Hunting & fishing combo day... is North Dakota the best?

[TonyC]

You could probably make a case that North Dakota has the best bird hunting / fishing combo in the US… although a favorite fall hunting memory of mine came at my friend’s cabin in Grantsburg, Wisconsin and we went goose hunting in the morning, muskie fishing on the St. Croix in the afternoon and his son shot a deer during a youth deer hunt just before it started to get dark.

I fish a ton but hunt very little so I’m not the best gauge. What do you guys think?

I saw this video on waterfowl hunting in Manitoba’s prairie pothole region and it looked pretty cool. http://huntfishmanitoba.ca/blog/201...manitobas-prairie-potholes-birdtail-waterfowl

I think the hunting – fishing combo around Devil’s Lake is pretty darn hard to beat.

Cheers,
Tony

 

[Allen]

Depends on the bird and fish species.

ND is a terrible place to hunt ptarmigan and fish for sockeye.

 

[Rowdie]

I have fished and hunted in the fall a few times. I could do it a lot more, but am too lazy. Fish and geese with pheasant, grouse, and partridge opportunities along the way. IPlus my rez tag for Antelope and deer are overlapping in October too. I could legally fill all those species in one day.

 

[Sum1]

Depends on the bird and fish species.

ND is a terrible place to hunt ptarmigan and fish for sockeye.

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Those question marks were supposed to be a laughy face.

 

[Ruttin]

Toby?

 

[FishSticks]

I love a good mixed bag, especially a cast and blast. We usually will do some early ice fishing mixed with roosters but there are also some early season waterfowl days mixed in with fall fishing.

 

[ItemB]

Nope, ND has terrible hunting and fishing. I agree with you Wisconsin seems like it's a good place to fish and shoot birds.

 

[HammsRMK]

The best I have done was two years ago. We shot a limit of honkers in the morning and caught a limit of eyes in the evening.

 

[dukgnfsn]

Many, many years ago I didn't really hunt waterfowl but a friend of mine did, I took a week off work we found a back water area on the river south of Bismarck where the mallards were so thick in the morning when we trolling motored into the back water area just after sunup and the sky would just turn dark with the ducks lifting off the water. We would get set up and with in and hour or two we would have our limit of ducks and a few Canadian geese as a bonus. We didn't hang out long enough to limit on the geese because we didn't want to burn the area totally and scare them out of there. Usually done shooting the birds by 0900 and then headed out onto main river and caught a limit of walleyes by about noon. One or two of the 6 days in a row we did this, it took until about 1400 to get the limit of walleyes. That was one of the most unbelievable hunting and fishing weeks I have ever experienced. The first 3-4 days we were the only ones hunting the spot. By the end of the week there were a few others in there hunting, I guess hearing the shooting may have given us away. Man does that bring some old memories. There were a few years back then when the river was better than lake Sakakawea has been the last few years I was and am still a river rat. dukgnfsn

 

[Up Y'oars]

I bet there are LOTS of states where hunting & fishing are abundant. Maybe they don't have moose or rams, but they would have other species as game where ND does not.

I'm looking at some lakefront property down in the SE of the U.S. and what I see there is appealing. Not only can I get much better weather, whole bunches of reduced wind speeds, lower cost in home values, but I can also keep my walleye selection as my target fish. Now, they may not host many 11-13lb lunkers, but the S.C. state walleye is 10lbs. Hell, I'm okay with a 7lb or 8lb any day! I will also be able to keep other typical species like up here, such as yellow perch, crappie, smallmouth, etc. and can add in striper bass, largemouth, etc.

I'm sure down there they an abundance of turkeys, too, not just the human kind. ;-) I would lose out on the pheasant, but my dog is going on 9yo and I'll probably give up the upland game hunt anyway. I'll take 10 months of nice weather compared to NoDak's 4 months of decent weather that gets reduced by 2 months because of 40mph days of wind.

Flip a quarter?

 

[BDub]

Back in the early 90`s we used to fish the river channel down by Beaver Bay. The very bottom of the channel because Oahe was only a river due to drought . We took the dogs and hunted pheasants where most of us are fishing now days.

 

[KDM]

SD, S. MN, and WI have much better combo hunts for birds/fish than ND. ND freezes up a month or better before any of those and the white stuff flies much earlier than either as well on a regular basis. Can you find good hunts and catches in ND...Yep, but your window of opportunity is much much smaller compared to the other states. JMHO.

 

[luvcatchingbass]

Closest I have come is 2 roosters in the morning and then my first WT bow buck (5x5) later that afternoon. Had a neighbor fishing the Sheyenne and caught some walleyes and downed a couple wood ducks in the same spot, I would say that is pretty rare.

 

[njsimonson]

Used to have great cast-and-blast in Barnes County in the fall. Moon Lake had monster rainbows that would fire up in Sept., and both the James (La Moure Dam) and the Sheyenne had good autumn walleye bites. It wasn't unusual to hunt doves or pheasants and then go out and fish. With the habitat that's still available in SE ND, my guess is you could keep that rolling, and a smallmouth bite is still available late in the season as well on the Sheyenne.

These days due to time, it's one or the other for me - one could pull it off at impoundments that have a WMA around them out west.

Are we the only place in the world? No. I've done ruffies and walleyes/bass in NEMN in September that have produced some memorable outings and pheasants/smallies in October in SWMN as well. My theory is, wherever you are, there's a good opportunity and the further south you get, the better or longer lasting it is.

 

[Lapper]

I was on a canoe trip in the boundary waters one year when a couple of guys came “trolling/paddling” by. They were going from campsite to campsite hunting some kind of partridge that they said liked to hang out on trails and fishing in between. I’ve never done it, but always thought it sounded like an awesome trip.

 

[Timbuk-2]

Haha, sounds go me like a NR planning a trip to ND.

 

[dukgnfsn]

I was on a canoe trip in the boundary waters one year when a couple of guys came “trolling/paddling” by. They were going from campsite to campsite hunting some kind of partridge that they said liked to hang out on trails and fishing in between. I’ve never done it, but always thought it sounded like an awesome trip.

my guess is they were hunting Ruffed Grouse

 

[FishFinder97]

I’d say the opportunity for combo days are really good. Especially early fall, have had a lot of morning spent fishing and ending the day with a dove hunt. One of my favorites is goose hunting in the morning, hunt pheasant on the way home then take a break and go out fishing that night which is very doable in october. This fall I shot a limit of ducks one morning and then caught a limit of walleyes that night.

 

[Rut2much]

When I think cast & blast, the first place that comes to mind is Pembina ND. They have a cast & blast shot at the bar there named after it even, freaking delicious!

 

[Traxion]

Lots of states you can do it in, just depends on what you are after. I have done walleyes and pheasants. I could get grouse in there probably too if I tried. We used to fish stock dams for bass all the time before the pheasant shooting time in SD too. The stars would have to align to do a waterfowl, upland, and fishing day all in one. I think I could do trout and grouse in the area I live now pretty easily.

My dream is to have a duck/goose hunt in the morning with mallards & honkers. Then a pheasant/grouse/partridge hunt in the afternoon. I think I could pull it off if it weren't for that 5 bird partridge limit. A triple/triple of those upland birds would suffice. Heck a 5 x 3 of all those listed would be an incredible day!

Getting old....tired just thinking of the end of that day LOL!