ND pheasant - thoughts for a nonresident?

TriStar Hunt

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When looking into some hunting opportunities in ND, I was surprised to learn that non-residents aren’t allowed to hunt pheasant on public land or PLOTS the first week of the season. Never paid attention to it when I was a resident way back in the day. Has this impacted anybody’s plans this year?
 
Wait til you find out that you can only use the license for a certain period that you have to declare before purchasing
 
Same deal in SD, first weekend is for resident only on public land.

I'm a fan of hunting after most the crop is out, so that wouldn't affect me any, but I know there is a lot of folks who love opening weekend.
 
There is something intangible about that opening weekend. Not just in the field but around town or even filling up at the fleet farm. Hate to be missing out on that spirit of opening weekend - also understand the importance of conservation and protecting public land hunting opportunities for residents.
Any luck finding farmers who don’t mind a hunt on their land from out of state? Would a postcard or letter from out of state asking about hunting pheasant be too tacky?
 
In my experience up there a knock on a door and a friendly handshake went a long way. Had better luck with that then cold calling
 
Additionally, in ND I believe the land has to be posted to not hunt on it, so I have a feeling many people go this route as well
 
In my experience up there a knock on a door and a friendly handshake went a long way. Had better luck with that then cold calling
First time in NoDak we batted .900 in getting permission. Friendly folks. Between asking, hunting PLOTS, and ditches/barrow pits we found birds. That said, last year there were thousands of acres of corn and sunflowers unpicked when we were there in early Nov and we didn't find near as many birds as we did two years prior...
 
First time in NoDak we batted .900 in getting permission. Friendly folks. Between asking, hunting PLOTS, and ditches/barrow pits we found birds. That said, last year there were thousands of acres of corn and sunflowers unpicked when we were there in early Nov and we didn't find near as many birds as we did two years prior...
Last year was tough in SD as well, for the same reasons plus all the fields were flooded so it was miserable walking in ankle high water all day
 
I'm hopeful for a good year, been a few since I had a great year. Been a few decent, but been a awhile since I looked back and said damn, what a great pheasant year!
 
North Dakota is extremely Anti-Nonresident when it comes to hunting.

Deer tags are limited to not more than 1 percent of all tags.

PLOTS- public land open to Sportmen, closed the first week of season to NR

Ducks and geese, NR limited to cryptic, weird 2 week block of a very long season.

NR may spear fish in the winter *as long as your state allows ND residents to do so.

NR must buy an expensive permit to shoot coyotes.....ridiculous!

No moose, sheep, elk, antelope, mountain lion, bobcat for NR

The average ND will get pissed if he sees you hunting in ND, but somehow they feel fine hunting my state of MT.

One upside, it’s a trespass state, as long as it’s not posted legally, you can hunt it.
 
Having said all that above, if you have OnX, the state sections would be the best bet for public land in good pheasant country. Good private land will be posted and the areas of the state where there are vast tracks of public land are not good pheasant country. When I was a resident, I waited until later in the season, most people aren’t willing to freeze their ass of for birds. I still almost exclusively hunt pheasants in December, even in MT. Crowds are gone, birds are coming back to public lands, and usually they hold tighter for the dogs. Nice thing about waiting; you can hunt PLOTS legally with little to no competition. There are some federal wildlife refuges that open up In December as well, as long as you don’t mind using nontoxic shot, these can be dynamite too, regs can change for these, keep that in mind.
 
North Dakota is extremely Anti-Nonresident when it comes to hunting.

Deer tags are limited to not more than 1 percent of all tags.

PLOTS- public land open to Sportmen, closed the first week of season to NR

Ducks and geese, NR limited to cryptic, weird 2 week block of a very long season.

NR may spear fish in the winter *as long as your state allows ND residents to do so.

NR must buy an expensive permit to shoot coyotes.....ridiculous!

No moose, sheep, elk, antelope, mountain lion, bobcat for NR

The average ND will get pissed if he sees you hunting in ND, but somehow they feel fine hunting my state of MT.

One upside, it’s a trespass state, as long as it’s not posted legally, you can hunt it.
Yet the R hunters don’t seem to have any issue at all with landowner elk tags being valid unit wide and being available to that group any year. The regular guy gets that great deal of a 1x lifetime cow tag while folks who own 150 acres can get dozens of bull tags in a lifetime and hunt the whole unit.
Your time and money are better spent in SD if looking for rooties.
 
North Dakota is extremely Anti-Nonresident when it comes to hunting.

Deer tags are limited to not more than 1 percent of all tags.

PLOTS- public land open to Sportmen, closed the first week of season to NR

Ducks and geese, NR limited to cryptic, weird 2 week block of a very long season.

NR may spear fish in the winter *as long as your state allows ND residents to do so.

NR must buy an expensive permit to shoot coyotes.....ridiculous!

No moose, sheep, elk, antelope, mountain lion, bobcat for NR

The average ND will get pissed if he sees you hunting in ND, but somehow they feel fine hunting my state of MT.

One upside, it’s a trespass state, as long as it’s not posted legally, you can hunt it.
Hard to complain about $40 furbear & nongame license to shoot coyotes that you can sell in the round for $50-100 a piece

also calling it an extreme anti-nonresident state is a bit harsh in my opinion. I’ve hunted ND as a nonresident for almost 15 years chasing deer, coyote, waterfowl, & prairie dogs and have had next to zero issues with residents and landowners. Even if land is not posted we’ve always asked the landowner for permission and that goes a long ways in keeping the locals happy.

i’ve also been hunting Montana as a nonresident since 2004 and in my experiences the residents, landowners & outfitters are less welcoming then Your neighbors to the East not to mention the ridiculous price of deer and elk tags.
 
Hard to complain about $40 furbear & nongame license to shoot coyotes that you can sell in the round for $50-100 a piece

also calling it an extreme anti-nonresident state is a bit harsh in my opinion. I’ve hunted ND as a nonresident for almost 15 years chasing deer, coyote, waterfowl, & prairie dogs and have had next to zero issues with residents and landowners. Even if land is not posted we’ve always asked the landowner for permission and that goes a long ways in keeping the locals happy.

i’ve also been hunting Montana as a nonresident since 2004 and in my experiences the residents, landowners & outfitters are less welcoming then Your neighbors to the East not to mention the ridiculous price of deer and elk tags.
Mostly speaking from the position of NDGF and the Legislature. Less than 1 percent deer tag allocation For NR......that is extremely anti-non-resident. People are people everywhere.

As far as paying for vermin hunting, no other Western state requires it.

Only offering comparative examples; most other states offer WAY more than 1% out of staters (MT 10%), and don’t have anywhere near the prohibitive measures around pheasant, duck hunting, and land use regs.

Again, people are nice, and people are assholes everywhere. Just talking about laws, regs, and requirements.
 
I hunted around Moorhead/Fargo for 4 years. ND is a joke when it comes to non resident licenses. Waterfowl is stupid as well. 2 weeks you get to hunt, but you only get 1 week blocks. You have to pick them and if they pass they pass. 150$ for 2 weeks of hunting, which isn't long for someone who can only hunt weekends.
 
Montana gives out up to %10 for nonresidents, some years a particular unit will be zero percent some years 10% their is no guarantee. One thing I like about ND is at least every year you could bow hunt whitetails as they are OTC. And draw odds have been damn good in years past on the any deer statewide bow tag, but them odds are getting worse like everything else

and you are incorrect on “no other western state requires” license to harvest coyotes. Just to name a few I’m aware of and had to buy in the past are (unless they recently changed)
1) Colorado $30ish
2) Idaho $35ish
3) AZ
4) New Mexico $65
As long as you get to disagree, last word is yours
 
Wait til you find out that you can only use the license for a certain period that you have to declare before purchasing
I didn't go out last year, but how it was in the past you buy a license that is good for two 7 day periods. First week I knew what days I would hunt because I'd buy it the night before. The 2nd week I would put as the last week of the season because you could always go back in and change the dates. Did it change?
 

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