Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game ND - part deaux

Made a another foray into the home area for some hunting this weekend. My Brother is back in MN, so I'm out by my lonesome. Decided that I'd try and combine pheasants and coyotes this time. Started out calling for yotes in a spot where I'd seen one a couple weeks back, along with a lot of sign. Nada, though I did call in a 3 point whitetail. Got a short video of him on my cell at about 20 yds, trying to figure out what I was (wind in my favor).

Driving off to my next destination, I came across a group of 5 pheasants on the road (one rooster, 4 hens). They bailed into the edge of a cattail slough I've hunted before. It's thick in there, and I knew they'd hold tight. So I moseyed out past them and pushed them back towards the road. About 60 yards from where I expected them to be, I flushed a rooster. First shot was a clean miss, the second barrel I could tell he came down winged - smack dab in the middle of hell. I marked him as best I could, and headed straight there on a line. My dog, Skidjit, is not much of a hunter (rescue), but I'll be damned if she didn't locate him and pin him down long enough for me to snag him up. Pushed back towards the location of the other birds and flushed that rooster too. I thought he came down dead, but it must have been a repeat of the first scenario, only this time we weren't able to corral him. We looked for damn near an hour -looked like cattle paths through the tails when we gave up.


Put my stocking hat up on the truck's defroster to dry out. Not sure this is how the Europeans do it, but I had to take a photo when I saw the feather stuck to it.


Went back out after a trip to town for lunch. Out on the family farm we found fresh pheasant tracks in the snow and I could tell they were running ahead of us. First one rooster, then a second flushed well out of range. Then a hen, followed by a second. As we started through the spot where they flushed this guy decided he'd overstayed his welcome:


That's my Remington M11 Sportsman, in 16ga. Bought that out of the classifieds here several years back - this is the second pheasant I've shot with it.

With daylight beginning to fade, I decided to make one last calling stand for yotes. The spot I chose is called Lake Taayer, though as a kid we referred to it as a slough. These days of high water, it is truly a lake.



I set up in a rockpile along the north edge, hoping to pull a yote in from cover on the west or east end. Instead, he came across the ice from the south. When I saw him on the ice, he was between a 1/4 and 1/2 mile out, and he came up the embankment into a farm field and sat down. Stayed there for about 5 minutes, staring my way. My FoxPro wasn't interesting him any longer, so I pulled out my mouthcall and gave it my best. That got him to move, but not towards me. He headed back out onto the ice, instead. I gave him a few rodent squeaks and that turned him in my direction. There is small point on the shoreline that I had guessed was about 125 yds out (it wasn't) - I figured that if he came that far, I'd woof at him to stop him. I was just about to, when he stopped on his own, so I let him have it. He did the death-spin thing for about 5 seconds, took two steps towards shore and then pitched face first into the ice. I paced him off at 166 yards (next time I bring the LRF). Big male, about 35-40lbs, well furred. And skunked.



Rifle is a Remington 700 LTR in 223, handloaded with Hornady 75gr HPs over BLC-2 in Lapua cases (VERY accurate load in this rifle). I don't think the bullet exited, as the only blood I found on him came out his mouth. It was a quartering-to shot, so it should still be in there somewhere. Wish I could stand the stink long enough to find it, I'd like to see how it performed (first time use of this bullet on game).

Big day today. Now I need to figure out what tomorrow is going to be.....

Kaiser Norton

Kaiser...nice write up, love the pictures. Where abouts in ND are you?

Enjoyed the story and the great pics!

Looks like fun!