Prairie Sportsman

(gentle music) - [Brett] Tasked with protecting natural resources and public safety in some of the state's hardest to reach locations, Minnesota conservation officers do some pretty wild things.

But it also means officers don't always get to spend much time in other corners of the state, including former CO Darin Fagerman.

Today we join him and his friend Scott Mackenthun as Darin tries to shoot his first pheasant in a very long time.

- I haven't shot a rooster in over 40 years.

Because I haven't hunted him because I grouse hunt mostly up in northeast Minnesota.

So it was great because I spent 15 years as a state trooper and like I said, very proud, great organization.

And after 15 years I went in to be a CO for 15 years, split my career.

So I got to be a rookie all over again.

- [Brett] Darin was stationed in Grand Marais patrolling a unique area including the boundary waters and Lake Superior.

- It was the best station in the state as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of snowmobile patrol, did a lot of snowmobile work details.

Other than an airplane, a snowmobile is the best way to see the countryside.

From lake to lake to lake in the summertime, being able to go into boundary waters, canoe area, wilderness.

Find the bird.

Find them, find them.

Hen!

Sorry.

Daydreaming.

- [Scott] What was it?

Rooster?

- The time I got up, he was a little bit too far I think.

One of the best times I ever had is I got to deliver a message to a bull hunter during bear season that his father had got a donor heart.

When you're out there every day and you're checking bear bait stations, you know where everybody hunts, you know what they drive, especially up there where there's not a lot of population.

So when they put that out right away, I knew exactly where this guy was and I was able to go in and tell him that his father was on the list, got off the list, got a heart, and he was going into surgery.

And I thought that was a pretty cool experience to see the emotion in that guy's face.

- Hen!

Get him.

Hen!

Getting those really good looks at the females, which I guess that's a good thing.

- One time I had a buck caught in a swing, a hammock actually.

And it was starting to get dark, and the intent, when I got there, the guy thought I was just gonna walk up to this buck and shoot it in the head and kill it and kind of thought, you know, I didn't know what I was gonna do.

I walk up to this thing and I didn't bring a shotgun or a rifle or anything with me.

I just had my pistol and it's starting to get dark and this buck is in this hammock.

And every time I got close to him, he was swinging around, he was kicking.

I didn't want to get hit by those hooves.

So I thought, well, you know what, he's only in here by one antler.

Maybe I could shoot his antler off.

And so the guy, he thought I was trying to shoot the steer in the head and kill it, it was a citizen that called in.

So here I'm trying this buck's moving around, and I'm trying to get a shot at the antler.

And I had a couple shots and I missed the antler.

Well they're kind of hard to hit.

And it was getting dark, it was getting pretty dark and this thing's moving around.

So he makes a comment from behind me.

I'm not a very good shot, and I kind of got a giggle because I didn't think he knew what I was doing.

And on the, I think it was the third, maybe fourth shot, I ended up blowing the antler off and the buck ran away.

(gentle music continues) - Hey.

Get it tiny.

Get it, get it.

Good.

Good job, right there.

Once I started taking my time a little bit more and trusting the dog and putting a pattern together, we've had unseasonably warm weather and birds were actually close to water and kind of hanging out in places that maybe we wouldn't think they would be till later in the season.

But that's the fun of what we do.

You're always solving the puzzle.

- [Darin] We got dogs for that, Scott.

- Man.

(gentle music) - [Brett] Dealing with the vast wilderness of northeast Minnesota sometimes meant dealing with wildfires.

- The biggest one that we had was the Ham Lake Fire.

And some of it was kind of hairy.

I remember having, on more than one occasion, having to lay down on the front seat of my truck with the flames shooting up in the ditch up the jack pine and spruce trees.

We assisted with putting sprinklers on places.

We did pretty much everything that needed to be done.

There was a gas station in town that brought me a trailer full of gas cans every day to my personal residence.

And we'd hook up that trailer and we'd haul them up the end of the Gunflint Trail, and we would go and bleed the, there were two can systems in the old Mk4 pumps, I think the sprinkler pumps.

And we were going around filling up those cans every day, gas cans, making sure the sprinklers were running on cabins.

And then sometimes too, we'd just go and we were transporting food.

We'd go to the lodges that were catering to some of the firefighters that we would pick up a whole truckload of lunches and we were delivering them to maybe wilderness people that were taking them in the boundary waters or to access just to try to keep just doing everything that we could do.

And I was involved assisting the sheriff's department with evacuations on the Gunlint Trail.

A couple people that we evacuated, my wife and I took them into our house, into our basement, and made a good relationship with them.

And probably one of the reasons too that I'm here with Scott today.

- I think we go back probably around to that Ham Lake Fire time and it just so happened in that manner that he ran into my in-laws.

And I've been able to chat with him, check in, I've been checked by him.

He's a great person that spends a lot of time in the outdoors and he's put me onto a lot of fun experiences and really enriched my outdoor experience.

You're always grateful for people that do that.

In the back of my mind, it's always trying to return the favor when I inquired about, hey, have you ever been pheasant hunting?

You kind of wanna do the things that you have in your backyard and he doesn't have access to this.

So I floated the idea and he was game for it.

(upbeat music) (gunshot firing) How are you holding up, Darin?

- [Darin] Good.

- I may push you through just a little faster.

See if we can close the door on them a little bit.

- Ooh.

- Ooh.

Right there.

- I know for some folks they go, well it's not a native bird or they can look at things a little bit differently.

I think a ring-neck pheasant is a practical and pragmatic response to the kind of landscape that we have now.

We have a mix of of leftover remnant prairie or restored areas or wild places that are in small chunks.

And our ring-neck pheasants can prosper.

If we wanted to go back to our native upland game birds, they wouldn't do as well.

(gunshot firing) - [Darin] By the time they come off, I'm way by them.

- Rooster!

Ah, too high.

(upbeat music continues) - [Darin] Hen hen hen.

- You done, you got it.

- All right.

- [Scott] Find it.

Find it.

- I think 1981 I think was the last time.

- Very nice.

- Thank you.

That was a lot of birds.

Unfortunately nothing in range.

- We got one.

- Oh you did?

- Yep.

- I didn't even hear you shoot.

- Twice.

First one was just a warning shot.

Yeah.

- [Scott] Sometimes you gotta double cap them.

- Well it was two different birds.

- Oh!

- For Darin to have that experience with a wild bird, I'm happy for him just because he spent all that time sort of chasing everything else that was in his backyard.

So to come down here and do that, that made me happy.

That made the trip for him to get one.

- This was a lot of fun, something different and I enjoyed it.