The Daily News

Last weekend, I took part in North Dakota’s deer opener in the Ellendale area and it was nasty. Ellendale was about where the snow line started and on Friday morning the weather was not inviting at all. Not only was the wind blowing over 30 mph, the temperature was only in the mid-twenties. It took quite a few layers of clothing to keep us warm but we headed into the field just before noon.

Curiously, the weather wasn’t our biggest problem.

There were thousands of acres of corn still standing in the fields providing refuge for both deer and pheasants. I’m not sure just how many deer we didn’t see because of the corn but there were considerably fewer deer running around once the shooting started.

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Again, I have to get on my soapbox. Considering the numbers of deer we saw, and the reports from other hunters, I just don’t see the need for hunters to be carrying multiple tags. There were still tags remaining in unit 2H and there is no limit to the number a hunter can hold.

All I can say is, if tags are that liberal for antlerless deer one should at least be seeing a lot of deer running around. That was not the case. In fact, we saw more bucks than does and were fortunate we didn’t have to find a doe.

Again, I ask, who says we have too many deer?

We had four buck tags and got three bucks over the weekend. However, I had to leave on Saturday to head for Missouri and Kansas on TV hunts. While driving home 100 miles to the east, at midday, the story was the same, field after field of standing corn. I was amazed that we did not see a single deer hunter in the field actually hunting. No one was walking shelterbelts or CRP and we didn’t even see a blaze orange-clad hunter in a pickup until we got to Hankinson! Yes, it was cold and windy, but make no mistake it was the corn that made hunting almost futile.

This has been the wettest fall on record in some parts of North Dakota and it’s really making the hunting difficult. The only way the hunting will improve for deer and pheasants, is if the ground freezes so the combines can get in and harvest the corn.

Mother Nature just hasn’t been very nice this fall and she followed me to Missouri. I just completed a week of hunting in northern Missouri and we lost half the hunt to rain and high winds. I just got out of the treestand on my last afternoon after sitting in a downpour and getting soaked. I recently got a Blackberry cell phone and was actually able to check the weather radar while sitting in the tree. I saw the rain system was coming straight towards us and it was intense so my cameraman and I just got down and called it a hunt. Tomorrow we head for a hunt in eastern Kansas.

There was also still lots of corn standing in Iowa and some parts of Missouri. Kansas should be done with their corn harvest but I’ll let you know how that hunt went next week. Hopefully the weather will treat us better.

STORM REPORT

I received a hunt/storm report, and some amazing photos, this week from Bob Splichal of Wahpeton and since I’m out of town I’ll let him tell the story.

“I thought your readers might like to see some pictures I took while hunting for pheasants and deer this last weekend in Mott. The storm was deadly, but the hardy, serious hunters, or should I say crazy ones, were out in it anyway enjoying the sport!

The 60 mph winds made the hunting real tough. The birds were all bunched up in whatever cover they could find and we found a number of roosters and hens with their beaks and nostrils almost frozen over. They actually allowed us to get very close and once we cleared their heads of the encrusted ice they flew off! Lots of birds made it through the storm as there were still many around on Saturday and Sunday. We expected to find dead birds all over but saw very few. I am sure some were dead and covered by drifts.

We saw large herds of both mule deer and whitetails but couldn't get within a half mile of them due to all of the blocked roads. We spent most of the time pulling each other out of snow banks. We tried opening some roads with all four tires in chains on my suburban, but still got stuck. We saw some very nice bucks in the herds that hopefully will be around next year. I felt like a "wildlife paparazzi" taking opportunistic pictures of the wildlife while they fought to survive!”

Thanks Bob, for the report and the incredible images. It makes me wonder how many anti-hunters were out there in the storm saving the lives of ice-encrusted pheasants….

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