How was your 04' season??

[james_walleye]

Just wondering how everyone else would rate the 2004 pheasant season? I would say mine was pretty good. I could only get out on weekends if i was lucky. But we shot about 20 birds over my GSP. I didnt have great luck where i live around Rochester here, but when i went over too where my wifes parents live by Albert Lea i did much better. I snuck out for my last hunt yesterday Christmas morning for 2 hours and ended my season right. My shorthair stuck a nice bird, walked in, dropped it on the first shot, and Emmitt retrieved it very nicely for me. Also saw 1 other rooster and about 10 hens.

[LuciandTim]

Slow down the season isn't over yet........

[J Rookie K]

Yep, Tim is right, Fat Lady aint signin yet. 2 of us were out 12/26 for 3hrs. 6 flushes, only one rooster and my buddy missed. Young bird, hard to tell it was a rooster, the sun didnt help either. The weather is going to get nice this week, so Ill have to go some more. So far my season has been ok. I shouldnt have blown off sporty clays league this summer. Missed way too many birds.

------------------------------------- Reject All Activists -------------------

[mistermom]

My shooting could have been better. My dog needs work but is doing ok for 14 months old. In fact if I'm not to tired from this night shift we may go this morning. I really should get her out a few more times before friday.

mm

[bigdog]

Bad season but not because of bird numbers. Trips to Nodak were outstanding. First two MN trips we limited. Then in early Dec. the dog tripped me on the stairs and I busted my foot. Only managed to get out for one afternoon since and we blanked, too tough to walk. Was going to try Sunday but the car decided to die instead so spent the day under the hood. Looking forward to next year (and better luck) now. Good luck to those that can get out this week.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

pretty good considering i had to put down one of my labs 3 months before opener. But my friend who rents my farmhouse got a 2 year old short hair that has beautifull instinct and by mid season he was making great points and retrieves! i actually had a streak around thanksgiving where i went out four different days and hunted a total of 2 hours, shot 11 times, and ended up with 8 pheasants and 2 huns. not bad for bypassing the south dakota lands to hunt in minnesota on land that i dont have to pay $200 a day for!!!!!

[Wild Willie]

My season has been nothing short of outstanding...considering the fact that there was a outside chance I would not get to hunt at all in 2004. My son and I took a two day trip and chased some wild birds around the Appleton area...that trip was priceless. My buddy and I found some private land with good cover and birds and got permission to hunt...the bonus is that it's really close to home. Made a couple of successful trips up to Glendorado, just me and Buddy (my two year old Britt)...you all know how special those one-on-one sessions in the field with your dog can be...his work and our success as a team that day will live in my memory for years to come. Just got back yesterday from a quick trip down around the Iowa border. Had the honor of spending all day with a great sportsman, gentleman and with some of the finest bird dogs I have ever had the priviledge of walking behind. I was truly amazed at how efficiently and effectively his three dogs covered the land in search of the elusive long tail. The dog work that day was nothing short of inspirational. The four dog team displayed the most intense focus, intensity and drive I had ever seen in the field. I was proud of Buddy as he held his own and made me proud. I guess...the experiences I have just shared are how I always want to measure the success of the hopefully many, many, many more pheasant seasons I have left to be blessed with!

[grab the net]

Saving my report for the weekend, when its all over. Never know, might get out a few more times before friday night. Ending on a high note could make up for ?

[Ely Lake Expert]

This season sucked, because and only because I barely had any time to go. I am not sure I like this constant working nonsense. I wish I could quit working and just hunt and fish everyday.

[Jim Bob]

We hunt in Kansas and it's been great! Last trip out we saw over a 100 birds in a day and a half of hunting. Best of all the season doesn't end till the end of January.

[Roosterslayer05]

The season was ok, I think between me, my dad and uncle we shot 28 roosters in 17 days of hunting. The most suprising thing was that half the roosters we shot were second year birds. Usually we get 2-3 a year not 12-14.

[FEZ HUNT]

Had an excellent year in North Central Iowa, birds were down from last year but no problems finding plenty of them. Dog did excellent with around 70 birds shot and none lost. Still have a few days left to get out down here.

[LuciandTim]

As I see it, it is 5:30pm 12/31/04. That means one thing to me. The 2004 Minnesota Pheasant season is officially over. What a year. My year started slow. It was my first year with my new puppy Luci. It was her 1st birthday 4 days before the season started. I had spent the last 8 months training her to be a good bird dog. I had taken her to the game farm twice and she did suprise me. Everytime I hunted behind her I was more and more impressed. The season did start slow for me. I kept going to horrible places. I couldn't find any roosters. I was trying to be inventive and I was neglecting our go to spots from the last 15 years I have been hunting Pheasants. I have access to a gigantic farm that I never did step foot on this year......why? I don't know. I finally started to get agitated and decided to hit some places that I knew had birds......The result??

That was our first bird together in the wild. It was a successful hunt that day. We saw tons of birds but most were hens. It was great watching Luci do what she knows what to do best, find the birds. The day ended and we went home. I noticed Luci was limping. By the next evening she looked like this...

Apparently sometime during the day she cut one of her toe pads on her back left foot. I took her to the vet and he wrapped her up and put some ointment on. It took her three weeks to heal well enough to hunt again! Just when things were getting good and this has to happen. That was Dcember 1st and our next time out was December 22. We hunted two days all day and had a blast again. Lots of birds and lots of good dog work. I forgot the camera that trip but remebered it the next week. We headed out for two more days, the 29th and 30th. Our results were good.

A couple pictures of a bird we got that day. Notice there are no tail feathers..I shot them clear off

Those last two days were great. The first one was the best. We saw tons of birds. I realized I have a problem. I won't tell you how many birds I missed, I seriously don't know what I was doing?? I have never shot that bad in my life. I have always had a good shot. I was and am still very dissapointed in myself. I really let Luci down, especially for one bird.

As some of you might know My dog Luci is a GSP/Choc. Lab I wanted a pure GSP but I took her for free. I love a dog that points and I have been waiting to see if Luci will point or not. It was Thursday morning and we were in a pretty good area. As I was driving down the road I noticed a hen get up. It was a WMA so I pulled over and decided to let luci out for a minute. We hopped in the ditch and immediately she began to get birdy. I knew she was on something. BAM! she locks on a point. It was a text book point, left leg elevated and cocked with her head looking into the weeds. Before I had time to react a rooster busted into flight. bam bam bam!!!! I missed. Wow I bet she was let down. But what a great few minutes. I love pheasant hunting and I am so happy with what my dog has done for me this year. I can't wait until next year! I can't belive I missed!!!

[mistermom]

Great pictures Tim!

Next year I promise to get out more. And I think some of us should hook-up this winter and do the game farm thing as well as the annual FM hunt. I was telling my buddy that I got a great dog. Unfortunately for her her owner is too busy. Oh well, when she hits prime I'll have all 3 kids in school all day. Looking forward to that.

mm

[grab the net]

2004 was definitely not as good as 03 in numbers of birds in our area. It certainly showed in the percentage of 2nd year birds bagged -vs- 1st year. Overall I would say it was another great year.

Duey, improves each outing and excells in the heavy cattails late season. His points are getting stronger, but we stilll have a difficult time slowing him down on a runner in thin cover, my son can keep up to him, I can't. Maybe Luci will be the perfect combo.

My son and I ended the season on Thursday, 12-30-04 with a hunt on a piece of private property. The owner assured us there were no birds but said we were welcome to try. Owner of the kennel we purchased our pointing lab from was along for the hunt so we had three dogs and three guns.

Duey flushed the first bird, which I bagged. Second bird was a runner but stopped in a clump of willows, Duey went in and pointed him pretty as a picture. Up he went and down he came.

By the end of the afternoon, we were soaked from the rain, and it got so foggy, visibilty was horrible.

One more rooster was flushed but, on the wrong side of a large willow patch. So we left some seed for next year. So we ended on a high note. Dropped off one of the birds for the land owner and to thank him again.

Numbers for the year, a little down from last year, but more than enough, as always should have been a few more, but PPS reared its ugly head on more than one occassion.

I do think we are going to need a good hatch this spring to make a recovery from the poor one we had in 04.

I do have to say that I enjoyed the extra two weeks we were given by the DNR this year. It made Christmas vacation a lot of fun. Now I guess its time to dust off the Vexilar and find some fish. Maybe a trip to the game farm also, I have never done that before

[Duck-o-holic]

Roosterslayer... I have a friend who did a LOT of pheasant hunting this year who said the same thing about shooting a LOT of second-year birds. It verifies the lack of a good hatch this spring in this area (most of the birds he shot were around Sunburg).

I had a poor season this year compared to most years. I made two trips to SD that made up for the poor numbers in my area. I ended the season there today while on a fishing trip with my girlfriend, and it couldn't have ended better! Here's kind of how it went...

I was chewed out for wanting to hunt pheasants (thus utilizing at least a few hours of my second 5-day license) before heading back to MN. I compromised by hunting nowhere near the area I knew would be full of birds... and also agreed to only road hunt for less than an hour. The girlfriend drove (and complained of the "icy" gravel roads), while I scanned the ditches and field edges. If you couldn't tell, I was torn between ending my season IN South Dakota without getting to hunt... and upsetting my already crabby and impatient girlfriend (in her defense-- we DID just get done fishing for two days in sub-zero windchill weather). After driving by numerous "Walk-In" areas and WMAs... and not seeing tracks, let alone birds... we both saw a rooster up ahead as it ran into a ditch, thick with cover.

I got my 2 y.o. Black Lab/Retreiver Skyy, into the ditch as quick as I could, and she knew what to do. She got birdy where I had seen the rooster run in. Nose to the ground and tail wagging she tore up the cover. About 30 yards past where the bird went in, she busted the rooster, and it flew straight away. One shot, and the bird crumpled (my shots do not ALWAYS do that). The whole time my girlfriend was watching from the truck. I was excited, as my girlfriend doesn't ever get to see our "Deck-chewing" dog work in the field. She also doesn't get to see how a pheasant hunt SHOULD go every time

That in itself, would have been a great end to my season. But while the feathers were still floating down, Skyy flushed a second rooster. As I was pulling the gun up, the bird had already gained decent altitude, and was flying full bore. The bird then cart-wheeled through the air in a puff of feathers! But... I hadn't shot. The rooster had been crushed by a telephone line!!! Still in awe, I watched as it hit the ground stunned... until it saw my dog coming at it full throttle. I sat back to watch the show (add the theme from the Benny Hill show). The footrace only lasted about 15 seconds... and then the bird was flying again!! It headed to a treeline just past the ditch we flushed it from and disappeared. Skyy had stayed on it as it flew, and disappeared into the treeline after the bird. 30 seconds later, she was running back to me with a very alive rooster in her mouth! After delivering it to hand, I put her on a line to the other bird, and she brought that one back. It was a fun walk back to the truck. I don't know who was smiling more... me or my girlfriend! I couldn't have asked for a better way to end the season!!!

Good Gunnin'!!!

Duck-o-holic

[Old Guide]

Luciandtim, Great pics, nothing beats watching a young dog learn on wild birds. You'd better brush up on your shooting or luci will disown you!! Pat

[Labby]

I will second that on lots of second year birds, On day we had 8 guys out we shot our 16 birds and 10 of them were 2 year old birds or older. This was in mid Nov. All in all a good year especially later in the season. Dog did great as he should when they are 5 and in his prime. Cant wait till next ear now, Same old story every year

Lab

[james_walleye]

Labby you should have posted on here earlier we could have hit some spots this year. My shorthair is 2 1/2 and really worked great this year. Oh yeah and i finally got a big buck this year, 9-point about 130". You been fishing lately? Pepin was great for me this last year. Also put about 75 eyes in my boat the week after opener on Madison.

[crappieman848]

I am fairly new to this forum, so id like to introduce myself. The name is Dan and i live in EP. But anyways enough about me, i got out about 3 times this year (Not very much i know). This was my first year hunting pheasant since i never had a shotgun. My uncle owns a hunting lodge out in Mt. Vernon, South Dakota, so my dad and I went out for about 4-5 days each trip. I have to say I had my misses, but when i finally knocked down my first bird I was happy. We got our limit on every trip, so I would say my season was succesful for the amount of times I went out.

[Little Joe]

Had a good year. Didn't get out as often as I would have liked but I limited on 2 out of my 3 trips this year. Snagged 1 on the other trip.

On a side note, my 8 yo lab started pointing this year! He did it a couple of times last year and I thought it was a fluke. He locked on most of the birds I shot this year which was really cool. Oh ya, mature birds for me this year too.

[Tripleplay]

Unfortunately I only got out the first three days of the season due to way too much deer hunting (there isn't such a thing but it sounded good). Southern MN on private property with a ton of corn still up. Four guys with an excellent lab and my GSP. Opening day we got 6 birds with a couple of misses but all in all a good day. Sunday we limited out with the lab actually catching the seventh bird. The last bird made my season! Perfect point from my GSP and I let my partner know to get prepared--stepped in and a big rooster flushed right in front of her--one shot from me and she retrieved it to hand. (the retrieve made the whole thing as she doesn't like to fetch birds that are still alive which this one was) Perfect!

Only hunted a couple of hours on Monday morning, but it was the first time where I've had a bunch of birds flush at basically the same time. Man that was crazy fun but we managed to get three roosters out of that mess and called it a day.

Since I went into the season with lowered expectations due to the preliminary reports I'd say the season was great. I also agree that with the exception of opening day we shot alot of older roosters and my brother-in-law has hunted the remainder of the season and he said the same thing about the older birds.

[run-n-gun]

Sadly to say, I didn't get out for pheasants this fall. Too many other things going on, and I really threw myself into fishing. Did anyone go on any fall turkey hunts anywhere? This spring season will be here soon! I'm getting way too excited already.

[CodyDawg]

I split my rooster days between Montana and Minnesota. In Minnesota I got out 7 times and shot 10 birds. I could have shot 2 more but wanted my dad to get to shoot them. On our 140 acres, we shot 9 birds this year, which is the most since we bought it 2 years ago (3 seasons total). So all in all, it was pretty darn good. My 13.5 year old Brittany was still great, although she is starting to show her age. I would say I saw as many birds or more than other years, but my area had a slightly better spring than other areas of the state. As a result, I saw the normal young bird/old bird mix.