MINNEAPOLIS — Before Isaiah Osborne signed up for the military at age 17, before he went into active duty after graduating from New Ulm Cathedral High School, and before he was a crew chief on a Marine rescue helicopter, he was his own bird dog in southern Minnesota. “In high school, after football practice, one of my buddies and I would run around on state land, hunting pheasants,” Osborne ...

A ring-necked pheasant rooster struts along a Minnesota roadside.

Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

MINNEAPOLIS — Before Isaiah Osborne signed up for the military at age 17, before he went into active duty after graduating from New Ulm Cathedral High School, and before he was a crew chief on a Marine rescue helicopter, he was his own bird dog in southern Minnesota.

“In high school, after football practice, one of my buddies and I would run around on state land, hunting pheasants,” Osborne said. “We didn’t have any dogs, so we had to find the birds ourselves. We got a few pheasants, but not many.”

How times have changed.

Back in New Ulm after a five-year stint in the Marines, Osborne, 28, no longer relies on his feet to put a ringneck to wing for a possible shot.

Now he and his wife, McKenna, who were high school sweethearts, are the proud parents of an 11-month-old daughter, Lainey, and, after a fashion, two German shorthaired pointers, Zona and Whiskey.

It’s the latter two Isaiah is counting on this fall to find pheasants.

And they are.

“It’s amazing how many more birds that dogs can find on the same lands I hunted in high school without dogs,” Osborne said.

Always interested in the outdoors, Osborne’s evolution as a bird dog owner — and trainer — began while he was in the service.

“I joined the Marines for the adventure, I guess,” he said. “People who know me know I’m not one to sit idle and do nothing. My cousin was in the Marines in Iraq and he sent me pictures of his deployment. So I signed up.”

Boot camp in San Diego came first, after which Osborne received water survival training, aviation maintenance schooling and flight instruction, including an assignment as a helicopter door gunner.

Eventually he qualified for training as a helicopter crew chief — the officer in charge of everything behind the pilot seats, including lowering and raising medics and other specialists during rescues.

“When I graduated, my instructor told me about a posting in Yuma, Arizona,” Osborne said. “He said the town itself wasn’t much, but the assignment was great. The Marines had a helicopter stationed there that did rescues in southern Arizona. The sheriff’s office, the Border Patrol; we did rescues for whoever needed them. We didn’t enforce migrant laws. But when migrants got hurt in the desert, we picked them up and got them to a hospital.”

One downside to the assignment was the Arizona heat. “Even with the doors open, flying in a helicopter down there in summer was like flying in a clothes dryer,” he said.

Looking to rekindle his love of upland hunting, on his days off Osborne helped a bird dog trainer, Rashawn Gordon, who with his wife, Melissa, owns Gordon’s Gun Dogs in Wellton, Ariz.

“He had Brittanies and German shorthairs,” Osborne said. “I learned about training and handling the dogs, and also started doing guided quail hunts.”

Enamored with all things birds and dogs, Osborne picked Minot, N.D., and southern Arizona as places he wanted to live when he left the Marines in 2021. The Gordons had given Osborne a German shorthaired pointer puppy — Zona, who is now 5 years old — and civilian life would be that much better, he figured, if he and McKenna lived where upland birds were abundant.

“But then McKenna said we were moving back to New Ulm to be closer to our families, and I said, ‘OK.’ ”

Which is when Osborne discovered some of the same fields where he scrounged pheasants after high school football practice held a lot more birds when he hunted over a good dog.

“Pheasant hunting was good when we came back to Minnesota, and it’s getting better every year,” he said. “Quail are fun to hunt. But they’re running son-of-a-guns. Pheasants don’t run as much, which is good.”

When not hunting, Osborne works in veteran outreach for Republican U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad, whose district spans a broad swath of southern Minnesota.

“We host roundtables for veterans to keep them aware of programs that could help them, and aware also of legislation that might affect them,” Osborne said. “I never thought I would work in outreach. But our programs honor veterans in many ways, and I enjoy hanging around brothers from my time in the service. I take pride in it.”

Recently, Osborne and a friend traveled to northwest North Dakota to hunt sharp-tailed grouse. Camping in a leaky orange 1960s-era tent, they suffered only when it rained — which it did three of their four nights on site.

The lightning made it seem “like lying in a jack-o’-lantern,” Osborne said.

The North Dakota adventure fired up the two hunters for the opening of the Minnesota pheasant season.

“If I had to pick one bird to hunt the rest of my life, it would be pheasants,” he said. “In North Dakota and out west, some hunters get caught up in the beauty of big landscapes. But in Minnesota, I find pheasants in lots of different places. Sometime they’re in wide-open grass. Sometimes they’re in trees.

“What I really like is when I’m working through a cattail slough and I find my dog on point. That’s the best.”

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