2023 Season

Munster927

Munster927

Well-known member
How was everyone's opener? Any reports? I didn't get out for the opener but am heading out for 5 days starting Thursday morning.
 
Munster927 said:
heading out for 5 days starting Thursday morning.
Click to expand...
Just a reminder, there is a 4 day youth and early antlerless firearm deer season starting on Thursday before sunrise and additional blaze orange requirements are in effect. I was going to work on some deer stands and clear brush, but decided to post pone that due to this deer season and its associated blaze orange rules.
 
Me and a buddy hit a public spot in far southern MN. We walked in with wind at our backs and right away a big rooster flushed behind us. Kinda out of range no shots fired. We hunted for an hour and not much action. We got around a nice corn food plot and I got a rooster in the weeds around the edge. A little bit later a rooster flushed between us (we were spread out 20 yards) and flew right over top my buddy. Best head shot I've seen, it was gone but not a pellet in the body. Finally we hit a spot in the food plot and a pile of birds flushed wild, I thought "there goes our chance." Boy was I wrong, 10 yards later the birds came shooting out like fireworks on the 4th. Tough to say how many were there, but it was A LOT! We both picked out a bird and were done for the day at 11. Another guy I know was hunting south of us and he got a limit too. There was lots of birds around even with the crops up. Sunday was tougher. Morning hunt my buddy missed any easy one and hit another one that we retrieved thanks to the dog. I took afternoon off and hunted alone for half an hour near sunset on a subpar piece of public land le Sueur county. The dog flushed a hen and then a rooster, I couldn't believe it! I dropped the rooster and it's a whole long story, but unfortunately never could find him. He Houdinied me so bad I'm still scratching my head and kicking myself.
 
Munster927 said:
How was everyone's opener? Any reports? I didn't get out for the opener but am heading out for 5 days starting Thursday morning.
Click to expand...
This is my season opener. My grandson and I on our 12th annual squirrel camp. This year was a blast. We took 25 greys with .410's on the ground. If you've never stalked grey squirrels on the ground, Its quite a challenge. My 6'2, 220 lb. grandson is a sophomore at I.U. He's in the prestigious Kelly school of business, Proving the fact that you can take the hic from the woods, but you can't take the woods from the hic!! From now till Jan. it's dog running, shooting clay and hunting birds in that order! Good hunting and stay safe to all!!
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1023.jpg
    IMG_1023.jpg
    3 MB · Views: 23
Glock said:
Number of birds were decent. Number of hunters out was really high specially on Sunday. The number of hunters screaming at their untrained dogs who were running several hundred yards from them was also fairly high.
Click to expand...
Sunday morning we were sitting in the truck waiting for 9am. There is another parking lot about 1/4 mile away. A small suv pulls into that lot and just as soon as it’s in park the door opens and a springer pops out of it and starts to run wide open. The yelling for the dog begins. They finally get it back to their car. After 9 we start off. Maybe 40 yards in we shoot our first bird. Their dog hears the shot and 10 minutes later is hunting with us while the owners are screaming for their dog. There is a pretty deep creek that separates our side from theirs so there is no way for them to get to us to retrieve their dog. About 20 minutes with us it swims the creek and heads back to them. We shot a few more times and didn’t have it return toward us. We also didn’t hear any shots from them. Seems like at least once a year we load up someone else’s dog and haul it to their owner.
 
Pretty slow here. Only saw 3 hens. Only got out Sunday afternoon because of kids activities. There was so much corn up that I knew what I was getting into. Kicked up maybe 15 deer. Some really huge bucks. I was surprised to see them bunched together still. One almost ran my dog and me over. There was a moment of panic that this thing isn't going to deviate from my path. Went maybe 25' from me. It was the biggest buck I've ever seen in MN. That was my excitement for the day. Did kick up some turkeys as well. In a week or two my spots will be really good but for now the sea of corn was hard to compete with.
 
Glock said:
Sunday morning we were sitting in the truck waiting for 9am. There is another parking lot about 1/4 mile away. A small suv pulls into that lot and just as soon as it’s in park the door opens and a springer pops out of it and starts to run wide open. The yelling for the dog begins. They finally get it back to their car. After 9 we start off. Maybe 40 yards in we shoot our first bird. Their dog hears the shot and 10 minutes later is hunting with us while the owners are screaming for their dog. There is a pretty deep creek that separates our side from theirs so there is no way for them to get to us to retrieve their dog. About 20 minutes with us it swims the creek and heads back to them. We shot a few more times and didn’t have it return toward us. We also didn’t hear any shots from them. Seems like at least once a year we load up someone else’s dog and haul it to their owner.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a little opening day jitters. I used to be kinda like that myself. :giggle:
 
Munster927 said:
I haven't either. I've been skipping opener for the last few years and hunting 2nd weekend which always has the youth hunt. Never seen anyone on public.
Click to expand...
That's not what I meant when I posted earlier about it. What I meant was that during those 4 days you can't just use your blaze orange hat or vest that you wear for upland hunting during this time period. You need to wear more blaze orange, as if you were going deer hunting.

Some upland hunters just rock a blaze orange hat. That's definitely not going to cut it.

My guess is that there will be more deer hunters out there than upland hunters. The antlerless and youth season have become very popular, at least where I hunt. I am not a big fan of either one, but I don't make the rules. I know of probably 15 people that intend to go deer hunting during this 4 day season.
 
Last edited:
We hunted just Saturday in SW MN on private land. Lots of rain the previous day or two, and it all soaked right into the ground. Lots of corn still standing, which is just part of the deal with the opener. Nice weather this week, so hopefully more corn comes out soon. We saw probably 15-20 roosters on Saturday, shot a few, and lost a downed one over the cattails. What was crazy is that I bet we saw at least 3-4x that many hens - definitely a good sign, but I wish a few more of those would have been roosters! But holy cow we saw hens. Overall nice day, good start to the season, and can’t wait to get back out next Saturday again.
 
Hunted north of morris about 20 miles; bird numbers were low overall, the prospects map maybe accurate there. While waiting for 9am I saw 3 or 4 hens fly into the corn, then while walking another group of 3 flushed wild into the corn. Walked until 1130 on the same WPA with great cover but never saw anything else.
Went to another WMA that didnt look like anyone hit it that morning, dog bumped a rooster that was in the catails and go tthat one; about 5 minutes later, dog went on a perfect point and a rooster flushed, bang, jam, miss. Repeat 10 min later:mad:
Went back to camp to make lunch and have a quick snooze, then hit a wma next to the campground and got the 2nd bird that was on the edge of the cattails and grass.

Sunday morning I hit the same place as opening morning as no one hit it during the roost, but never saw a bird besides before shooting time when 3 hens went into the corn, tried another WPA and saw 1 hen.

The 2 birds I did get were older birds and others I flushed had good color to them. Another camper had similar results, not many flushes.

I would guess maybe half the corn has been taken out
 
One short walk close to town and took one rooster. Thought I posted this ... maybe randomly on another thread.
 
Son had football Saturday morning. On the drive over counted 15 trucks between basically 2 large spots around home... 9:15. Sea of orange every direction.. glad I avoided that mess. Went out at 3 that afternoon to same spot and shot my 2 by 530.

Sunday we went west to basically scout out the crops and just go for a cruise... ended up shooting 3 between 3 of us that morning. Again lots and lots of trucks.... and corn out there .

Bring on the cold weather and snow .... these guys need to start staying home and cheering on the vikings a little harder haha

Should be a good year
 

Attachments

  • 20231014_173813.jpg
    20231014_173813.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 12
A couple of successful and relaxing hours in the grouse (well woodcock mainly) woods this morning. Great morning. Dog loves the woods - more so than the prairie - I think.

I on the other hand have gravitated back to my prairie roots and spend far less time ruffed grouse hunting than when I was in my 30s and early 40s.
 
Of Minnesota ?

NW MN is decent hunting for deer, grouse (ruff and sharptail), and waterfowl. Some really good fishing lakes.

What makes that area somewhat special by MN standards is less people live there and hunt there. Many people from the Twin Cities metro (4 million plus people) often drive through the area but do not stop ... they are headed to Canada, North Dakota, or Montana depending on the species.

There is A LOT of public land in that part of MN. Huge tracts.

Red Lake and Lake of the Woods are the main exceptions. Red Lake is extremely busy for walleye ... especially May and early ice. Lake of the Woods is busy.

Again though many drive on through to Devils Lake in ND or into Manitoba ....
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top