quiet on the forum

[Lunker]

Hunted today, Hutch area again. Flushed 4, all hens. One out of the cattails, 3 together out of the ditch between the cattails and standing corn on my way back to the car.

Saw quite a few birds out in the middle of picked corn fields while driving around.

[bhs91]

headed out sunday (public land st cloud area), will report back.

[goblueM]

headed out for my first pheasant action of the season tomorrow, MN public land no less (spoiled by ND the last few years)

should be great I'll try to take some pics and give a report

[memyself@I]

I've gotten spoiled in NDak the last few years too, but I've also had grand rooster shoots in MN the last 2 years too.

Was gonna hunt mid week last Tues/Weds but backed out with the weather, so now going next week. Good luck have fun and enjoy the time out in the field!!

Look forward to the reports.

[123fish]

Hunted yesterday afternoon. Perfect day. Sun with light winds. We shot seven and should have had a few more. All came out of the thick stuff. Cedars, groves, cattails, and red willows. Heading for the giant WMA cattail slough this morning. Looking forward to that and hopefully the ice holds. Will give a report later.

[Eric Wettschreck]

123, the giant cattail slough a bit north of me is holding a lot of birds.....and they are deep in the thick cattails stuff.

Saw a lot of them yesterday. Didn't shoot much as I knew if I dropped one in that stuff I'd never get it. Got a couple of them, tho.

[IceHawk]

Just got back in got 2 roosters, and flushed a good amount of hens. Birds are tucked into the cattails pretty good so give your dogs time to workthem out. I love late season hunting the birds really group up little hunting pressure and the scenery (snow) makes it so much better.

[Lunker]

Hunted this morning until about 12:30. I had the exact opposite experience today as others. Birds were moving/feeding. Saw some out in bare fields feeding, flushed 3(1 rooster) out of a small parcel of HSO corn and 2(1 rooster) from a thin wood line between two cut corn fields. Only good opportunity I had was on a rooster out of the corn, missed an easy shot then the gun jammed. Frustrating. Called it a day early because there were trucks at just about every WMA and WPA. Gotta get farther out on a Saturday I guess.

Watched 2 roosters fighting out in a field, neat thing to watch.

After hunting yesterday and today I would say most of the cattail areas are good and frozen.

[grab the net]

My son, his friend, friends father and I hunted yesterday. Hunted two WMA's in the morning, both cattail sloughs. 1st stop as we were unloading dogs and getting guns ready, a large number of birds that were feeding a corn stubble hill side flushed back down into the cattails near a large red willow patch.

Several roosters in the bunch. With great anticipation we made are way to the general area. A few hens sat tight but only one rooster which we added to bag. The majority must have kept gliding, as roosters are prone to do. One other rooster flushed behind us on the rest of the walk.

Next WMA was quite a bit larger, again catails and willows along with a few big patches of cane. Like any large area the birds were bunched up and when you found one you found most of them. Lots of walking before we bumped the first birds, which were way out in front of us. They only flew to the other side about 250 yards over and settled in a large patch of cane. The next hour was very frustrating. Roosters would flush just out of range, closest was in that 50 yard range. Just close enough to see them clearly but just not close enough. Bet everyone that is reading this knows the feeling. Started counting and decided there were around 14 different roosters in that bunch. Also decided they had been hunted once or twice.

Tried a small private piece and I air balled on our only opportunity there. Then it was off the cafe for lunch.A couple of roast beef commercials later we were fortunate enough to gain permission on a great private property that my son and I have been fortunate to hunt in the past.

In the next two and half hours we harvested 8 more birds. Thebirds were in the willows and jumped out early as we approached but settled into the cats and then flushed one at a time which made for good shots in range.

Duey, our lab made two outstanding retrieves on runners and pointed two tight holding roosters in some taller grass on the edge of the cattails. Both birds were taken with one shot thank goodness. Cain, a young GSP showed great promise on this trip and made three great retrieves. He was not quite sure what to make of the large amount of scentin acouple of those willow patches. We made one run through this piece of PP, were satisfied with the results, we could have turned around and hit it again but were grateful for the opportunity and left with some great memories.

Dog also came nose to nose with a small fork horn that was wounded in the hind quarter. He limped off into the cattails a little farther and layed back down. Also found a partially eaten 8 pointer in the CRP. Tracks suggest the coyotes and fox have been eating well.

Over the course of the day and on the ride home I am sure saw well over three hundred birds, many on fields later in the afternoon, mainly on private propety but a 1/3 of them were on WMA's.

A great day in the field for two dads and there sons. Private property made the diffrence on this trip as I am not sure we would have did that well until that last half hour before dark on the WMA's and we would have run out of time before we ran out of birds then.

[123fish]

Well today was a very good day. Ended up with 14 birds for six guys. Nine came out of the WMAs and the other five off of private land. Tough, tough hunting. Had both feet wet in the first minute of hunting but no more breakthroughs after that. Ran a cattail into my cheek and one up my nostril which didn't really feel all that good. Have enough cattail fuzz in my eyes to make a pillow. Still I wouldn't trade this late season hunting for anything. Best time of the year. boilerguy you need to pack a lunch when you go into the public ground north of you. That is truly a big area. We have hunted it for ducks but never roosters. I'm sure that place would be holding a pile of birds if you can root them out of there. Good luck to all who are still after them.

[Neighbor_guy]

Investigated a new spot today. Only had an hour and just went quick. The dog was plenty birdy and we did have a few wild flushes... 50+ yards out.

We will be back.....

Mabe tomarrow....

Never hunted cattails before. Could be interesting. Any tips?

[Eric Wettschreck]

Never hunted cattails before. Could be interesting. Any tips?

- Keep your mouth closed or you'll be eating fuzz.

- Work slow and let the dog take his time. It's thick and they need time to move around.

- It aint easy but try your hardest to keep track of where everyone else is.

- have someone walking the outside of the cattails to shoot and spot as they fly.

- If you drop one, don't stop staring at the area it went down. It's thick in there and real easy to lose a downed bird.

- Have a good time.

[Rooster Chaser]

Corn field edges of the slough are usually the best. Hit the areas of cattails that are knocked over opposed to the tallest stuff. Grassy sections in the cattails hold a lot of birds. Most importantly, don't trust the ice around the rat houses, especially the feeder huts, have learned that the hard way!

Got three in the cattails today - lot of hard work, but a blast!

[MNUser]

Did the bird limit go to three again after Dec. 1 this year?

[benbosh]

yep

[MinnetonkaMan]

My report from the New Ulm area is that their is lots of snow but lots of birds. Shot 14 out of our possible 15. They were holding tight but needed posters as one flushed and another bird ran farteher up and jumped out. Our 11 yr old lab did great on a lot of retrieves and f;ushes. Mostly holding on private property along the rivers in the willows but the last three came on a sneak up to a known feeding area along a fence line. Most have been eight roosters and a few hens so more for next week. The dog had an easier time than us walking through hip high snow to get to certain fields. The dog kept turning around and saying did you fall down again. And I said yes I did I wish you were in my shoes! LOL

[123fish]

Everything the other guys have said about hunting cattails is spot on. One thing I do is walk the deer trails that often go right down the middle of the really big cattail sloughs. Let the dog work ahead of you down these trails and like boilerguy said take your time. Almost like still hunting whitetails. The stuff I'm hunting you are either on a deer trail or you are on the outside edge because there is no just walking through this stuff unless your Brock Lesnar or something. Another thing is you better have a lot of faith in your dog that he/she will come back and check in with you every once in awhile because you could lose a dog in those really big cattail sloughs especially if the wind is blowing and you can't tell where they are by cattail movement. Wing tipped one last year where the dog was off after it and didn't see her for another ten minutes until she came down a deer trail with that bird in her mouth. It was nice to exhale and take another breath of air after just standing there and hoping she was going to come back.Would have liked to see what that chase looked like from above.

[chub]

....and bring a spare set of boots, socks, and maybe pants. Keep your distance from Beaver runs/lodges, and to a lesser extent, Rat houses...., necked down ditch entrances and exits, deeper snow areas, and just the seemingly no rhyme or reason areas of skinny ice......LOL

...One leg through, if your quick enough you can minimize the moisture......, two legs through, unless you can levitate, your gonna get moist.....

YOU WILL punch through and get wet eventually.

2X yesterday for me

[muc33]

Goggles are a good eye-dea! Ski goggles are great, I had to do the emergancy eye doctor visit once to get a piece of cattail out of my eye. YOWCH!

Great reports guys.

[goblueM]

well yesterday (sat) the final scorecard was wily roosters 3, hunters 0.

Our usual honeyhole for late season just wasn't productive. Not as much food as usual, plus less pressure in other areas, and not as much snow combined to make for the least birds I've ever seen. Saw 3 roosters and half a dozen hens all day. Never even pulled the trigger.

After walking about 5 miles thru the cats, alders, dogwood/willow thickets I was whipped. Did however see a coyote, 4 does, couple eagles, a few owls, a flock of beard-draggin toms, an ermine, a pileated woodpecker, and some sweet otter tracks/slides

[Eric Wettschreck]

Spent all day yesterday trying to get close to the wiley roosters. We saw more birds yesterday than we have all season. Unfortunately they were up and flying about 100+ yards away. Did have one get up close and I missed the shot. Lots of hens but plenty of roosters.

Cattails and thick slough grass is where they're at.

[scsavre]

Same thing here. I saw tons of birds. 60-70 i bet. Nothing but hens got up in shooting distance. All in the cattails.

Frustrating, but still fun to get the dog out and see some birds.

[IceHawk]

Me and my brother got 3 roosters yesterday and saw about another 20 plus hens. We were hunting private land in the cattails we did have 2 roosters sneek out on us but that is expected this time of yr. Can't stress the importance of dog control during late season hunts. Those roosters that are left are wiley and have seen all the tricks they will run or bust on the first sign or noise of a hunter. Haveing good dog control is essential for success. Things we have found that work for us is placeing a blocker usally at expected exit routes and We limit our talking and use alot of hand signals. Both our labs are very obediant and this limits us to makeing alot of comotion. The result is alot more kills for us. Planning on getting in a few more hunts before the season ends.