 pheasants about 5 in range (three roosters and 2 hens). My one neighbor shot 2 and the other neighbor missed one on a cornfield drive.
 
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