# ND Report



## burbach (Sep 29, 2005)

Just got back from a couple days of pheasant hunting in God's Country. Great news, there are gobs and gobs of birds. It does not look like the bad weather they had a couple of weeks ago are having too much of an impact. I did not find any frozen birds, and it looked like they are finding enough food around.

All birds were concentrated very heavy in the cattails. Over a three day period, every cattail slough except for two that my dog and I hit, we scared up birds. And usually if you found one bird, you would find a dozen or so. There was one slough where fifty or more exploded out at the same time. It was truly awesome. I did encounter a vast majority of hens vs. roosters. This should bode well for next year. I know it is a long winter ahead of us, but it was promising to see so many birds survived the ice storm.

I only took a couple home with me, but it was a great time. My dog is still smiling from the trip.


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## Ande8183 (Sep 18, 2005)

burbach, where were you hunting in ND. I dont need any specifics, but wondering general part of the state. I hunt south and west of Fargo, and wondering on how the pheasants are faring the recent storms that we have had.


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## burbach (Sep 29, 2005)

Ande, That was where I was, in the southeast corner of the state. Mostly hitting private ground. I have a bunch of relatives in that area.


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## NDTerminator (Aug 20, 2003)

Last weekend my wife, lab Josie, and I hit a slough of maybe 100 yards square, and flushed upward of 100 birds out of it. Looked like a European pheasant beat for awhile there. Suffice to say the shooting was fast & furious! Don't know how many hundreds of birds we saw over the weekend, but I can say I quit counting Josie's flushes when I got to 50. we got 11 birds for the two days.

Went out yesterday, and found a lot of birds were hiding under cattails that had been covered by snow drifts. Josie often was completely out of sight under these drifts, flushing birds one after another. Seems there was no in between, the birds were either flushing wild or sitting super tight under this stuff.

Josie made 34 flushes yesterday and nabbed one hen who sat a little too tight. We got two roosters, but should have limited out. I was trying out a new Remington 11-87 Left Hand for the first time, rather than the MSR O/U I'm used to, and trying to push off a tang safety that wasn't there cost me a limit. :x

BTW, my wife brined those birds over night and put them in the smoker this morning. Going to have smoked roast pheasant for dinner tonight...


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## burbach (Sep 29, 2005)

Great story. In my two days out there as well, my dog pounced on two hens that would not get out of their hidy-hole. The dog had a blast. She loves going deep into the cattails. It was fun to walk into the middle of the slough, and watch her work her way 360 degrees around me scaring up birds. Great time. Do you have a recipe for that brine that you could pass along?


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## DonC (Oct 9, 2005)

Try this .........

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=br ... gle+Search


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## NDTerminator (Aug 20, 2003)

Sure, I'll post it up when I get home tonight...

OK, here's the brine. This is enough to do one bird.

1/2 cup pickling salt
6 cups cold water
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp white wine vinegar

combine in glass bowl or ziplock, and soak bird in refrigerator for 4 hours.


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## burbach (Sep 29, 2005)

A few questions on this recipe:

Is this with a plucked bird or skinned?

Do you then barbeque it? If so, for how long? Does it stay moist?

Thanks.


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## NDTerminator (Aug 20, 2003)

I'll post the entire recipe & process over on the Recipe Forum...


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