Orange Army

[djlong]

My neighbor kid who is 14 and I hit the road about 5 am to drive as far west as we could for the opener in the hopes of finding less hunters. Boy were we wrong. Ended up in between Ortanville and Benson to find every field with at least 2-4 trucks waiting by 7:30. I found one small WPA with no one in it so we waited. Just before 9 am another truck pulls up about 100 yards down and cuts us off so we have only a small amount to hunt. The good news is that we put up two roosters quickly and my neigbor buddy shot straight and I could not. I must have a bent barrel. The people who cut us off shot a couple of times and then left after about 30 minutes so we hunted where they had. They didn't have a dog so I was confident and we put up 3 more roosters and bagged one more. We then decided to get some lunch and head back and hunt a spot or two on the way home. I was supprised to see that almost every public spot was open by about 1 and we decided on one that looked good. Not more than 10 minutes in, my dog went on point and two roosters got up. Took one down and went home. On the way home, I kept noticing that about 90% of the public spots were open and all the hunters were road hunting.. I think for next year, I will wait until noon and just scout to find out which spots were being vacated by hunters without dogs and go at it. I was happy with the number of birds that I saw and would guess that it is only going to get better.

[Dave S]

I saw very few hunters in the south central part of the state and it paid off to stay home for opening weekend.

When you get that many people competing for the public lands out west, IMO people just get stupid and lack the least amount of courtesy. It's embarassing what we see in some of these areas on opening day.

[Cheetah]

We were out in Ortonville area as well on public land. Deer and pheasant hunting. Seemed to be fewer birds than in the last few years in our usual area, less heard cackling and seen while on deer stand for sure, far less shooting. Plenty of guys out at 9am chasing birds, almost everyone quit by noon. We were able to go back through some areas and kick up some hens after lunch, jumped very few roosters for the miles we put on with two dogs and five guys. Almost nobody was out walking Saturday evening, and Sunday morning there were easily half the guys as Saturday, and almost no shots taken. Birds got smart quick.

I spoke with one local who limited out for three guys on Saturday, he said they were on some other public land but there were lots of guys. I suspect he either had a very good spot all scouted and parked in front of at 9am or maybe had some private land he didn't mention.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

My neighbor kid who is 14 and I hit the road about 5 am to drive as far west as we could for the opener in the hopes of finding less hunters. Boy were we wrong. Ended up in between Ortanville and Benson to find every field with at least 2-4 trucks waiting by 7:30. I found one small WPA with no one in it so we waited. Just before 9 am another truck pulls up about 100 yards down and cuts us off so we have only a small amount to hunt. The good news is that we put up two roosters quickly and my neigbor buddy shot straight and I could not. I must have a bent barrel. The people who cut us off shot a couple of times and then left after about 30 minutes so we hunted where they had. They didn't have a dog so I was confident and we put up 3 more roosters and bagged one more. We then decided to get some lunch and head back and hunt a spot or two on the way home. I was supprised to see that almost every public spot was open by about 1 and we decided on one that looked good. Not more than 10 minutes in, my dog went on point and two roosters got up. Took one down and went home. On the way home, I kept noticing that about 90% of the public spots were open and all the hunters were road hunting.. I think for next year, I will wait until noon and just scout to find out which spots were being vacated by hunters without dogs and go at it. I was happy with the number of birds that I saw and would guess that it is only going to get better.

There was a lot more pressure on the public land on sunday in that area than on saturday. many guys we talked to were struggling in the wind, or were waiting for farmers to finish harvesting corn fields near where they wanted to hunt. i was out scouting for waterfowl at 10 minutes to 7 on saturday morning and didn't see anybody parked at public spots until around 8-815 am. far cry from 4 years ago when i went out duck hunting and couldn't park my truck in a particular wpa at 5 am because pheasant hunters were already holding their spot.