RUFFED GROUSE & PHEASANTS - Minnesota Combination Limit

Yeah, I was a whole lot younger back then, and those two pups were pretty special dogs. 

Critter & Woogs as pups, hunting ruffed grouse in southeast Minnesota and pheasants in southcentral Minnesota. This was the first time that I tried to take this combination limit, instead of just hoping it would happen.  There were several days over those years, that I took the 5-bird limit of ruffs, but only got one pheasant, while grouse hunting.  I finally accepted that if I was ever going to take this combination limit, I would have to drive to pheasants. 

Just a few days after this hunt, I tried to duplicate the same combination limit in Iowa, with the pups. We took the 3-bird limit of ruffed grouse in Iowa in less than an hour. Shot a Hun in the first pheasant field. Had two pheasants an hour later, then chased a partial albino pheasant the rest of the day. We flushed that albino three times within 40 yards, but I never could be certain it was a rooster.  I should have just shot one of the several normal roosters the pups flushed. But that's me,  always trying to make a normal hunting day into a special one and a special day into a never before heard of day. 

Well if that wasn't my nature, I wouldn't have had the special days that I talk about, and wouldn't feel like I had anything to offer on podcasts, that all the other guys aren't doing.