We had another very successful opening weekend in NW IA chasing pheasants. My good friend Adam Chester and I traveled from Ames to Sibley to meet up with our pal Tim Ellerbroek. The Ellerbroek family has been hosting this hunt for many years. The

hunt is auctioned off at a FNAWS Foundation for North American Wild Sheep fundraiser each year. This season opener boasted the largest group yet with 14 hunters on Saturday. Hunters traveled from Seattle, Denver, Arkansas, and even Hawaii to shoot the elusive 3lb bird. We couldn’t have asked for better weather with the mornings starting off in the 20’s and no rain to contend with. Our large group also had 5 dogs including 4 flushers and one pointer. The areas that were most productive included public ground (requiring steel shot) and private properties. Although we did hunt some large pieces

of switch grass, we primarily focused on shelter belts and thicker grass along waterways.
Although the title and pictures may lead you to believe that this trip was on a hunting preserve, I can assure you that was not the case. These were all free range birds shot in challenging hunting situations. We all missed some shots that we should have made cleanly. But also hit a few that we weren’t expecting. The dogs did amazing and we lost only two birds that I can recall. The dogs even caught two roosters on the ground that hadn’t been shot! Now that’s how you save some cash on shells! Saturday we were blessed with a 14 man limit by 2:30pm, which even included an hour lunch break. Sunday we worked all day and harvest 20 pheasants. We even managed to get buy cialis online out Saturday after cleaning all the pheasants to try our hand at some waterfowl. We were pleased to pick up a blue bill, two male red heads, and a beautiful drake mallard.
Special thanks to Wade, Donna, Jim, and Tim Ellerbroek for another amazing Pheasant Opener! I would also like to send a special thanks to “ Uncle Ted” for keeping us all on the ball!