2022 Season

I went duck hunting Saturday morning to avoid the crowds, shot a White Winged Scoter! Took the dogs out Saturday around 3pm still hunters out. We found a spot that was open, walked around 2 hours and saw 7 Hens. Happy with the dog work. 2 GSP's one 3 years and one about to turn 6 months. Went out for ducks again Sunday. The pup was bouncing off the walls at the cabin so I figured I better take her out for a quick hunt before heading home from the cabin. We got out at noon, super windy. I thought for sure we would see nothing. Nope, had 4 rooster contacts. 3 ran on the dogs and flushed wild. The last one my 3 yrs old pointed then tracked 50yds to a cattails slough and pinned it. Ended up dumping it in the pond and the 6 month old swan out for the retrieve!20221015_081252.jpg20221016_124605.jpg
 
Goosemaster said:
I think November 10 is about right for first hunt.
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I think you mean November 14. Deer firearms season runs though Nov 13 here. I wait until that locomotive comes to a stop before I venture out. I'm pretty sure Bob Peter's reference is for the same reason. Almost all of my spots are hunted for deer.
 
Glock said:
Have we talked about this Thursday through Sunday is youth deer season? Wear your orange to be safe and legal!
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I was going to mention it myself. There is a statewide youth deer season and many zones also have an early antlerless season. Your standard orange cap or shoulder-patch vest will not be acceptable if you intend to pheasant hunt. You will need an orange hat AND a full orange vest to be legal. I have a friend who was verbally warned about that a couple years ago - he was only wearing an orange cap with a brown colored vest.

It sounds like there are a lot of people doing the youth/early anterless season too, so watch out for deer hunters and keep your dog close.
 
Last Tuesday I made my way North for my first MN pheasant hunt.. It was a beautiful, cold morning. On the WMA I decided to start at, I saw two roosters, both got up out of range. At the second, larger WMA I took a shot at a bird that was probably out of range. The dogs put up a few hens, but no roosters within range. As we were getting close to the parking area, I slung my shotgun over my shoulder, and kind of let my guard down. Sure enough, a rooster gets up 20 yards from the pickup. By the time I gathered my wits, the bird was still well within range, but I whiffed twice. I felt bad for the dogs. We will get them next time.

The vast majority of the corn was out in the area I hunted. I was impressed with the cover on the 2 WMA's I hunted. After tomorrow I am off of work for 13 days. I'm planning to get back up there a couple more times before the NE and IA seasons start.
 
gimruis said:
I was going to mention it myself. There is a statewide youth deer season and many zones also have an early antlerless season. Your standard orange cap or shoulder-patch vest will not be acceptable if you intend to pheasant hunt. You will need an orange hat AND a full orange vest to be legal. I have a friend who was verbally warned about that a couple years ago - he was only wearing an orange cap with a brown colored vest.

It sounds like there are a lot of people doing the youth/early anterless season too, so watch out for deer hunters and keep your dog close.
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If you've got over-lapping seasons like that, and if you might have some of the reckless hunters-in-license-only as I do in Wisconsin, I'd strongly recommend a blaze orange vest for all your dogs.

No matter all the precautionary statements presented to them, there are some shoot-it-its-moving guys with guns, especially on public lands.

Be safe, have fun.


Oh, and GREAT retrieve photo of the pup!
 
MN deer season is slug only across the vast majority of the pheasant range. I occasionally have hunted midweek during the 9-day gun season and will note that there are only a few hunters out and most are done by the 9AM pheasant start time.

Just stay away from those huge deer drives that some groups put on. In the evening most Western MN deer hunters are on stands ... A good share of MN deer hunting accidents occurs on these group drives.

Ruffed Grouse hunting on the other hand would be an insane endeavor in the MN woods during deer gun season.
 
Made it out for opening day. Lots of hunting pressure, but that was to be expected. Did a lot of driving midday as I was having difficulty getting on a spot. I drove up to one nice looking spot and noticed a group of hunters hitting it and rooster flying out across the road. Marked the spot and drove back to it a few hours later and nobody was in it. As I was getting ready to walk it, another group of hunters drove up. We had a nice conversation and they asked if I’d mind them joining me. I said no problem. I didn’t think they had much of a choice with all of the hunting pressure. They ended up deciding not to, but they should have! Not too far into the walk my dog got very birdy and we kicked up a tight holding rooster. Dropped him and my dog made a good retrieve. Perfect way to end the day!
 
RR - sounds like the other group made the right decision. You had a great 1 on 1 walk with your dog and had success.
 
We sure did! Flushed a number of hens on that walk too and one giant rooster. He gave us the slip and flushed out a long way behind us. They’re getting smarter already….
 
Kismet said:
No matter all the precautionary statements presented to them, there are some shoot-it-its-moving guys with guns, especially on public lands.
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I refuse to upland hunt during any firearms deer season anymore, whether that be the early youth/antlerless season, or the general firearms season. For starters, I'm already hunting deer myself during the general firearms season. Its only 9 days long in most of the state, and pheasant season is 2.5 months long. Priorities.

Whether someone is using a slug or a rifle has no bearing on my decision. There's too many people out there and there's too many hunters that aren't safe. Not to mention there's added blaze orange requirements too.

The other issue is that many of the spots I upland hunt are also hunted for deer by someone else. Trouncing around through there with a dog before someone intends to deer hunt is just disrespectful. If I was deer hunting and someone was pheasant hunting before I was going to deer hunt the area, I'd be pissed. When I seek permission to pheasant hunt, I tell them I intend to go in there after deer season is over. That often is enough alone for them to give me permission. And to clarify, I am specifically referring to private land here. I don't hunt public land for pheasants.
 
Just got back from a 4 day hunt out west. The bird numbers in my area seemed about average I'd say. I've seen better but also seen worse. Got out west around 1030 Friday and hunted the first spot (which was my groups 3rd choice as surprisingly there were cars at our first 2 choices). Ended up getting 1 rooster there and kicked up a few hens. Ended up trying a new spot for the evening hunt which produced an unrecoverable bird unfortunately. Another member of my party tagged a bird but I knew it wasn't stone dead. Searched for 15 minutes and we moved on with the decision of coming back through on our way out to check again. Rest of the walk we kicked up 4 hens, but no other roosters. On the walk back we searched for the bird again, my dog found it about 50 yards from where we saw it fall but he had his running shoes on. He was able to get into some cattails and elude my dog. I let her keep searching for about 5 minutes and she came back on it again, this time in the heart of the cattails. It ended up eluding us a 3rd time. My dog kept searching and I waited and waited but she wasn't able to pick up his trail again. It was almost dark so I had to call of the search unfortunately.

Saturday ended up being a great day. First field produced 3 roosters and easily a chance at 3 more with better shooting and a little better planning as some roosters outsmarted us. Later in the day we ended up getting 3 more roosters out of a WIA. All told we were 2 birds shy of my groups limit.

Sunday was a rough day both weather and bird wise. Hot, dry and windy as hell. Great conditions for a dog. First walk produced a rooster and a few hens, but for it to be a 3 hour hunt, not as productive as we'd like. We took the afternoon off as the temperature in the truck said it was 81 out. We hit a honey hole spot for the last walk which ended with us kicking up 2 roosters way out of range and a few hens.

We hit one field this morning, and again the weather was a pain. Instead of being hot and windy, it was cold and windier. 1 rooster outsmarted us and 4 hens gave us some great shot opportunities if they had the right colors.

All told it was a decent outing given the weather conditions being less than ideal, but there's never a bad time to be out in the field and I'm looking forward to getting out again.

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Munster927 said:
Sunday was a rough day both weather and bird wise. Hot, dry and windy as hell.
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LOL I remember raking leaves on Sunday afternoon in that blistering hot hurricane and thinking to myself "I wonder if anyone is out in this" and sure enough there was someone out there.
 
First-time poster here - just stumbled onto the forums here and have been loving what I've been reading, so I thought I would post too.

I took my 1.5 year old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon up to some private family ground in SW MN on the Sunday of the opener, and we had our two birds by 11:30 AM. Saw lots of birds, which was very encouraging with the amount of corn that was still in at the time.

Didn't hunt last weekend because of the warm temps and some family commitments, but I am heading back out this weekend to hopefully get a few more birds. I am not going to hunt our private ground because we're saving that for deer hunting now the following weekend, so I am going to hit some public ground in the area. I know the public grounds have been hit hard, but hopefully a few of those hunters have packed it in for the season - seems like a lot of hunters get out there for the opener and then quit for the season, which is fine with me!
 
This was a couple minutes after legal shooting time. Dog cat walked along the cattails for about 5 yards then froze up on this standing point. I told him ok he moved into the cattails and solid crouching point.
Nice rooster came out 4 feet from him.

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Just a reminder, the primary 9 or 16 day statewide firearms deer season starts on Saturday. Specific blaze orange requirements apply.

I'll be in my stand almost every day as weather permits. After that, its pheasant hunting until the season ends.
 
In case anyone is interested, here is the most recent USDA crop harvest report from Monday. 80% of the corn is out. Soybeans aren't listed anymore, they must be virtually all gone.


The land I am deer hunting at in east-central MN starting Saturday still has a 50 acre patch of standing corn right in the middle of it. Its going to be a tough hunt if that is still there in 3 days.
 
gimruis said:
In case anyone is interested, here is the most recent USDA crop harvest report from Monday. 80% of the corn is out. Soybeans aren't listed anymore, they must be virtually all gone.



The land I am deer hunting at in east-central MN starting Saturday still has a 50 acre patch of standing corn right in the middle of it. Its going to be a tough hunt if that is still there in 3 days.
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I’m not a deer hunter but would have guessed a little standing corn would be prime sanctuary when every woods around is pushed on Saturday morning. Interesting to know that’s not true.
 
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