Opening Weekend 2010

[KidMoe]

Hunted southwest of redwood falls for the opening weekend. Scouted hard friday and got parked at the public ground spot we wanted about 7 saturday morning. By 9 o'clock we could see people in all directions. The wind was blowing really hard and the birds just wouldn't get up for us, or anyone around us for that matter. We went to 7 different public areas on saturday and didn't flush a single rooster. Sunday morning we started working my buddy's farm and 15 minutes in got my first bird ever. It was worth all the walking...

[fishroger]

Wouldnt exactly write off Brainerd area. There are some roosters down near Pierz. Get a plat book of Morrison cty. There is a bunch of nice wildlife mgmt areas between Pierz and Little falls with good pheasant habitat. Dog and I check some out last year, there birds there.

[CRAZYEYES]

We hunted pretty hard for a couple days and out near the Sd border in laq qui parle county. Seem like last winter must have taken a toll on them out there beacuse we sure didnt see the numbers of birds we have the last few years and most of the corn had come out the last couple of days. Talking to a few farmers and locals they dont think theres as many around this year either. The habitat loss out that way is getting pretty noticable, Quite a few old farmsteads and crp fields gone.

[koonie]

The farmers are seeing about a third of the birds that they did last year. Speaking of the Lac qui parle area.

[HooknHorns]

Hunted Sunday evening for a couple hours in a spot that had alot of birds in years past. With most of the corn already harvested I only saw one rooster and no hens. Both of my gsp's were locked on but no luck bringing it down. If I would have known the birds would have vanished from years ago i would have not bought another dog. I live south of Rochester and wonder if I should just buy an Iowa licsense. It would be different if there were hens around but this is crazy. Hopefully they'll recover befre my knees get too old to enjoy this sport again.

[rwwong]

Hunted Sunday evening for a couple hours in a spot that had alot of birds in years past. With most of the corn already harvested I only saw one rooster and no hens. Both of my gsp's were locked on but no luck bringing it down. If I would have known the birds would have vanished from years ago i would have not bought another dog. I live south of Rochester and wonder if I should just buy an Iowa licsense. It would be different if there were hens around but this is crazy. Hopefully they'll recover befre my knees get too old to enjoy this sport again.

From the sounds of it, Iowa is no better off.

[CRAZYEYES]

We walked are Arses off for 2 days and only got 2. We missed a couple too but usually we have no problem pulling our birds off these spots in a few hours of walking hard like we did when the corn is coming down. One spot that takes me about 3 hours to walk we only saw 5 birds including hens, I usually see at least 20 plus birds walkng this and have seen nearly 300 to 400 there in the past when the corn was coming out. I did see quite a few today not too far from the cities and got a bonus grouse out of some woody stuff.

[123fish]

We have an article today in our local paper about a group of people who rescue German shorthair pointers that have been dumped. Seriously. They already rescued 94 in the first nine months of this year compared to 90 total in 2009. They really fear it's going to get worse when the Iowa pheasant season opens because of the total lack of birds and these so called hunters start dumping (literally) their dogs throughout the countryside because they are not worth having around. That is some kind of pathetic for sure. Article is in today's Worthington Daily Globe. Still have been having pretty good luck with the roosters in the area at the last half hour of the day. A lot of corn has come out this week.

[Dave S]

I went out to SW MN on Saturday and saw more deer than pheasants. Only had a shot at 1 bird. Heard a lot on private land. Unfortunately we were only hunting public land.

The surprise of the weekend......I had a woodtick crawling up my neck.

[Scott M]

Looks like daytime and nighttime temps below freezing starting next weekend. I might get to do some ice walking in short time...if the forecast holds.