This is the week 3 recap of the 2025 pheasant season. I got back from South Dakota Monday afternoon. I had stuff to get caught up on so we didn’t get out until Thursday.
October 30th - Minnesota
We have been checking out new areas to hunt. I did a scouting trip in mid September and identified lots of WMAs, WPAs amd WIAs that were worth trying. On this trip we tried 3 new locations, all within a mile of each other.
Field 1
The first field was a WMA consisting of mostly prairie and cattails. The cover was good and Stella did some tracking although she did not get real excited. At one point she locked up solid on point but there was nothing there, at that point in time. After I got home I realized that we had missed the majority of the field, since it was on the other side of a cattail slough. Worth another shot.
Field 2
The second field was also a WMA and just across the road from the first field. This was a combination of prairie and wooded thickets. Stella did get birdy and we followed her into a huge belt of willows. We had one hen wild flush in the middle of the field. As we were leaving, Stella started tracking and followed a bird into the willows again. The back side of the willows butted up against a cattail marsh. Kevin positioned himself at the edge. A couple hens flushed followed by a rooster. Kevin fire once and missed when he got tangled up in the willows. It was too far for me to shoot. I’m not sure I would hunt this field again, just because of all of the willows.
Field 3
The third field was another WMA about a mile east of the first two fields. There was a narrow band along the railroad tracks that led back to the main WMA. The main WMA was about 80 acres of mixed prairie, canary grass, cattails and a small thicket. Within a few minutes of entering the WMA Stella got birdy and tracked to the edge of some cattails. As Kevin and I tried to move into position a rooster flushed. It was too far away from either of us. We continued hunting and eventually Stella got birdy in some canary grass but we never found a bird. This is another field I would hunt again.
Lessons Learned
Prior to this hunt I switched my GoPro to a different hat. I tested the angle in my office but in the field it was too far down.
Summary
This is the week 3 recap covering one trip in Minnesota. We saw some birds but harvested nothing.
