Mid season report (everyone asking where to go... report if you went)

BRITTMAN

BRITTMAN

Well-known member
Everyone that has visited this ND forum site report up if you hunted (especially those asking for advise - tell how you did). You can leave out specific towns and just say SE, SC, SW, NW, NC, etc... if that is what you prefer to do.

We focused on waterfowl and did pretty well. Windy most days so the decision seemed right. The one day we hunted pheasants we shot 4 roosters and saw 6. Not a core pheasant area of ND, but typically we would see 3 - 4X this many birds.

Was checked by the game warden. He said that the pheasant hunters are pleasantly surprised by what they are getting, but most had zero expectations.

Hoping to go back in home in December and try a few days. No 5 foot snow drifts - please :eek:
 
We hunted south central NoDak October 22-28. Bird numbers were down compared to last year. We got into plenty of birds. We killed more birds and had more opportunities (flushes in front of pointed birds) compared to last year. All the birds we harvested were young. A couple birds were just beginning to develop color.

We did see a number of roosters in the roads while driving around, mostly in the evenings. (I don't remember seeing a single bird in the road last year.)

We found most of our birds in cover near harvested beans. The corn was just starting to come off when we were there. We hunted one nice peice of cover next to standing corn and the dogs flushed a number of birds (roosters and hens) wild out in the corn. Hunting should improve with the corn harvested.

The poor pheasant forecast seemed to greatly reduce the number of hunters. Last year we saw other groups of hunters in the field or on the roads every day. This year we saw maybed a half dozen other groups of hunters all week and most of them were observed on Saturday and Sunday. The motel where we stayed Saturday night had rooms available. They have been booked by August for the past three years.

JLMyers
 
Just returned from SW and saw a fair amount of birds. Overall we did okay but was certainly down from last year. We did get into a fair amount of sharptails however and did very well with those. The biggest surprise was several of the "honey holes" from years past are now bare ground with oil wells pumping.:(
 
Way South Central ND.
Out in October lots of crops still in but got my limit with no problems. Birds in water boot high even. Fence lines and hard for me to believe they were in high cut wheat fields.Spent 1 day making horseradis with a neighbor. spent another day fishing.
Went in Nov most of the crops were out. Birds were still in water and fence lines. Seems to be older birds by themselves. Lots of young ones and they were in groups some large over 50 in CRP. Dogs pointed alot this year too. I think to fewer birds on the ground. I was driving up to a plot ground and 5 roosters and 1 hen ran right by my truck. I could have opened the door and grabbed one of them. I let the truck roll to a stop got out and walked 25 ft to where they ran into weeds and a hen got up first then a rooster I got him and then another rooster I got him and 2 more roosters got up to my left side but I wanted to make sure I found the 2 I shot. I did and I got a dog out and walked about 1/4 mile and got my 3rd for the day. What a hoot!
 
I hunted in the SW part the first week of Nov. Very few birds. Have hunted some of these same areas since 2005, and have never seen such low numbers. My second 7 days is scheduled for 1st week of Dec, but may not go back.
 
spent 3 full days in SW and a couple partial days the first week of Nov. I echo some thoughts, still lots of birds..... but really there is huge reduction in CRP, and as a result, a HUGE reduction in total bird numbers available. STill a great place to go, if you have access, or are willing to pay to play.
There is way less posted land now than is saw in 2007-2010, but the reduction there is because they are now stubble fields, or sunflower fields that are harvested.
 
Central. Yes, bird numbers are down, but we've been spoiled by years of their numbers being up. My memory's good enough to remember that there were, essentially, no pheasant in the state 15-20 years ago. Plenty of limits available if you put on a few miles, and what could be more rewarding? Third trip coming up this month, fourth during the final week.
 
I took my two sons to SW North Dakota and hunted with Dakota Winds and we had a blast!! We limited for 3 days and the boys only 12 and 14 years old learned a ton about pheasants and they shot well and shot their own birds. I spent some time on public land to try for sharptial, but was unsuccessful finding them. Overall, it was a fantastic trip and was our first, so I don't know what to compare it to, but there are tons more birds in ND than in Idaho. Been chasing chukar in Idaho now and it has been an average year for bird #'s.
 
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