# 2008 Season pictures and stories!



## hunt4P&amp;Y

Well lets hear the stories! We had a 7 man limit at 1 P.M., should have been more like 10 A.M. but we all were lacking on shooting!

It was a great time really wet, but a great time.

How did everyone do?


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## R y a n

Congrats Mike!

photos?!

let's see 'em!

anyone else?


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## indsport

Wet, few birds. Hunted this morning near our area saw but two roosters and a few hens without a shot. As expected, where we live, the hatch was minimal and the crp is going fast. Found another full section that was plowed just last week and two full sections more hayed that are going under the plow this fall after I talked to the land owners. Going farther afield will be the only choice this year to get into some birds. Besides that, 6 different non resident vehicles within a few miles of our home and the biggest group was two vehicles with trailers, 8 hunters and 6 dogs. Saw most birds flying immediately into standing corn. Compared to the last 5 years, worst opener ever. Not looking forward to this year and certainly not in the future. Hope others had a better day and a better looking future.


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## mmartin

My opener in mn wasn't to bad got 2, could only find one. My dog worked great, pointed all the birds. I think we saw maybe 10, but only 2 roosters. Heard quite a bit of shooting though, aa little wet early on.


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## hunt4P&amp;Y

R y a n said:


> Congrats Mike!
> 
> photos?!
> 
> let's see 'em!
> 
> anyone else?


We actually didn't take pics. It was pouring when we got done, we jumped in the truck and drove home.

The birds were nothing to look at! :beer:

It was a great time!

Tomorrow looks like alot of the same!


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## benellinova

Terrible opener, was out for 4-5 hours and didn't shoot a single round through a gun and there were three of us. Only saw one bird and it was a hen. Hopeing things pick up as the weeks go by or else it's going to be a long pheasant season!!

Mike glad to hear you guys shot your birds!! Must really know the sweet spots.


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## TK33

The first 45 minutes were great, then the deluge came and lasted pretty much the rest of the day. We got time to walk one slough and kicked out a few roosters then it was all over. I have talked to guys that hunted in several different spots in ND, the bird numbers sound really good, just too many unharvested fields.
A wet day hunting still beats any day at work.


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## gunhills

:lol: Hi guys when you say you have reached your limit for the day how many birds (roosters) can each person shoot per day??Regards Iv.... :beer:


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## hunt4P&amp;Y

gunhills said:


> :lol: Hi guys when you say you have reached your limit for the day how many birds (roosters) can each person shoot per day??Regards Iv.... :beer:


We can shoot 3 birds a day in North Dakota.

Off again today. Looks to be even raining even more then yesterday.... :-?


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## Guest

Hey folks! I went out yesterday and there was thunder and flashes of lightning with a steady drizzle of rain as I walked the first slough. I was out with my two labs and they flushed about 8 hens from the cattails. I was soaked after 90 minutes of that and was on the path to my truck to dry out and a rooster poped out of the fence line headed to the slough. I stopped him short but only broke a wing. The dogs tracked it to the cattails and after sloshing around for the better part of ten minutes, my boy Kody came up with the wounded bird. Of course on the way back to the old fart (me) Sophie got in the act and both had hold of it to make the first retrieve of the season! That was the only rooster I saw while out walking. Unless the hens I saw weren't all hens! Hmm, me thinks perhaps I may have been fooled by some of those young roosters. Anyway, I got out on the opener and had a great day (in spite of the weather) and there is plenty of season to go! :beer:


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## gunhills

hunt4P&Y said:


> gunhills said:
> 
> 
> 
> :lol: Hi guys when you say you have reached your limit for the day how many birds (roosters) can each person shoot per day??Regards Iv.... :beer:
> 
> 
> 
> We can shoot 3 birds a day in North Dakota.
> 
> Off again today. Looks to be even raining even more then yesterday.... :-?
Click to expand...

 Thanks for the reply with you saying you are out again today does that mean you can shoot game on a sunday??? Because we are not allowed to shoot game on Sundays
Regards Iv...
:beer:


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## dakrat

went out this morning despite the rain and snow, i had to dig up my gortex jacket and pants from my old deployment bag. it is also my 10mon old choc lab's first hunt. he did very well and so proud of him. we bagged 1 rooster and 1 hun. didnt bring my camera but managed to take pics with my phone.


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## hunt4P&amp;Y

Nice work guys!

We didn't have a bad day today. Between three of us we ended up with 6 by 1 P.M. We decided to call it a day then. Just got done cleaning all of my goose deeks from Friday, and giving my setter a good ol wash!

Man I sure am glad it just started raining again.... it quit for like 20 min! :lol:


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## HonkerExpress

we scratched out a limit on saturday, took all day to do it, but we got it, and then this morning we were done by 12. 4 man limits, lots and lots of walking on saturday. Sunday was two walks, no one was out, and it was so freaking wet, sucked bit time.


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## andyb

Went out saturday morning and managed to shoot 3. Seemed like some of the birds were skiddish and were getting up ahead of us. Saw plenty of birds but they all headed for corn. The pheasant hunting will definitely be better when crops are off. Probably be a while after all the rain this weekend though.


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## Springer

gunhills said:


> hunt4P&Y said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> gunhills said:
> 
> 
> 
> :lol: Hi guys when you say you have reached your limit for the day how many birds (roosters) can each person shoot per day??Regards Iv.... :beer:
> 
> 
> 
> We can shoot 3 birds a day in North Dakota.
> 
> Off again today. Looks to be even raining even more then yesterday.... :-?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Thanks for the reply with you saying you are out again today does that mean you can shoot game on a sunday??? Because we are not allowed to shoot game on Sundays
> Regards Iv...
> :beer:
Click to expand...

We can shoot 7 days a week from 1/2hr before sunrise to sunset in ND and the possession limit is 12.

We were wet and didn't see a whole lot of birds but a day hunting is better than ______ well just about anything.

I shot one my son shot one, my buddy shot two and the dog got one, well two but we had to put one back and send her back into the cattails to get the one with color.


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## Burly1

We had an excellent three days. Four of us on Saturday, just two on Sunday and today. Interestingly, we shot five older birds today. That is much different than the norm. The wind today had the young 'uns spooky, but the old guys waited until the dogs got on their tails. Pics are from Saturday and Monday. Nothing from Sunday (raining hard!), but we did finish in about an hour (thank goodness, each boot must have been carrying an extra five pounds of mud). :wink: 
































Man, do I love those old family traditions!
Burl


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## hunt4P&amp;Y

Nice looking birds! I wish it wasn't raining all weekend. Every bird we shot looked like a wet rat!


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## tat2hunter

Burly1 looks like you guys had one nice 3 day weekend. Those are some fine looking birds. Wish I could've said the same for me.


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## muskat

Our group of 7 hunted in SE ND. Saw a ton of young birds, which was very encouraging for our area. We ended up with 15 birds on Saturday, should have easily had our limit! Two first time hunters with LOTS of oppurtunities and Im sure lots of stories to tell!!! Thats what really matters!

Sunday we made two short walks, 7 more roosters. Too much rain, and the Vikings were playing.

I would say about 60-70% of the birds were this years hatch.

There was still a ton of standing beans, which will be standing for at least another week with the amount of moisture. Corn will be lucky to be off by opening deer.


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## Candiru

Where I was the corn and sunflowers still had green on them. No real good freeze yet. They will be standing for quite a while yet. We got birds but did not fill or hunt all day.


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## hamdawg08

Well... heres my story! Saturday my hunting group got our six man limit but it took a while the birds appeared to be wild. they were getting up in front of us like they had been hunted for a while. Sunday we also got our six man limit and the birds were completly opposite. They held so tight the dogs were catching roosters. overall it was a fun and very wet opening weekend.


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## muskat

Went out yesterday for a drive around the countryside. Ended up putting on about 350 miles, just to see some areas I have never been.

Lots of people hunting the S. Central/SE part of the state. Central part of the state was basically empty.

Put around 9 miles on walking with the dog, and didn't see many birds. Ran across a covey of partridge and managed to get 1 of the 3 roosters I kicked up. Picture was from my phone.


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## Dick Monson

Late afternoon is a good time to hunt, the wind dies down and the sunlight is soft across the cover. Sam and I have been going out that last hour this season. The birds have full crops of beans for the night and are heading into their roost. We drove down to the black hole slough just before supper. This is the second time there. It has a field of beans or corn on three sides every year and the fourth side has three 1/4s of posted CRP that nobody gets to hunt. They hatch, grow up, and move to the black hole (not posted) for the season. It's a one man slough, small and narrow, with rocks and stumps in the outer grass and a double ring of cattails around the water. On the far end is a comma tail that sticks out into the field with a few stunted trees on the very end.

The first two trips around the slough and through those trees Sam flushed a rooster from the far side. Both times the bird was careful to keep the tree between us and fly over the slough and hook back over a rock pile as he sailed into the CRP. Next time I'm going to stay by the rock pile and send Sam ahead. Maybe introduce that boy to some Federal sixes. Once past the trees we have hit birds every time. Tonight Sam had five points on hens, then a rooster which we bagged on a straight away shot. Another bird flushed then but I couldn't see his color until he was toooooooo far out.

This commentary has no point other than I driven by this slough for 30 years and never hunted it before. Apparently it gets ignored because it bisects a busy road and it appears too obvious and too darn small. Sometimes small is better.


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## gasburner70

Hunted three days limeted out every day by one , in the pic we are one short my buddy shot the biggest rooster he has ever shot and at the end of the day went to open the topper and the darn thing flew out (lol) so i guess you can say we ended with 11 that day but over all a great bunch of guys and a good hunt.


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## R y a n

muskat said:


>


Sweet pic muskat!


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## Burly1

I took the girls out for a jaunt on a the farm of a new friend today. It wasn't a slam dunk by any means. The birds would flush and hook with the 20+ mph winds and be out of range in a flash. But an hour and a half and three miles later, we were taking some trophy pics!




























I have so much fun hunting pheasants with my dogs! I honestly don't think I'll ever find a hobby to replace it, and hope I never have to!
Enjoy your Fall!
Burl


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## muskat

Another trip out to the Southern part of the state...........Im with Burly, to me there is nothing better than hunting pheasants over a great dog.

The best part of the trip was about a 100 yard water retrieve on a pheasant shot over a slough.......Im still smiling.


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## Dick Monson

Those are great pictures, hats off to muskat and Burl! 
:beer: 
We took a run around today after the storm. Kind of a tradition on the opener of deer season. Too much rain here, many ditches running full and water past the cattails. So we headed out til we hit snow. It was a gray day with a few flakes on a hard north wind. Hadn't been to this spot in the last 6 years. Most of the CRP is gone there now and fewer birds but still enough if you walk for 'em. We just left the truck when Sam went hot and fluhed 'em up where beans met the cattails. Bill got a double and I a single, and why in the heck we didn't put them in the truck instead of carrying them through the next mile of mud is beyond me. Excitement I guess. The snow was laying the grass over on the slough edges and the next birds held tight. I walked in on a point where the rooster climbed like he was going right up the light pole. Got the third one half hour latter on another tight point. Sam had crow hopped for him and the rooster came out underneath the dog and almost right into the gun barrel. When Sam was after that one, another flushed behind Bill and he wacked it, but it was one of those death spirals that go way up and out and then folded. It landed a good 100 yards away in deep cats and we lost that one. :x Sam tried but no luck. We were slogging back through the mud when we met two young fellows that had a four pointer on a rope and only a half mile to go to the truck. Made carrying pheasants seem like a piece of cake.


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## snowhunter16

WE drove form huron to mitchell and three of us got are limits of pheasant it was crazy how many birds we seen :sniper:


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## rowdie




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## Dick Monson

rowdie, great picture! Give us more and the stories too. :beer:


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## NDJHG88

Well We had fairly good luck. We went out over Thanksgiving Break with some family and Friends. The cattails seemed to be where they were at. The ice can be tricky in spots and a few of us found out that the springs were still flowing. It was fun to take out some of our newer dogs to see what they had. Wish I would have listened to mine at the end though missed out on one bird.


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## Guest

Just got back from %o&th Dakota! What a ball!
One pic similar to every day my hunting partner and I had.


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## muskat

Another good morning of hunting, made it back to the in-laws just in time to see the Vikes kickoff.

Still plenty of birds to be had out there. A little snow this morning made locating birds much easier, I love fresh tracks.










This hunt took place in NW ND, and I have now put my dog on birds in the SE, S Central, SW, Central, and N Central parts of ND. Lots of new area's found this year, birds have been plentiful for the most part.


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## muskat

My last outing of the year...........SE ND before the storm. I saw a ton of birds, looks like the population is strong. Birds were feeding heavy all day, out in the open on edges of sloughs/crp.


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## Guest

"My last outing of the year..........." That is depressing! I still have a couple to go but the days are numbered!


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## Dick Monson

There were some birds lost in the storm on the 13th but not as bad as I expected. Went today in the forenoon and saw pheasants loafing out of the wind on the south side of the cattails. The bean stubble has blown clear on the high spots and there must have been plenty of feed.
Sam and I walked around the north edge of a cattail where a few birds had flown in. Couldn't enter as the snow is head high on the north side but as we got around there was a deer trail for perfect access. And the birds were tucked in cover against the south side of the drift. Sam put this rooster up on a straight away shot. It had the longest tail I've taken this year. (23 ½")









A bit later Sam cut another rooster track and flushed it up as I was waist deep in a drift. (that's the excuse anyway). So I missed the first shot but the bird turned a bit and then I missed the second barrel. At that point I finally got the other foot on the ice. Watched the bird and he kept climbing which sometimes indicates a hit but he didn't fold and he flew close to a half mile south before he glided down. Got back to the truck a ½ hour later and then headed for the next spot. Down the road about a mile I thought I should have checked that last rooster as once in a great while you find them bled out where they landed.

Drove around the section and there were two little snowed down grass potholes in the bean field. Hardly walked in when Sam had the point and that rooster came up slow. He had been hit and couldn't fly very well so was easy to give him the tap. Both roosters were stuffed with beans and had a good coat of yellow fat.


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## get the net

Had a vacation day to burn before the end of the year and looked for the best day of the cold week. Decided on Thursday the 18th, forecast - high of about 17 with a south wind, sounded perfect. 6:00 am found us in the truck headed south at -11.

First stop was a place to get some of the piss and vinegar out of the dogs before we got to the *best* stuff. We had seen a ton of birds feeding in the corn stubble and worked bean fields and hoped some were still in the cattails.

We pushed a small grove adjacent to a bean field and pushed out a couple of hens along with an owl and two does. Cut down the hill to the first small patch of cats following tracks all the way. Dogs were immediately birdy and we bumped a few more hens. Birds were holding tight in the cover.

At a pinch point and a good bit of cattail busting from Griz, the first rooster of the day fell with a well placed shot from Chris' 12. Walking in the cats was pretty nice, some bare ice and plenty of deer trails to follow. Most places were fairly narrow between open ice the other edge.
The walk from one patch to the next was a different story, with some spots waist deep.

The next grove produced a second rooster for Chris and a caught rooster for one of the dogs right along the edge. I connected with my 16 on our fourth rooster with Chris collecting our 5th at the end of the the third patch of cattails.

The key was letting the dogs work and being patient and quiet. Some of those bird were buried so deep it took the dogs to almost disappear themselves to root them out.

We were on our way to the 2nd location after about 2 hours. Considering we only needed 4 more birds for our 3 man limit we were fairly confident we would be eating a roast beef commercial in another hour or so since we were now gong to the _good _spot. Well........ it didn't quite work out that way. We saw lots of bird and a lot of roosters, but from a great distance. next two places we walked were just that, nature walks, kicked up quite a few deer, one nice little 6 point that showed a lot of potential for next year, but did not get within 75 yards of arooster. And so it went for the next three hours.

We did collect another rooster in those three hours. A group of birds that were flying from corn stubble back to cover had one rooster that must have zigged when he should have zagged. Chuck was watching the rear view mirror and said "It looks like somebdy just shot a rooster". "What are you talking about, we're the only people for at least mile any which way you look? Rooster had hit the power line and was laying about 3 feet off the gravel in the ditch. # 6 in the bag.

Finally at about 3:45, we went back to where we began. We watched about 30 birds fly back down into the cats from a nearby bean field, gave them about 10 minutes to settle down and in we snuck. 35 minutes later our last three birds were in the bag. On the walk back to the truck 4 more opportunities for tight holding roosters presented themselves, but we were done. The dogs enjoyed the sport, flushing and nipping at the long tails exploding out of the soft snow.
Tired but happy dogs and hunters legs that felt like lead, we had time for one picture on a cell phone before the light faded. A great way to burn a vaction day and my first MN 3 bird limit.


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## Dick Monson

gtn, great story. And you can't beat those labs for cattail work, it is hard work. My buddy says when a lab shakes head and ears in the cattails it sounds just a pheasant coming up.


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## Dick Monson

Was out today for an hour and that's all the old hips could handle. The snow is getting deep. Missed a few and bagged two. Walked around a cattail snowbank and was watching Sam when a rooster stuck his head out of the snow right infront of my snowshoe. Yep, he got away clean. 

Sam had a workout.









And now he's resting.


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## Guest

"Was out today for an hour and that's all the old hips could handle." Sounds like me! good fun but getting tough for a guy with bad lungs! Till next year for me! It was a great year. :beer:


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## Springer

It was probably my last time out this year but at least it was better than last year. Those boys in traveling hockey can be brutal on the open weekends.
Seen lots of birds and the two year old Gordon Setter really started pointing and holding until I could get there to flush. It's amazing that they can hunker down in the snow and the dogs can still find them. I am hoping that next year he becomes a little better retriever, he retrieved a couple of birds but usually will just go to them and stand over them. Here is a couple of pictures.

























My buddies labs are 12 and 13, I keep telling him he needs to get another one but he says he is fine, the 12 yr old still hunts but the other spends most of the day behind him and only gets going when she gets a nose full of sent.


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