Last weekend saw duck hunters hit their favorite hunting spots, but this weekend belongs to upland hunters.Pheasant season opened this morning, and News 12's Erick Lind found that Madelia is hoping a new event will help get more people involved in hunting, and maybe even drive a few more to its town.Madelia city administrator Dan Madsen enjoys pheasant hunting.He and his dog Kota were out when the clock struck 9 this morning to have their first chance at finding a rooster or two.He wasn't alone, because he helped plan the town's brand new celebration...fittingly called Pheasant Phest.Madelia city administrator Dan Madsen says, "Pheasant hunting's always been big here, but looking into this matter awhile ago we realized nobody really had a big kickoff party in the area, so we thought, 'Why not Madelia?'"The city combined with the chamber of commerce, and several sporting groups and pulled the event together in a mere three weeks starting the day off with a pancake breakfast.Watonwan County Pheasants Forever chapter secretary Chuck Strenge says, "It's just a big plus for them to do this to promote Madelia, and Pheasants Forever and hunting down in this county."Strenge says there are fewer older hunters this year due to health problems, and many of his generation have lost interest because of the lack of pheasants, so they hope to at least capture the attention of future hunters.Strenge says, "The new generation that's coming out, we're battling video gbames, computers, you know, the whole nine yards, that's why our chapter tries to keep the kids outside, keep them interested."The city is hoping by coming up with the festival, not only will they be able to get younger hunters involved, but they will be able to get more hunters to come to the town.Madsen says, "I think there's a lot of reasons we do the event. Some of those are for generating business and interest in Madelia."Pheasants Forever hopes funds raised this weekend can help purchase more land for wildlife management area in the future.Strenge says more public land will give better cover for birds and be able to bring in more hunters from out of town.That could be helpful, because Madsen's group got skunked at the first stop, but they eventually got the birds they were looking for.He just hopes there are more to be found in the future, so Pheasant Phest can continue.In Madelia, Erick Lind, News 12.