Bob Peters
Well-known member
I was driving to the cabin Friday evening after work. I used to go straight as an arrow but after pheasant hunting I'm ruined, all I drive are two-tracks and gravel paths. I saw a rooster and jammed the brakes. Walking a grass edge in a beanfield was a handsome bird. Imagine my surprise in MN, where there are no more pheasants, another rooster appeared out of nowhere, running up beak to beak with his feathered brother. There was posturing, one rooster spread his tail and puffed up, the other one bowed down. They pecked up dinner then started again, tails up and down, one bird ducking, the other expanding his body/feathers appearing twice as big. I was mesmerized watching the show. I took a couple pics, sorry about the blur. These birds were way out there. The next morning I was up at 5 for a bass tournament to benefit the fire dept. Wiping the sleep out of my eyes, before coffee kicked in, a rooster ran out of the ditch a few yards from the driveway and flushed into the distance!!! 10 min. later near a WPA I've been known to slip into I saw a rooster out getting his A.M. grit. It doesn't take much to get me excited about chasing roosters. I know some places you can't get the mail without tripping over a roosters tail. That's awesome and I'm jealous. I'm happy for my fellow hunters. MN can be touch and go with upland hunting. For me, and this may sound dumb, I go even when the odds are against me. It's early season, it's warm, and not gone is one cobb of corn. Late season, shot-out ground, and not one flake of snow to be found. It doesn't matter, my only two criterion for going hunting: 1. is the season open? 2. does the dog want to go? Either way, I'm seeing more birds than I've ever seen before. I really hope to get to South Dakota this year for a hunt, I've got family history there and even if you ignored the best hunting in the world it's such a special place. That being said, I can't think of much in life that competes with walking a country field with a good dog. I know Minnesota public pheasant hunting is limited, but I'll go whether I get one bird a season or one hundred. A last hunting observation. I love it all, the wild country, the cool shotguns(wish I had my great grandpas superposed), the great shots, the delicious meals... but I know myself nothing compares to seeing a gun dog do work. Nothing lasts in memory like a dog finding birds or making a retrieve that, in your wildest dreams, you never thought possible. I could go on forever.
The fishing was good, we won the tournament. I had my ear cocked the entire time and heard a few midday rooster crows.
P.S. the deja vu part comes from this thread I posted two years ago
forum.ultimatepheasanthunting.com
The fishing was good, we won the tournament. I had my ear cocked the entire time and heard a few midday rooster crows.
P.S. the deja vu part comes from this thread I posted two years ago
eyeballing pheasants on my Saturday evening drive
Heading home after a day of fishing on Saturday, I stuck to the backroads and kept my eyes peeled for creatures(with an emphasis on pheasants). I have been going to this cabin in southern MN for 20 years, and usually I'd see maybe one or two pheasants a year. Maybe. Since getting into hunting...
