# Thanksgiving Roosters



## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

Hey all,

I did quite a bit of slough stomping over the holiday weekend. There were times when we saw 50-100 birds just feeding on the edges of cutfields around Watford City, ND. We walked a tree row on Saturday that produced at least 50 roosters, we were running so fast behind the dog we borrowed that even he missed some, it was ridiculous how many birds there were! We only shot three of them, because that's all we had left on our limits at 4 pm. There were hardly any hens in that area...just strange. We felt it was our duty to thin down the roodies some. 

In total, between three of us, we shot 18 birds between Thursday and Saturday, so the freezer is full of venison AND pheasant now! I bet I walked 20-25 miles through cattails, cutfields, fieldgrass and creekbottoms.

I worked behind a neighbors old farm dog, which happened to be a black lab. He wandered up to us from the neighboring farm on Thursday and went to work right away, sniffing out a rooster and two hens. It was incredible, he'd lock on to a bird in cover and stare it down, and when you'd say "GO GET EM!" he'd dive in after the bird and flush it. I need to get a dog like that. He is older, but when he gets on a hot trail he bolts, and then holds until we'd get there. We took him back to his house after a short trip around the farms. His owner, a farmer near my grandma's place, said "he's not very good, but he loves to go...take him anytime." I'd have to disagree...he was great, and seemed to be five years younger when he was in the field.

So all in all, a great weekend with family and a good time hunting the roosters of McKinzie county.

How did your Thanksgiving weekend go?


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## Rick A. (Sep 5, 2003)

Hunted in the cattails this weekend and the rooster to hen ratio has gone way down, but still managed to get a limit all but 1 of the 3 days. (2 of us) "Hush Hunting" is the only way to go this time of year. I know it adds at least 3 birds to the total bag limit each time out...If you have never tried "Hush Hunting" I would suggest you try it and see how much better you do. No talking whatsoever, "No Hen", "Rooster", yelling at your dog or slamming your car door...It really works on holding those late season birds! :sniper:


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## Brad Anderson (Apr 1, 2002)

Shot the biggest pheasant of my life on friday, a 25" tailfeather. It also had 3/4" spurs. Don't have much $ at the present so I pulled the 2 main tailfeathers and cleaned him. Between 4 of us we must've saw 700 pheasants in 3 hours of hunting. They were flocked up big time. It is amazing how many birds there are this year!! We saw a flock of only roosters that numbered over 40.

Took a guy out who had never shot a pheasant before. It took 45 minutes and he had his 3 birds. He's claiming it is more fun than deer hunting, sweeeet.

On a different note, people need to respect posted land. Talked with plenty of farmers this year who are just plain upset with the amount of poachers around. Some idiot was shooting pheasants out of a farmers' trees, directly behind his house. When he ran out there to ask him what the #*&@ he was doing, he acted like he did nothing wrong. There are enough birds this year that you don't need to poach them.


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