Minnesota's pheasants have had it easy the past few years because of our mild winters, so carryover has been good. Along with decent nesting conditions, this ensures a good population of huntable birds this season. Photo by Tim Lesmeister.

"Does everyone have steel in their gun?" yelled Adam Johnson to the other four hunters milling around the trucks.

The whistling wind wasn't enough to drown out the plea that everyone needed to make sure they didn't have lead shot in their pockets or in their shotguns. We were setting up to hunt pheasants in a waterfowl production area (WPA) near Benson, and even though waterfowl were not on our list of birds to shoot, you cannot possess any lead shot in a WPA. Johnson was making sure he wouldn't be branded a violator if someone else in the party got pinched with an illegal shotshell.

"I'm using slugs," teased KC O'Dea. He joked that he couldn't find any that were steel, so he was going to have to take his chances. Johnson responded that we might need slugs to kill the tough old roosters we were sure to find in this grassy swamp that looked like it was full of birds.

The wind was blowing hard, but fortunately, we had it blasting us right in our faces. We wouldn't be using posters at the end of the cover, but instead we spread out with the hunters on the end slightly ahead of those in the middle. The dogs would have a hard time picking up scent in the wind, so if one of the pair started getting anxious, that would be a good signal a bird was trying to elude the canine assault.

We didn't have to go 50 yards before the hens started flushing. Every hunter knows this is a good sign, but you like to see a rooster or two in the bunch. However, those colorful exotic birds we love to hunt are never going to make it easy for you.

The first rooster that flushed never got the wind behind it. Johnson dropped it with one shot, and it was dead before it hit the ground.

I got the next shot, and when that pheasant hit the ground, it was running. The retriever next to me was right on its tail, but it eluded the dog. We needed to be on the lookout for that cripple. There's nothing worse than losing a bird in the grass.

For the next couple hundred yards, the only birds flushing were hens. Then the big, black Lab dove into a heavy clump of grass and a rooster jumped, tried to fly, couldn't, and took off running. The dog caught up to it and clamped down. It was our cripple. It added a second bird to the larder.

Nearing the end of our run, the roosters started popping out and taking to the air. They were just out of range, so we picked up the pace. O'Dea was focusing on the birds getting up way out in front of him, so when the rooster flushed right at his feet, he wasn't totally ready. The first blast from his shotgun never came close, but the second found bird and the third was solid. The third bird was in the bag.

It was the last pheasant we dropped at that spot, although we saw more roosters. The dozen that got out in front of us were just a bit too far out to waste a shot on, plus it was our first stop on a run toward the South Dakota border. We were going to hit the Danvers Wildlife Management Area (WMA) and a few other spots on some private land where we have some connections before heading into South Dakota to meet up with some other hunters, expand the group and work some big fields of CRP where the roosters are bunched up in groups in the hundreds.

If you trust the memories of some of the "old-timers" when they talk about Minnesota pheasant hunting in the "good old days," the southwestern counties used to provide the kind of hunting you find today in the Dakotas -- big clouds of roosters and hens taking to the skies as the hunters entered huge swaths of grassy cover surrounded by fields of freshly harvested corn. The glory days were when a dozen hunters could kill a limit of birds in Minnesota in a couple of hours. Harvest levels back then were in the millions each year.

The past few seasons may not generate stories like those you hear from hunters who recall some of the peak years in the 1950s and early '60s, but who knows how selective memory recall may serve to embellish the great hunting we've seen in Minnesota in recent years. According to Bill Penning, the Department of Natural Resources Farmland Wildlife Program leader, hunting has been very good the past few years, and this year should be much of the same.

"There was a significant carryover from this winter," Penning said. "The weather was mild. There were a lot of birds that were being seen all winter long. Plenty of birds were also being seen throughout the pheasant range in the spring. The good weather for the nesting season means we should have very high populations going into this fall. Overall, the outlook is good for a productive season."

Not only are pheasant numbers going up, but the number of hunters has gone up as well.