opener is here

LoneRooster

LoneRooster

New member
3 days until opener..despite the BS we are all facing with the failures and poor leadership in our govt and the closures of our public lands I hope everyone has a safe and succesfull harvest. If you do happen to encounter a federal agent I would recommend recording it in order to protect yourself and share it with everyone around you. Good luck hunting!!! be safe and have fun.:cheers:
 
yup guys happy safe hunting & strait shooting to all you guys be prepared if you have any dog troubles like heat issues or cuts ETC. hope all goes well & no WPA issues HAVE FUN GUYS
 
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Added a small sticker tonight. I'm a little excited. Probably should have just taken the day off work. I know I'm not going to get anything done.
 
Two of us took 5 birds. Should have been 8 total for weekend no problem. I missed a few easy shot and there were a lot of young birds that you could not tell what they were unit they turned. By then it was to far of a shot. Most of the corn was still up. They were working on beans I would say they were 80% down. If we stay dry corn should be down in the next 2 weeks. With corn still up we saw plenty of birds. Only took a few pics Ill post them later tonight. We hunted all public land. It was a good opener great to get out.:cheers:
 
I talked to a friend yesterday that farms SW of Canby and has land I hunt. He said he has not seen a pheasant all summer and fall. He normally has quite a few around the farm place and in his sweet corn. There is a fairly good sized public area near his land that had several vehicles and hunters on it Saturday. They stopped and asked the guys how there were doing. Not good was the answer. They had found only 3 hens in the entire area. I'm going over to that area during the middle of this week to hunt with a couple ol' high school friends but I'm not expecting much. Probably going to be much like it is here around Watertown, SD, no birds.
 
Had a great opener on Saturday. I was with a group of 4 and we shot 7 Roosters. We kicked up probably 15-20 birds on Saturday..Much like Tbear sad - It was really hard to tell whether some were hens or roosters until they turned. There are alot of young birds. On SUnday I went out on a solo hunt on some public land and kickeed up 6 birds, only one rooster though but I pulled up on it and didnt pull the trigger because I wasnt sure until he took a hard left and showed his white collar..that time I let him go. There are birds out there..once crops get cut they will get more compacted. I actually was glad the crops were in.. Last year when they were all out before the opener it was more of a 2 week slaughter fest of birds and then they were really tough to find.. Now we will kinda have 2 openers. Once the crops come out it will be opener all over again. Oh also, (bragging), my pup dixie ( 1 year 4 months) got her first limit on Opener. It was a proud moment. She hunted as a pup all last year and did ok.she has finally put it all together and it was great seeing how much she loved it.
 
Good job on the birds guys! I have hunted the last 3 days and only kicked up 5 hens. I saw about 6 roosters today about 30 yards outside of public land. Has anybody noticed how thick the cover this year?
 
Hey guys--sounds to me like a better opener then some of us expected. We jumped 15 roosters and 17 hens down around the Appleton area on public land. Very few hunters. We were able to get every spot we wanted. We saw five other birds get up way in front of us and 7 hens fly in front of the truck out of the corn. Bottom line is I was glad to see so many. Poor shooting and over enthusiastic dogs (three roosters in the first 15 minutes) kept our total to 6 between three guys. Highlight of my trip was my awesome pointing and great retrieving but gun shy English Setter broke out of his shell and was flat out awesome. He had one killer point that my GSP backed and my lab flushed. Maybe 45 seconds by my side from the shooting and he was off hunting again. Of course the card was full on my GoPro. All of the birds we saw were mature. We were ready for immature birds but never saw one.
 
i 2nd what dakotazeb says if his buddy is write near a WPA im sure we mite of been the group with all the vehicles??? does your friend mow the ditches??? if he does im sure we were the group he talked to??? we had like 6 vehicles 9 guys 5-6 dogs that when they hit scent would track & hold point but there was very slim pickings... there was a bunch of chukar sized pheasants out there that u could not tell what they were... we talked to 7-8 groups of hunters i think the best was 5 birds for 8 guys... most groups were at the 2-3 bird mark wear as last yr they were at 7-9... the corn & late hatch is a bad combo & im sure there will be some OK hunting once the corn is out but you will have to work for your birds more then normal... we got rained out today so we left early bad way to end a hunt...

we ended up with 4 birds total that is just bad no matter how you look at it we did miss 2-3 EZ shots but that was not a major factor... even thow the numbers are way down in some areas we did have a great hunt & had fun with friends... i will be heading back out west to do some duck hunting & pheasant hunting maybe even fri-sun? if i dont go do the early antlerless deer season in SE MN???

sorry not many pics to take of birds i will take some once i head back in a few days or a wk...

i will be trying some new areas in other parts of MN there has got to be a area that did much better then wear i was hunting i herd some good reports from the area not long ago and was excited now i seen it 1st hand & the pheasants seen must of been quail sized at that time cuz these birds out there now are BABY's...

i will keep at it & pray for warm weather because if we get a cold freeze some of these baby birds will be toast!!!

ND hear i come once the crops come out it has got to be better then MN i got to get my young dog on wild birds she loved it & did great 7-9 solid points all hens or baby birds we could not tell what they were... im more then happy for here work in the fields this wk-end with the birds being so few & far between she did great...
 
smo, you might have been in the general area but not sure you were exactly where my friend lives. Regardless, I was over there today and walked a quarter of his land late in the afternoon. Cover was really heavy and I didn't see any signs of where birds had been roosting. My dog did point a couple of hens, one of which was not fully grown. There is still quite a bit of corn standing so maybe once they get that out it will improve some but it's still going to be tough hunting.
 
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