Pine City
I hunt up in this area fairly often during the weekends I'm home, since its such a close drive.
-In terms of the public hunting areas there, I have checked out damn near every single one of them within a 50 mile radius of the city (last year, ended up spending an entire day just scouting) and found 2 that I thought were decent "pheasant hunting" areas. One of them i have hunted every year for 3 years, and have yet to get a bird, or even take a shot, but it always looks so promising that I keep going and spending 45 minutes putzing around with the pup in hopes that one will pop up.
-Many of the public areas are absolutely massive, and I avoid those. I try to stick to ones that 1-2 people can theoretically walk with a possibility of success. I would say 90% of the "public hunting areas" that atlas's say have pheasant present are swamp/wetlands. You can hunt certain pockets or outskirts, but your dog will most likely be swimming while water pours over your boots within 100 yards.
-I have consistently walked 3-4 of them, but one the big issues in this area is how suburban it is becoming...some of the public areas run up to people's backyards, and it ends up restricting your safe shot zone. Ditch hunting is practically impossible since you're going to be almost right in front of someone's house. To add to this point-a lot of the people in Pine City are extremely protective of their property's and adverse to hunters. More time's then i can count i have hunted on property with permission (ex. field with a tree grove in the middle), and within 10 minutes of hitting a certain point in the walk, I have had a swarm of angry people out there barking at me for trespassing. I explained that I had permission and they continued on that half the field was their property,etc, etc..Other times you will barely make it out of your car before an owner is running out of their house saying "you can't hunt here, it is way too close to my house". I always tend to lean on the side of caution and refrain from hunting anything that I'm not positive of the boundaries and preferably if there are no houses within a shotgun's range, so that limits any area you can feel safe about hunting.
-This is not to say there are some nice farmers in the area, as I have a few that have always welcomed me to hunt on their property each time I go up, but be prepared to deal with some owners that want absolutely nothing to do with hunters, ESPECIALLY during deer season.
-Nevertheless, i have had luck getting birds here, otherwise I wouldn't go back, but if it was any more than an afternoon/day trip, it definitely would not be worth it and I would revert to SW Minnesota and drive the extra hour and a half.
Just my insight, but a slow day hunting with the pup beats a day doing just about anything else.