Another great trip to SW ND

Jerryv

Member
Just got back from a week in the SW corner of ND and though I would post a few observations. The birds are about the same as last year which is to say they are way down from 10 years ago. We put in a lot of walking for the birds we shot. One thing that was disturbing; there seemed to be a lack of hens in some places. Not a good sign for the future.
The corn and sunflowers are generally still standing. I saw very little harvesting activity which seemed a little odd. Most of the plots were not worth walking. A lot were grazed short or at least half of each was cut and baled. The number of hunters also seemed much lower. Hardly heard any shooting other than our group. I did not see any evidence of the EHD outbreak that is mentioned on the Game and Fish website. Almost the opposite; there were deer everywhere. Both Whitetail and Mule Deer. More Mulies than I have seen in years.
The weather was awesome. Too warm on a couple of days and probably the least wind of any trip I can remember. Hope to go back in December for a late season hunt.

Jerry
 
Whitetails are the predominant deer impacted by EHD and it can be very localized.

The conditions across much of the ND PLOTS is why hunter numbers were down. SW ND is very dependent on PLOTS for public land pheasant hunting unless you really get down along the river in the Grasslands. Resident hunters probably are not returning too often from the larger cities.
 
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