This is the week 1 recap of the 2023 Pheasant Hunting Season which just opened October 14th. We were able to get out three different times, we saw birds and even harvested one.
October 15th
This was a local hunt on private land in the Minnesota DNR South East sector. We hunt here often, especially on the weekends, since we can hunt the public ground during the week.
Conditions were good, although as the day wore on it did get kind of warm. We hunted the prairie areas without seeing any birds. The prairies are hit or miss at this location. It really depends on the conditions. After moving to a new field, Stella got birdy along the field edge that butted up against railroad tracks. We split up on either side of the fence line and Stella worked the bird. It eventually stopped and she pointed. I flushed a rooster that we both fired at and missed.
We continued down the fence line to the northern end of the property and Stella got birdy. She tracked about 40 yards and then the bird cackled before flushing. Another rooster, that Kevin dropped. Stella retrieved it from heavy cover along the tracks.
We hunted for a while longer then headed back to the truck. At the truck I noticed that Stella had a laceration on her chest, apparently from barbed wire while retrieving the bird. We took the obligatory post hunt picture and headed out. Then I spent the next several hours at the emergency vet getting Stella stitched up. It took four stitches to close the wound. Now she is on injured reserve for 2 weeks.
There is no video of this hunt because I mounted the camera on my hat facing backwards. I recorded both bird flushes which turned out to be great shots of behind us.
October 17th
This was first hunt on public ground and at this WMA. We were in the South East sector of the state again. Another great day with sunny skies and a slight wind. It was a bit warm but we were planning on a short hunt anyways.
This was our first time at this particular WMA and the cover was very good. We did see some birds, although nothing that we could shoot at. The birds had obviously been hunted the previous weekend as they were pretty jumpy.
This was Willow’s first hunting trip of the year. I have been working on getting her to stay with us and track birds at a reasonable speed. She has been doing better in training and she did better on this outing. She had a few moments when she forgot she was with us and I had to get her back, but overall better than last year.
October 20th - Before the Hunt
This was going to be our first trip to the South Central sector. Pheasant forecasts for this area were better than previous years so we were hopeful going in. The temperature forecast was for warm conditions so it good that we had Willow as she can handle warmer weather better than Stella.
When we are going farther away from home I pack the truck up the night before. The dogs know when I am packing for a trip and start to get very attentive to what I am doing. In the morning when I go down to get dressed the picture below shows what I am faced with. At this point they do not know which of them is going. Stella does not understand that she is on injured reserve so when I pick Willow she got mad. After I left, she had to wake up Jae and tell her I had obviously made a mistake.
October 20th - The Hunt
We got to the location and there were no other parties, which was good, considering it was MEA weekend. When we started out it was still cool, with a light wind from the west. There was still a lot of dew so Willow stayed wet. As a result she was running strong.
We worked along the road edge. Willow was working well and staying a reasonable distance. She got birdy and a hen jumped well ahead of us. We continued and she got birdy again. She was working right between us when a hen flushed. Shortly after that a rooster flushed from the same location, that I dropped.
We continued on and saw a few more birds but no solid points or shooting opportunities. After walking around a farm yard in the middle of the WPA we were heading back towards the road when a rooster flushed wild. Kevin hit it with his second shot and we saw a leg drop. The bird continued to fly towards the farm yard and then suddenly dropped like a rock. We walked over and picked up the bird off of the lawn. Willow was not involved.
Soon after, Willow got birdy then pointed. We approached and she started tracking. In the video you can hear me telling her to “whoa” when she gets too far ahead. She lost the track after a couple hundred yards and while she was searching for it we lost track of her. Willow must have found the track and trailed the bird until it stopped. She was 137 meters from us when she went on point and held it as we moved quickly to where she was. As Kevin got close a rooster flushed and he dropped it. Unfortunately, Willow is not much of a retriever and the bird was a runner. We ended up not finding it.
Video
This is the week 1 recap video and the first one of the season. In this video I learned some new editing tricks that improved the final product by using a higher resolution.
Summary
Week 1 Recap: Overall, we had a good first week. We saw decent numbers of birds, we harvested a few, Stella is as good as ever, Willow is improving and the weather has been pretty good. The statistics for the week and season appear below.
