REAL Opening Results...

[Moose-Hunter]

Just heading out to the farm. My lil' English Setter, Jazz, is going NUTS!! As am I!! The coffee is brewed, the Browning is in the truck and the boots are ready to go!!!

Good luck to all!!! And PLEASE, stay safe!!!

[ac777]

well, its about 15 minutes after opener, Post your guys' results for us to see how it went. Will be home next week to shoot some birds.

[123fish]

We had two roosters and four woodducks this morning. Going to go out around 5:30 and wait for them to come out of the corn and back into the grass to roost.

[beaver11]

20 rooties in an hour an half..private ground sw mn

[vexi]

two guys, 3 roosters, 2 wood ducks , 1 goose

[mngoosehunter]

1 rooster at 9:03 up by Elbow lake. Saw close to 30 hens and that was the only rooster. This years bird, you could hardly see the colors on him.

[3in1]

Twelve ducks by 8:30, started huntin rooters at 12:00. Two in the bag by 1:30, gotta love CRP.

[ac777]

1 rooster at 9:03 up by Elbow lake. Saw close to 30 hens and that was the only rooster. This years bird, you could hardly see the colors on him.

I talked to my dad, and he said they were having that same problem with young birds and being hard to identify. I'm sure the late spring had a lot of effect on the hatch. we should be seeing more color within a few weeks.

[knoppers]

good job guys, I saw nothing in the princton area. it was hunted pretty had in the early hours, I did not get there till the evening.

[joe_stack20]

6 guys, 3 dogs, 10 rooties....all on public land.

[grizzald]

3 guys, 3 german shorthairs, 2 roosters...hunted from 9 till about 2 all on private land...still way to much corn in the fields around here. saw quite a few hens though...

[Ray1]

Sunday- 2 guys 2 dogs 4 roosters in a hour

[FishingWebGuy]

10 guys 7 dogs 14 roosters Lac qui Parle cat tails, holding tight

[coyote36]

3 guys 4 gsps 6 birds sat. by 10.30.

sun. 3 birds by 10.00 then the rain started and we went home birds all held tight.

[SportFishin']

Well out here in MT we had 12" of snow on the ground by the time the sun came up. Legal hunting hours for roosters & upland birds is 1/2 hour before sunrise. We had been granted permission to hunt a private 1468 acres. Was loaded with birds the week before so we were stoked. We hit the farm at 7:30am and the snow was thick, but not all would be a loss. We decided to hit the first coulee were we had spotted birds the week before. The snow was almost waist high as we got going we had a point from my Griff only 30 yards from where we started. Now the dog is on point the snow is deep & two roosters explode out of the snow at the bottom of the coulee. One goes behind us and my hunting partner couldn't get a shot as the rooster flew down the coulee. I swing on the second rooster lay a bead on him and drop a leg at a 20 yard shot the dog and I mark where he is flying too. I send the Griff on a fetch command out over 150 yards. He heads out down the coulee where the bird had flown. As I'm about half way there he returns bounding thru the snow with the bird in mouth. We hunted the rest of the coule about a half mile long and found no other birds. So we decided to hunt the picked wheat field where we had seen some Sharptails earlier in the AM but they were gone into some cover for the day to ride out the storm. So we decided to call it a day at 9am due to the deep snow and the extreme walking. We received 22" of snow all weekend, but the temps are expected to hit 60 this week and melt it all off. Here is a pic of our hunt the bird is hiding in my camo pattern. But all in all it was a great Pheasant opener here in South Central Montana.

[uplander]

Tat's awesome! quite the contrast to our 70 degree temps

[Ryan Becklund]

Got 2 for 3 guys on Saturday. At 8am we had 8 roosters in a bush about 200yds from us. Thought it was gonna be a slaughter house. Didn't hunt "smart" and walked some into the sun, and when they got up couldn't tell one from the other and didn't get to shoot at any of them. Stupid rookie mistake. Ended getting 2 points later and getting both. Not alot of shooting this year like last year. I bet there was 50 people on the management area that we were at. Even guys from Iowa....Why would you come to Mn from Iowa to hunt Pheasants? Doesn't make any sense.

Never got up a bird on Sunday morning and quit early.

Good Luck to all!

[SportFishin']

Yeah it felt like a mid Dec hunt. The upland hunting has been great out here. Looking forward to hunting more of the farm when the snow thaws. It is loaded with Sharpies, Huns, and Pheasants and only 10 min. from my house here in Billings.

[uplander]

I'm on my way! save some for me.....uplander.. but seriously would it be worth a drive from Minnesota? Is there land to hunt? Thats just my game, upland mixed bag hunts. There's nothing better than a pheas 2 sharpies and a couple huns in the bag..... Add a croc-pot some rice and potatoes and now we are talking

[Shoot2Kill]

Even guys from Iowa....Why would you come to Mn from Iowa to hunt Pheasants? Doesn't make any sense.

Because the Iowa opener isn't for another 3 weeks, so why not come up and shoot some here? By the way - MN pheasant hunters killed more birds than Iowa pheasant hunters last season - that's the first time in history that's happened. The population in Iowa is NOT like it used to be.

[JConrad]

Chris, nice to see you are doing well... Crazy weather..

I was out in SD this past weekend helping Mark from Pine Shadows guide a guy from GA on a game farm pheasant hunt... Really wet in eastern SD and western MN... Lots of birds in the Aberdeen area. Farmers are really worried about getting the corn in... Corn is not quite ripe and the fields are very wet and muddy... Standing water everywhere. Need some cold weather and lots of sunny days.

Belle did a great job and she is a bird finding machine... Our Griffs are really special dogs... She is my first Griff and I sure wish I would have known about these dogs years ago..

I hope to get out tomorrow and Wednesday here in central MN. Will be back in SD this weekend for their opener guiding a group.

Attached is a pic I took of Mark and the guy from GA. Belle worked quite well with the Springer which was interesting.

[grab the net]

After the opening weekend, Rooster are up 2 zip. Tough weekend, wet, rainy, cloudy. I am going to use the lots of corn excuse to. As usual some groups do very well, others not so much. Long season though, looking forward to my next time in the field.

[jigging-matt]

We went to Western MN. Way to much corn in still. Saw lots of hens, most of the roosters we saw were running into the corn. Only got a couple roosters for the group. Was very happy with the dog. Did a great job, had some nice points. Still had a lot of fun.

[mascad]

Hunted a WMA Saturday morning, one young rooster. WPA in the afternoon Saturday, 2 roosters. Went to the same WPA Sunday morning and hunted for an hour and got one rooster. We missed at least 5 other roosters well within range, very poor shooting. Not a bad weekend though.

[slopmaster]

Hunted saturday and got one rooster If the dog wouldnt have put it up 10 yards in front of me i would have swore it was a hen. Then i went out sunday evening and timed it perfect as they were comming out of the corn into the CRP and got my 2 roosters in ten minutes max. Great to get out and watch the dog sure missed it the past couple months.