MARSHALL, MINN. -- The pheasant flushed from a tangled patch of brown grass in a mostly white landscape just in front of Mike Victor. "Mark -- rooster!" he shouted to his twin brother, trudging through the snowy field just to his west.
Mark Victor swung his 12-gauge over-and-under, locked on the target and touched the trigger. The ringneck tumbled to the snow.
"Nice bird," Mike said as the brothers admired the bird's iridescent bronze feathers glistening in the morning sun.
It was finger- and toe-numbing cold, and 5 inches of sugary snow blanketed the countryside, but, oh lordy, there were birds flying during a late-season hunt last weekend in western Minnesota.
Hunting with the Victor brothers and a friend, Jack Wolf of Lakeville, we saw and sometimes flushed dozens of birds -- hens and roosters -- over two days. On a 1-mile stretch of gravel road, Wolf and I counted more than 30 birds scratching in the fields for food.
"This is like South Dakota," Wolf said in bewilderment.
Almost.
It was the most pheasants I'd ever seen in Minnesota.
Granted, the snow tends to congregate birds, and they are much easier to spot against a white backdrop. But there still were remarkable numbers, a testament to the high population predicted by the Department of Natural Resources.
"These last two years, it's been unbelievable," Mark Victor said.
He and his brother grew up in nearby Canby and have been hunting since they were kids.
How good has the ringneck hunting been in their area?
"It's been the best it's ever been," Mark said.
Said Mike: "It's been good enough that you don't have to go to South Dakota."
Wild flushes But this wasn't like shooting fish in a barrel.
The birds were skittery and often flushed wild at the first hint of trouble. We'd enter a slough, and birds would flush safely out the other end a quarter-mile away.
And a high percentage of pheasants were hens. But enough roosters remained to give us and our dogs plenty of action. Sometimes they held long enough to give us decent shots.
Though the number of birds was encouraging, their continued success depends on another mild winter, good spring nesting weather and no drastic loss of habitat -- all iffy propositions.
The ringneck season ends Jan. 1.
Vermilion state park Have some thoughts on the proposed state park at Lake Vermilion? You can offer the DNR comments through Dec. 31. Go to the DNR website (www.mndnr.gov) and find the Lake Vermilion park proposal banner in the upper right corner of the page. Participants can click on Send Us Your Comments. The Minnesota Legislature is expected to consider the park proposal during its upcoming session.
Did you know? • Conservation officer Brandon McGaw of Babbitt came across two bull moose lying in the middle of the road licking salt off the roadway. He said he wouldn't have seen them without their antlers.
• Though ice anglers with portable shelters that won't be left unattended on ice no longer need to license them, the identification requirements still are in place, DNR officials said.
• Officer Ed Picht of Montevideo reports that with so many pheasants now feeding out in the open, there has been an increase of reports of people shooting them from their vehicle windows.
