Harvest Report

Fell short of your 12 roosters. Brought home 9 birds on my annual trip the second week of seasons. Hunted 5 days. However, I did have opportunity to shoot more. My shooting was horrible, cleanly missed a dozen "give-me"
shots. I need to spend some more time at the range!
 
That's pretty good at 1.8 birds/day. I'm trying to gauge the bird harvest. Seems there are extremes this year as some people are getting birds and some people aren't even seeing any. I hunted public today and only saw birds at one spot. Lot of ducks and geese flying. When I stopped for lunch, I had one farmer ask me if I wanted to hunt his place. Real nice guy, but I had to get going.
 
I hunted one day in Iowa on private land in Greene county on November 2, I killed my 3 roosters in about 30 minutes, and saw about 12 birds total. I have two good GSP's. I have hunted the same farm the two previous years on opening weekend and got my limit or close to it, but usually had to hunt most of the day to do it. I attribute my success this year to an early harvest and private land. Another group of about 5 hunters I know (with similarily good dogs) hunted for about 4 days around Spirit Lake on public land and killed a total of about 3-4 roosters. I think it is all about habitat and hunter pressure, and less so the rain, hatch etc.
 
I hunt in Cass and Adair Counties. Some of my traditional "hotspots" did not hold any birds, others had decent populations. Hunters numbers way down I was the only hunter during the week at hotel which is normally pretty full. I was concerned that I did not see the amount of hens that I have in the past. Could be weather and/or predators?
 
I've only hunted Kossuth Cnty and hunted four days opening weekend and took 12 birds. I went back over TG time and took two. (I've eaten several). We pushed 60+ birds out of our land owner's home grove, but conditions were pitiful elsewhere. I usually don't harvest this many birds, but have moved my base of operation to No. Central Mn. and don't have the luxury of going when I want. Need a tasty rooster a week to get me through a Mn. winter. I was going back down in December sometime, but hunting conditions were horrendous, so not looking likely now.
 
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