opener

[pheasant maniac]

so how was your opener? mine was not the best. too much corn still in saw birds but none came home.

bdr thinking of going to the south if i don't work this weekend, was told most of the corn was out that way.

may be we could hook up some time?

[BDR]

Went west and we saw plenty of birds but they were pretty skittish in the wind. Should have had limits but didn't shoot good enough.

This weekend wont work for me but email me and we can set something up soon.

[Benny]

We went west to Browns Valley/Ortonville area, did well consedering the wind and a young pup.My buddies dog did well ,Mandy started lining between the hunters but only kicked up one bird.

Saturday we flushed over 20 birds, saw 4 roosters and shot two of them for 4 guys walking.

Most of the bird were this years hatch, so I assume the wiser older ones held tight and let us walk right by them.

Sunday was a differant story, only one hen flushed in a field we flushed 10 birds from on Sunday.

Crops were 40 to 50 % down with lots of corn still up.Beans were the ticket for the birds, if there were beans left due to wet ground then there were birds there as well.

Benny

[mistermom]

Daisy did well for the first 1/2 hour or so. Then she decided to chase some deer and I lost her for a while....

We should have got some birds but the 7 or so roosters we kicked up were taking off like rockets in that wild wind. Hope to get out wednesday.

mm

[Surface Tension]

I posted our hunt in the Duluth forum but I'll post it here too. We were hunting NW of Spicier

Opening morning was a bit bleak, high winds and one rooster that jumped wild and 2 hens flushed in 4 hours of hunting. The DNR reports of a 40 % lower bird count in our pocket of pheasant country seemed to be true.

We took our lunch break(Reefraker and I)and headed to another WMA for our afternoon hunt hoping to intercept a few roosters leaving the corn and in route of roosting cover.

We were moving through cover that didn't look like it held any birds, WRONG.. Getting caught off guard and encumbered with heavy clothing, a rooster launched and the high winds sent it downwind into a fly zone out of gun range before we could send an assault of #4 cooper plated shot. Commie Ditch Pirate 1 - Hunters 0.

We move on, Skeeter(my yellow lab} gets birdie and turns into our phrase of "hot pursuit". Up jumps a cackling rooster and I send him a load and it lands into a sea of canary grass but before it lands another rooster erupts and Skeeters attention is turned to that bird and ReefRaker knocks him down. In the process of marking his bird I loose reference to my bird. RR recovers his bird and I get Skeeter on the spot best to my knowledge and it became clear my rooter was on the run. Not a problem in most cover but a dog can't hold it head high and sent when the bird is tunneling in canary grass. Skeeters got her all ready raw nose in that stuff and hot on the roosters trail but she can't keep up. After a half hour search we except the loss and continue on.

My luck is about to change. In the next 2 hours Skeeter works out 3 single roosters, I didn't miss and Skeeter retrieved them to hand.

ReefRaker's and ST's 2004 Opener Birds