Rooster rendezvous in southern Minnesota

[h2ofwlr]

By Sam Cook, Duluth news Tribune
on Oct 26, 2014 at 7:48 a.m.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/conten ... -minnesota
Finn, a 3-year-old Brittany owned by Joe Nicklay of Finland, carries a rooster pheasant back to Nicklay during a mid-October hunt near Windom, Minn. Nicklay and his brother-in-law, Ron Anderson of Forest Lake, Minn., make several trips to the Windom area to hunt pheasants each fall. (Sam Cook / scook@duluthnews.com)

WINDOM, Minn. — Up ahead on the gravel road, the black pickup slows. A blaze-orange arm emerges from the window, pointing to the ditch.

I see them. Perhaps a dozen pheasants, many of them roosters, strut about, resplendent in the early-morning light. Sensing trouble, the birds quickly disperse. Some scoot back into heavier cover. A couple fly across the road.

If Joe Nicklay of Finland and his brother-in-law, Ron Anderson of Forest Lake, Minn., weren’t already pumped for their first pheasant hunt of the year, this little encounter should put them over the top.

“We get excited,” admits Nicklay, 53, principal at William Kelley School in Silver Bay.

“Especially seeing them on the road,” says Anderson, 47.

Each fall, the two hunters and their three Brittanies make several trips to the Windom, Minn., area to hunt pheasants. It’s a seven-hour trip, one way, for Nicklay. They’ve been making these trips for 20 years.

Nicklay drove as far as Forest Lake the night before, where he stayed with Anderson.

“We ate pizza and watched Pheasants Forever DVDs,” Nicklay says.

The hunters both are members of that conservation group and support its mission to create quality habitat for pheasants.

Now they pull off the road at a favorite Minnesota wildlife management area to wait for the 9 o’clock legal shooting hour. They hunt exclusively public land this time of year. They have friends in the area, and they have access to some private land, too, but only after deer season in November.

Ellie, Nicklay’s 9-year-old Brittany, whines with anticipation from the pickup as the hunters wait.

The hunting partners have enjoyed good hunting on public land in this area, which traditionally has offered some of the best pheasant hunting in Minnesota. Hunting pressure usually isn’t a big problem, the pair says.

“South Dakota is good for us,” Nicklay says. “A lot of people drive through some of the best pheasant hunting there is to get to the Dakotas.”

Into the cover Minutes before 9 a.m., Nicklay and Anderson strap protective vests and beeper collars on their dogs —Ellie and Finn and Taz. The orange-and-white Britts are beside themselves with anticipation. At precisely 9 a.m., the hunt is on. Nicklay and Anderson wade into the heavy cover of native grasses. The dogs spring and bound in all directions.

“We talk about how we’re going to hunt a field,” Nicklay says, “but the dogs have their own plans.”

Ellie has a limp, he says, the result of a dislocated shoulder. But it’s not obvious when she’s quartering through the tall grasses, occasionally popping up on hind legs to locate her master.

At 3, the two young dogs, Finn and Taz, already understand the game. Nicklay bought his first Brittany many years ago after first hunting over Brittanies owned by friends in the area.

“I’d never hunted over a pointer,” Nicklay says. “It was amazing.”

A few steps into the cover, a dozen pheasants rise together out of range and fly a short distance to heavier cover in the bottomland. That’s just where Anderson and Nicklay are headed.

On the way, a single rooster rattles into flight near Nicklay. Two loads of steel shot from his 20-gauge manage to bypass the bird. Nicklay is unfazed: There will be more chances.

Following the dogs Much of the time, the dogs all but disappear in the waist-high cover — sweet clover, big and little bluestem, sideoats grama, reed canary grass. The dogs run silently, but when they stop to point a bird, their collars emit different signals — a hawk screech, a single intermittent beep, a double intermittent beep.

The hunters cock their ears, trying to get a line on the dog that’s pointing, then move in. If a bird runs — as many do — the dog simply relocates and points again. Sometimes that process repeats for 100 yards or more before the bird decides to flush.

Anderson and Nicklay take their pheasant hunting seriously. They rise early to claim a favorite wildlife management area. They watch their dogs. Their guns are almost always up and ready. They know how many ways a rooster pheasant can beat them, and they eliminate as many of those possibilities as they can.

The dogs haven’t had any formal training, Nicklay says.

“They kind of trained us,” he says. “We try not to goof ’em up too much.”

It’s working.

Now a rooster flushes a bit ahead of Nicklay, and he drops it cleanly with one shot. Taz is on the scene. He finds the bird and brings it to Anderson, his owner.

Both hunters shoot steel shot, Nicklay No. 4s in his 20-gauge and Anderson No. 5s in his 12-gauge. They use non-toxic shot because it’s required on some of the public lands they hunt.

Deliberate stalk The hunters push to the end of the cover. Pheasants continue to flush — hens close by on points, other birds farther off.

“I’m pretty impressed with the numbers so far,” Nicklay says.

Minnesota’s pheasant population, based on August roadside counts, was expected to be up about 6 percent from last year. It’s still well below the long-term average and down sharply from the mid-2000s. But there are plenty of birds to keep these two veteran hunters happy.

They work back through another edge of the cover, along standing corn and through several willow patches. Emerging onto higher ground, Nicklay watches his young dog, Finn, pick up scent. Finn’s stubby tail vibrates like a metronome gone wild. He freezes into a point, moves ahead, points again. Nicklay raises an arm and points down at Finn to let Anderson know he’s on scent.

The syncopated stalk — point, advance, point, advance — stretches almost the length of a football field. Finally, the bird can stand the game no longer. A brilliant rooster bursts into flight right off Finn’s muzzle.

It doesn’t go very far before Nicklay’s load of No. 4s catches up with it. The bird goes down hard. Finn races to it and hustles back with jaws full of pheasant, a wing masking one of his eyes.

There is no more a pheasant hunter could ask for on a frosty October morning. A lovely piece of habitat. A field full of birds. Good dogs out front. Ample shooting opportunities.

Nicklay and Anderson, with another friend joining them in the afternoon, will finish with their limit of six birds for the day. The next day, with more hunters along, they would bring home nine roosters.

And that’s with nearly all of the corn still standing, no doubt harboring more roosters.

The hunters will keep coming back again, making the long drive south several times throughout the season.

“It’s so short,” Nicklay says, “and it flies by.”