This is the week 4 recap of the 2026 pheasant season. Weather continues to be a significant factor. The week started out with rain forecast Monday through Wednesday. Originally, I planned on hunting Wednesday because it looked like the rain would be light and intermittent. Then I could hunt Friday with Kevin in better weather.
As they always do, the weather forecast changed. Wednesday went from intermittent to steady rain all day. So I scrapped plans to hunt Wednesday and went on Thursday when the weather was better. The downside of that plan was that I was still hunting Friday. I generally like to give myself and Stella a day off between hunts.
11/05/2026 - Minnesota WPA
This was a solo trip to a WPA that has been good and bad. It was good several years ago but has been marginal the last couple of years. Given the better cover conditions this year I thought I would give it a try.
This area got a lot of rain this year so the prairie grass was in good condition. I can tell that it has been hunted quite a bit by the trails that have formed. There was still standing corn along the southern edge of the field.
The day was cloudy with a strong (17-19 mph) wind from the North. We headed south so that we could walk along the edge where there was standing corn. Stella got birdy just outside of some willows. I followed her in and through them. As we entered the willows, a bird wild flushed 50-60 yards ahead. Stella was still birdy so we continued closer to the fence. A rooster flushed straight up, caught the wind and headed for the corn. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, a second bird flushed, which distracted me. Three more birds flushed, one after another. I could only tell what the first bird was and ended up without talking a shot.
We continued along the fence and Stella followed some tracks but we didn’t see any more birds.
Eventually, we turned north, into the wind into a mix of prairie and trees. Stella got birdy and started tracking what turned out to be a small doe. We continued north about a half mile and she went on a solid point. That turned out to be a hen.
At the northern edge of the field we walked through a small cattail slough. We pushed out a nice buck with a wide rack but no birds.
At the northern edge we started going east. Stella pointed a hen and then started tracking another bird. I saw a rooster get up about 100 yards ahead and watched where he landed. We continued east to the road then turned south.
About due east of where the rooster landed there was a small hollow with willows. Stella got really birdy and eventually started tracking northwest. We tracked for 23 minutes until we were back to where we had been walking before. Stella all of a sudden broke and started running around and hopping up on her hind legs. A crippled rooster popped up and then they were both gone. I could see from the handheld that Stella was about 60 yards away when she stopped. Within a minute she was heading back. I walked to meet her. She had caught the cripple and brought it back.
From there, we walked back to where I thought the rooster I saw, had landed. Stella got birdy and we tracked what turned out to be a hen. Then back to the landing zone again. This time a rooster wild flushed about 40 yards away and flew south around some willows. From there we headed back to the truck.
This was by far our longest day for both of us. This field gets hunted hard. While I was hunting I saw multiple vehicles with hunters drive by. One even parked just south of the main parking lot and went out.
11/06/2026 - Minnesota WPA
The weather was dramatically different than the day before. Sunny, mid-to-upper 40s, slight wind. We were hunting a WPA that we hunted the previous week with some success.
We headed south and then west towards where corn had been harvested a week before. Stella pointed and we flushed 2 hens in a low area filled with grass. We continued west to the edge, then south. While Stella got birdy at times, we really didn’t see any birds until we got to the southern edge and turned back east.
From the southwest corner, we headed generally Northeast back towards the truck. Most of the way back, Stella would get birdy, we would follow her and flush a hen or multiple hens.
In one area, we walked between two areas of heavy willows. A rooster flushed in front of Kevin and headed left to right in front of me. I dropped it with one shot. It landed in the willows. Stella charged in with Kevin right behind her. Stella found it and reluctantly gave it to Kevin.
After that, we flushed another group of hens and saw a rooster wild flush well ahead of us as we took a break.
Video
Wind continues to be a problem with the GoPro voice commands. I missed recording the big buck and a pointed hen on the first day due to the camera missing the command and me missing the confirmation beeps..
I did not capture the rooster I shot because it was a wild flush and I do not leave the camera on all the time. But I did capture a lot of dog work, especially of the bunched up hens.
Lessons Learned
- Wind noise continues to conflict with GoPro voice commands.
- On our second hunt all but two of the birds were in cover were adjacent to but not in the prairie grass.
Summary
Overall, this was an interesting week. The weather forced me into hunting consecutive days but that turned out okay, especially since we are going to Iowa for week 5. I saw a couple roosters, shot one, so I wasn’t skunked. Stella got her second cripple of the year. We saw lots of hens, which is also a good sign.
