Lidgerwood/Oakes/Ellendale Area Questions

That is all we hunt. Lots of cattails and bullrushes. Hardly any crp grass in that area. Its tough hunting.the later the year the deeper the snow.
 
Those areas you mentioned in the SE part of NoDak is prime waterfowl hunting thus will have an abundance of Wetlands. During a good year (hatch) the area will have decent Phez hunting as well, especially later in the year when the cattails freeze up. The plots in this area has a mixture of both CRP and wetlands.

However, since you stated you are not really interested in hunting wetlands, then you would be better suited to areas further west. South Central Nodak (especially the southern tier counties to the Missouri river) will have much fewer wetlands and more open grassland, rangeland prairie type cover.

The SW will have very little if any wetlands and it will also have the most Pheasants and CRP acreage, albeit much of the land is posted and many landowners charge a trespass fee. There is still quite a bit of decent public land, but it will not hold nearly the amount of birds as the private. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I have found that when hunting private acreas where there are literally hundreds of birds does not always equate to great dog work. JMO.

It's not impossible to get on private in the SW, but you will have to knock on a few doors before you find one that will let you on for free. Late season is best for this in the SW.
 
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goodluck hunting for free in sw nd. im from sw nd nothing is free these people in that area are very cuttroath. i know one guy that has his son drive the roads and make sure nobody is hunting around his land. all the neighbors get together and agree they will turn away hunters unless they pay. i have had many bad times growing up in sw fart of the state. i only hunt wm or plots of federal lands and i dont have to ask anybody for permission.
 
I hunt quite a bit between Lidgerwood and Oakes with pointers myself. I typically do not have any issues getting access to land I want to hunt. There are a couple PLOTS North and West of Lidgerwood I've hunted that are just grass - no cattails. Obviously the further west you go, the more birds and better habitat you seem to find. I usually wait till later in the season also...as this is a pretty big farming area and the recent wet years have pushed back harvest of a lot of the crops. So as the agricultural cover disappears, this tends to push the birds into PLOTS which were probably hit pretty hard early in the season.
I really don't like running dogs in big sloughs/cattails either unless I am with 3 or more guys. So when the ground and water does freeze up, I'll usually hit the smaller cattail pockets into the wind. Maybe one or two of these a day not to ding up the dog too badly.
Overall, I think you would be pleased with the area. Grab a PLOTS book and check out the area a little closer sometime. Since you wait till later in the season, you'll be happy as the crops are harvested and this greatly reduces the areas the birds can be. Yeah, the birds will probably not be so dumb like they are early in the season but it'll just makes you a smarter hunter. If hunting after deer season and you do find some posted land, the land owner will more in likely allow you to hunt knowing it's for birds and you won't be scaring out their deer either.

Neil
www.uplandgameadventures.com
 
tmrichardson said:
I do need to take a trip to Little Missouri country after STG some day, but in this case I was thinking mostly pheasants. I know about the impact Cannonball and others have had on low cost hunting in SW ND so hadn't really thought of going out that far.

I'm OK with cattail hunting, if it's the small several acre type or there's a rather narrow fringe of cattails. The big dozens of acres stuff is much better for flushers than pointing dogs I've found.

But thanks for the help...kind of hearing what others have told me, I might want to look a bit further west.
Click to expand...

There are some cattail sloughs that winter pheasants that are over 40 acres in size - continuous cover.
 
tmrichardson said:
I do need to take a trip to Little Missouri country after STG some day, but in this case I was thinking mostly pheasants. I know about the impact Cannonball and others have had on low cost hunting in SW ND so hadn't really thought of going out that far.

I'm OK with cattail hunting, if it's the small several acre type or there's a rather narrow fringe of cattails. The big dozens of acres stuff is much better for flushers than pointing dogs I've found.

But thanks for the help...kind of hearing what others have told me, I might want to look a bit further west.
Click to expand...

There are some cattail sloughs that winter pheasants that are over 40 (even 80) acres in size - continuous cover.
 
you could try around the wishek to ashley area. there are plenty of crp plot land sections out there. plus you might see some sharpies or huns.
 
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