Agar South Dakota

L

lab man

Member
A friend of my has been invited to go along pheasant hunting to SD. It will be his first time pheasant hunting outside of Wi. He was told they would be hunting in the Agar area, he was also told to bring lead and steel shot. Can anyone give me information on this area of the state? They will be out there on the 17 of December for 4 or 5 days. For the last 3 years he has worked for a trainer, that trains labs for field trials. He has 2 young labs that he has trained, but it will be the first time they will be into a lot of birds at one time.
Any information you can give me will be helpful. Thank you, lab man
 
lab man,

The only information I'll toss in is bring lots of shells! Agar is in prime rooster country and the bird numbers in that area are way up! As for your labs, it'll take them a bit to figer out these SD rooster, but once they do it's game on! Enjoy your hunt, I'm sure you'll have outstanding luck!

:cheers:

Steve
 
I hunted near Onida (close to Agar) in 2005 with a group of SD state "burocrats" and there were more than enough birds to get you excited. The thing I remember most are how awfull those guys shot and the fields in that area are HUGE.
 
lab man said:
He was told they would be hunting in the Agar area, he was also told to bring lead and steel shot. Can anyone give me information on this area of the state? They will be out there on the 17 of December for 4 or 5 days.
Click to expand...

bring enough shells. maybe hes talkig about possible walking in public land as well as private. steel shots would probably be used in public land.


as for the weather, ask me again in 10 days.. i cant tell you what the day is going to be like in 16 days from now.
 
I was in Agar doing Soil Sample work in the fields, I was ranged 1-6 miles from Agar. Now i show you these pictures but i CANNOT tell you where this is since this is a client, its confidential information.


heres some pictures.

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there are plenty of birds. they are taking good covers in shelterbelts and feeding off corn that has fallen down on the ground. I found a big number of pheasants just hunkered down in the wheat fields as well.
 
Heres a picture of the shelterbelt i drove by just normally to take soil sample and over 100s of birds flew out of this shelterbelt. amazingly there wasnt a CRP ground for miles and had huge populations of birds in this small shelterbelt. believe it or not, birds do prefer shelterbelts when its cold.

when i drove in, birds were just pouring out and by the time i could get a good picture of them flying out, there were merely 15 left still flying out after the 100s of birds flew before i even got to the approach.

img0341.jpg
 
Definitely plenty of birds in that area. I'd love to get back there again this year, but just got a new knee last week.

Take plenty of high speed steel 4's and 2's. I had a lot of success with that in an OU imp/mod. I took some lead but switched to steel all the time after the first day. Dead is dead and steel did the job.

The birds are pretty spooky now and tend to get up out of range. I found the best best hunting in the last 90 minutes of shooting hours when the birds were trying to settle in and held tighter.

The nice thing about that area is the shorter grasses that make it easier to keep track of the dogs. Sloughs are another matter, but the first thing I'd head for. Tons of birds in them.

I hunted alone with my dogs, but it should be much easier to score some roosters with an organized group.
 
Thank you

Thank you everyone for your posts. Birdman 652001 you have some great photos there that I will pass on. Our boss did take one of this young labs to SD the second week of the season, he said that it started to turn on as the days went by. Thank again for all your posts!!!!!
lab man
 
you call those great photos? it was from my cell phone.. i could take better pictures with my digital camera but i didnt know i was going to soil sample in Agar yesterday.


that was the best photo as i could get as you see all MOST birds flying are roosters that are blurred.. the ones with the birds flying out of the shelterbelt are hens. so the fields and section lines were filled with roosters.. you will enjoy your trip. or i will take this comment back.. GUARANTEED! lol

:beer:
 
thank you

Birdman 652001, thank you for the update on the weather and the type of cover the birds are in this time of year. I have always went to SD the first week of November. All of this information is for a friend of mine that was invited along on a hunting trip to SD, he has never hunted pheasants outside of Wisconsin, were it is all released birds by the state and he has only gotten 2 birds all year. They will be leaving on Dec 16 or 17 weather permiting. One of the reasons they are going that late is he trains labs for field trial with his boss until December 10. After January 1 they go south for the winter. I have always wanted to come to SD hunting in December, but it has not worked out so far. Thank You again for the updates.... lab man
 
lab man said:
Birdman 652001, thank you for the update on the weather and the type of cover the birds are in this time of year. I have always went to SD the first week of November. All of this information is for a friend of mine that was invited along on a hunting trip to SD, he has never hunted pheasants outside of Wisconsin, were it is all released birds by the state and he has only gotten 2 birds all year. They will be leaving on Dec 16 or 17 weather permiting. One of the reasons they are going that late is he trains labs for field trial with his boss until December 10. After January 1 they go south for the winter. I have always wanted to come to SD hunting in December, but it has not worked out so far. Thank You again for the updates.... lab man
Click to expand...

oh geesh... i thought you were coming this weekend. next weekend should be okay to hunt. but tmr and thursday is the warmest day then its going to be in the 20s all week next week.

i will be here that weekend. if need anything. let me know in Private Message and I will do my best to help out.
 
Thank you

Birdman 652001, thank you for the offer to help, but this young man
(mid 30's) is going with 1 or 2 hunters I do not know, so I think it is better I do not get you involved. Criag is a great young man that knows his dogs and he trained a lab for the man that invited him along. From what Craig has told me this man is involved with Pheasants Forever and may have some contacts out there.
The more information I pass on to him the more fired up he is getting to go to SD. He has a girl with learning disability so it is hard for him to get out hunting, that is why I am trying to make this a great trip for him.
Thank you again
lab man
 
as far as i know, it should be a non snowing weekend.. howevr its going to be in the mid 10's for weather. which is not a bad thing, it may keep the birds in place til you get close to them.. which helps in dog training. warm days, they get spooked 40 yards out.
 
Have hunted Agar, Onida, Gettysburg area for last 10 years and it is always good. Usually done by 11 or 12 on most days and then look for new places. Also like the country up by Hoven. With snow the WPAs will be holding birds and it can be insane the number of flushes you get right after a snow. Even the most rowdy lab will become a pointer in those conditions.

The last couple hunts I did almost all the crops are out so the birds are in the grass and vulnerable. Hopefully they don't get a big Christmas storm like last year or it could kill them. At least last year they had lots of standing corn and sunflowers to get in and eat. Not so this year. If conditions hold this winter and this spring is even marginally good 2011 could be the best year ever, not that it matters that much. I have heard many folks say that area of SD is THE CAPITAL of good pheasant hunting. Most of SD is good, and certainly better than almost any other place.

He will have a great time, and actually he won't need many shells since he will get plenty of flushes and can pick and choose the ones he wants to shoot.
 
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