The two Labs got birdy, noses to the ground, tails wagging.

Seth Buryska got ready, gripping his 20-gauge, senses tight.

With a burst, a rooster pheasant flushed.

The only sound was the whir of wings. The 12-year-old Rochester boy had forgotten to take off his safety.

 Minutes later, the dogs got birdy and a second rooster broke.

Dave Tlougan, 15, of La Crescent got his safety off and fired. The bird flew off, perhaps lighter by a feather or two. "I don't know" what happened, he said. "Just missed."

"There were feathers that came out," said Mark Dean of Rochester, president of Tri-County Pheasants Forever. "You just got the tail."

Tlougan wasn't downhearted. He's never hunted pheasants before. "There will be another one," he said.

Then two birds got up and Tlougan and Alex Harms, 13, of Rochester, each fired.

Two birds flew away. "I shot at one of them, and then they got too far away," Harms said.

And so it went on one of several dozen youth pheasant hunts last Saturday throughout the state. The hunts are a cooperative effort between Pheasants Forever and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The DNR allowed Tri-County PF guides, seven young hunters from this region and the Twin Cities (drawn from a lottery) and a parent for each to hunt the Haverhill Wildlife Management Area east of Rochester. Normally, this area is closed to hunting.

They began at the Southern Minnesota Sportsman's Club where they got to shoot .22-caliber rifles and 20-gauge shotguns. After that, they headed to the WMA. They split into two groups and ended up bagging five roosters.

PF and the DNR combined because they want to help pass on their sport of pheasant hunting to the younger generation. It's not an easy job. Youth sports, video games, busy parents and lack of access to hunting land are making it harder and harder to get teens and younger adults into hunting.

This hunt, however, showed a second way Tri-County wants to help pheasant hunting -- the land itself.

The DNR recently bought an old farm where the seven boys hunted, and next spring, PF is going to burn the land to get rid of the grasses there and replace it with native species.

The difference could be dramatic.

When they scouted the land before all the snow Friday, it looked good for birds.

When they walked the land last Saturday after Friday's surprise snow, non-native grasses were matted down. "It was a lot better habitat yesterday," Dean said.

If big bluestem and other native grasses get established after four years, they will be able to stand up to the snow.

The future of the land, however, wasn't high on the youth's priorities Saturday. They wanted to shoot a rooster.

They walked for nearly an hour, keeping an eye on the dogs. After flushing a few roosters, the boys, their dads and guides took a break.

Dean called the three boys to him for a short half-time pep talk.

Birds are a lot harder to hit that the clay targets you shot at the trap range, Dean said. They jump up at surprising times, they can scare you.

But they're not rockets. "There's no need to rush that shot," he said.

They were off again, Labs Hooker and Korby in the lead, the boys learning to watch and trust the dogs.

Some guide, dads and hunters got into standing corn and pushed out a rooster, but it escaped unscathed.

Score another one for roosters.

The boys were learning how crafty those birds can be, even if they haven't been hunted.

Finally, in a old farmstead, the two Labs got birdy.

Tlougan got ready.

A rooster flushed.

The boy shot.

There was a fluster of feathers and one downed bird.

"The bird got up, it didn't go too far," Tlougan said. He got his bird and was sounding like a nonchalant veteran.

As Buryska and Harms left the field without birds, they were philosophical, as are veteran hunters.

It was a good time, Harms said. "We saw a couple roosters."

John Weiss is the Post-Bulletin's outdoors writer. If you have comments or story ideas, call him at (507) 285-7749.

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