I decided to make the trip this year from Florida despite the reports of the bird count being low. This was my fifth season hunting in SD and I have never seen so few birds. On Monday 10/23 two of us hunted near Conde on private land saw 4 roosters and 1 hen. Each of us bagged 2 birds. One of the roosters looked to be a carryover from last year, the other three were younger birds. From there we headed north and hunted the next two days between Aberdeen and Elm Lake. Five hunters and three dogs flushed less than 20 birds total, most of which were hens. We hunted all private the first day and all public the second. No birds were harvested either day. We hunted standing corn, harvested corn, shelter belts, cattails, tall grass, short grass, and everything in between, but found very few birds. We cut our trip short by three days and are headed home. Knowing what we know now all of us would have stayed home. I love hunting in SD but if the numbers are low again next year I will stay home.
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Boots on the ground report
- Thread starter dogbo2013
- Start date
benelli-banger
Well-known member
sorry to hear the tough news...but it comes as no real surprise, given what the GFP report said...in the future, I would try moving 100-150 miles...you can't hunt til ten anyhow, eh? There are pockets of birds...for sure.
I agree but the numbers were similar in 2013 and we were still able to find decent bird numbers. This year was completely different.
Substantially less habitat = substantially less birds, and the drought exposes this fact