Finley Wildlife Club serves up pheasants, fun and feast during annual Youth Pheasant Hunt

Oct. 21—FINLEY, N.D. — It wasn't the kind of weather anyone would choose for a pheasant hunting excursion, but the cold northwest wind that blasted the countryside last Sunday certainly made things interesting.

There were pheasants to be had, for sure — and lots of them — but the birds held tight, only to take off like they'd been shot out of a cannon when they flushed from the tall, dry grass and caught the "big air" the prairie wind provided.

It sure was fun.

So it went last Sunday, when the

Finley Wildlife Club

hosted its annual Youth Pheasant Hunt. A day for young hunters, the event is open to anyone at no charge beyond the cost of a North Dakota hunting license. Adults must have at least one youth hunter along, and participants must follow all North Dakota Game and Fish Department hunting regulations.

Located about 65 miles southwest of Grand Forks, Finley isn't classic pheasant country, and so the club buys and releases birds purchased from

Swenson Gamebirds

near Fort Ransom, N.D., about an hour and a half from Finley, said Mike Stromsodt, president of the Finley Wildlife Club.

That way, the birds don't spend hours crated up during transport, he said.

"We've had good luck with that," Stromsodt said. "We let them out, and they fly away better."

Through the support of Finley Motors and Heartland Chevy Dealers, which has sponsored the event the past few years, the club this year purchased 450 pheasants — of which 350 were roosters — and released them at about a half-dozen sites in the Finley area on the property of willing landowners, Stromsodt said.

The club spent $6,300 on pheasants, said Brian Tuite, treasurer of the Finley Wildlife Club. Without sponsorship support, the club could only afford to offer the Youth Pheasant Hunt every other year, which was the case for a few years after the inaugural event in 2012.

The first few years, the club offered the Youth Pheasant Hunt the same year as the big auction fundraiser it holds every other March, Tuite says.

"It's pretty huge for us to have somebody sponsor us," he said. "It costs us a pretty good chunk of change, but it's well worth it. The Wildlife Club, we've never been ones to sit back on money or CDs (certificates of deposit) or anything like that. It's always, 'Let's spend it.' I've always been under the impression that a good wildlife club is a broke club, so you're always doing something" for the community.

The sponsorship support for the past few years also has allowed the club to put on a lunchtime meal of Creamed Pheasant and Wild Rice — Tuite handles the cooking duties — at the Finley American Legion Peterson-Olson Post 13, where hunters register and receive maps of the sites showing where pheasants were released.

Last Sunday, about 50 adult and youth hunters had registered by 8 a.m., Tuite says; one year, they had about 80 people register.

The release sites, which range from 40 or 50 acres to quarter-sections, generally are enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program or the North Dakota Game and Fish Department's Private Land Open to Sportsmen program. All of the sites provide good cover for the birds. PLOTS land is open to walk-in hunting access throughout the season, and some of the landowners with land that's not in PLOTS allow hunting access beyond the Youth Pheasant Hunt, Stromsodt says.

People also are beginning to see more wild birds around the area because of the pheasants that have been released over the years.

"Very rarely do we have anyone say no," Tuite said of the landowners. "Most of the people around here know what the Wildlife Club does with our money. We pretty much give it away."

Added Stromsodt: "They all welcome it. They think it's great."

In an era when many wildlife clubs struggle to survive, the Finley Wildlife Club continues to thrive, marking its 75th anniversary in 2022. The club has "in the 30 range total members," Tuite says, including a core of 10 to 15 active members, some of whom helped release pheasants before the youth hunt and helped out last Sunday at the Finley American Legion.

"I would say we're one of the most active" clubs in the state, Tuite said. "We hear that from everybody: 'How do you guys do it with such a small amount of people? '"

The answer, he says, boils down to the members.

"It's just that the main core guys are really committed to helping out the community," he said. "And that's what we like to do."

Stromsodt, the Finley Wildlife Club's president, was out in last Sunday's blustery conditions with his two daughters, Allie and Rachel, and Allie's boyfriend, Tyler Cunningham of Thompson, N.D., in hopes of getting the trio into some birds.

Stromsodt's son Max, 22, also was along to assist but didn't carry a shotgun. That was tough, Max admitted, but there was plenty of excitement to be had tagging along with the three younger hunters.

"Red," the Stromsodts' 7-year-old — and aptly named — red Labrador retriever, rounded out the crew.

A senior at Finley-Sharon Public School in Finley, Allie Stromsodt was the most experienced of the crew last Sunday, having hunted pheasants since she was 12 years old. She showed her prowess by quickly bagging her limit of three roosters.

Younger sister Rachel, an eighth-grader, and Cunningham, a freshman at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton, both were in pursuit of their first pheasants.

There were plenty of opportunities to be had for the young hunters — let's just say the opportunities outnumbered birds in the bag — but the wind and the dry conditions made it tough for Red to get a scent of the birds. Still, Cunningham shot his first pheasant Sunday morning, and Rachel would bag her first rooster later that afternoon.

Not bad, considering the conditions.

"It's not exactly how I wanted it to go, but it worked out," Mike Stromsodt said.

By day's end, the 50 or so people who registered for this year's Youth Pheasant Hunt had bagged "50-60 birds total," Tuite says — a rough estimate — and at least one other young hunter shot his first pheasant.

That's what it's all about, Tuite says.

"We love doing this," he said. "It's so much fun seeing these kids have a good time and the smiles on their faces."