Help Needed :)

[A5 Sweet 16]

That time of year, & especially with no dog, small cover is going to be the most manageable. Something 2-3 of you can walk through, while 1 or 2 of you block, try to keep the birds in the cover as long as possible, & hopefully get a shot if some try to flush early. I'd try to find an area where little, bitty cattail sloughs are prevalent in the middle of picked corn fields. That sort of thing. Then knocking on doors & asking for permission could get you on. Try & try & try, because they won't all let you on. But some will. That's where breakfast at the local café could pay big dividends. Schmooze 'em up. Don't show up in an $80k Suburban dressed in non-blood-stained, brand new hunting gear. Seriously. If all your clothes are new, dirty them up & find something to bleed on them.

Really. Tiny cattail sloughs. Or narrow weedy/cattail draws. All surrounded by picked corn. Hunt them toward a tip, with a blocker or 2, & try to pinch the birds. And do it all as silently as possible. Hand signals to each other. No unnecessary noise of any sort.

 

[benelli-banger]

I’ve been focusing on “micro covers”, too…size of a garage, a house, a cul de sac,…anything in the middle of a picked corn field, like A5 sweet 16 is saying…control the situation, keep the birds contained…

 

[gps4]

From Mississippi and grew up going to Kansas pheasant hunting.. As ive gotten older (46) my passion for shooting birdies has changed to shooting birdies on the golf course . I have 3 boys that have gotten into hunting (they are 15, 13, and 11) and i'm wanting them to have the same experiences I got as a boy chasing that mystical pheasant. Nothing quiet like a big rooster jumping up right in front of you.. This is a last minute decision but I think thats the best way to make memories.. We are planning on loading the truck up and heading to SD Friday (11/28) and hunting until Tues or Wednesday (12/2-3). I have been out of the pheasant hunting seen for a long time.. When we went to Kansas we use to take boxes of sweet potatoes (I live in Sweet Potato country) and land owners would let us hunt there land for a box of sweet potatoes.. Would this still be a possibility to find places to hunt up there? Would hunting public land (just me and 3 boys) be possible? I don't really want to do a guided service, id rather do it own our own.. What area of SD should I look into?? I understand how competitive hunting has become and how asking on a forum may not be my best solution but its worth a try Thanks to any help I can get

Where are you from in MS?

The first pheasant hunt I ever went on was right out of college and I was invited to go to Nebraska with an old farmer from home. He’d spent the summer picking and shelling pecans and bagged them in 1-gal ziplocks to offer the folks whose doors he knocked on for permission. Brings back good memories.

Your trip sounds like one I would have loved when I was your kids’ age. You will make memories that last a lifetime!

Best of luck to you!

 

[Goosemaster]

I think we will try and make the 5 hr drive across to Mt Rushmore and also see the badlands? Would it be worth the drive or no?

Would there be any benefit to bringing a ranger for hunting?

No it isn't worth it to go west.

 

[Goosemaster]

Knocking on doors with a bunch of guys and a suburban, probably not.

 

[Bob Peters]

Bring a lot of 6 packs of PBR or Grain Belt to offer farmers. But not sure on the Hutterites, they might be like Mormons and not allowed to drink.

 

[Goosemaster]

Don't go west hundreds of miles through a wasteland. Stay out east, that's where the most pheasants are. Don't bring potatoes, bring cash. Some of those places want cash, I don't ever give them cash, but I will drop off a six pack of beer or maybe a steak if it's really good. The first time I headed South Dakota on my own, by myself, I shot one bird in 2 days of hunting. A lot of these guys you see on here that post on this forum, are pay hunting. They pay the farmer to stay on his farm, and to hunt on his land, and that's what they do, and I'm against that.

 

[benelli-banger]

Bring a lot of 6 packs of PBR or Grain Belt to offer farmers. But not sure on the Hutterites, they might be like Mormons and not allowed to drink.

Hutts drink, big time! They LOVE their rye!

 

[benelli-banger]

The first few weeks of the season, I stay in a smallish lodge my farmer friend finished off for us last year…very nice, we do our own cooking, and don’t have to run back and forth to town(s) 20-30 miles away and stay in motels and eat out…we give him $75/nite per guy. I have land 8 miles away, and we hunt lots of other small pieces of private land that other farmers make available to us, and we hunt the ubiquitous public ground in the area. After the 3rd week, we stay in the larger farmhouse a mile away, that sits on 20 acres and sleeps many, but we don’t usually have more than 4-6, often it’s 2-3 of us. Very nice set up. At that point my farmer friend usually gives us access to the roughly 1,000+ acres of land that he owns/rents…we give him an additional $85/day for the access, for a total of $160/day….best deal going. We still hunt other farmers’ land, my land, and public land, depending….UGUIDE charges around $1300-1400 for the same length hunt that we pay $640…arrive day 1 and hunt the afternoon…then hunt 3 full days, and depart early on day 5, but sometimes we’ll hunt some that day. UGUIDE’s rates aren’t out of line, either, IMO. Best of all, we’re equipped to host and entertain our local farmer friends…and we do about 2/3 of the evenings. My farmer buddy has enrolled more ground into CRP, and got around $180/acre…that’s looking pretty good vs. losing $ growing corn or beans… some of that new CRP is 1/2 mile from both of the lodges…lots of land we hunt is no more than a mile from the main farmhouse. He told some of my group this past trip “that it’s taken him 25 years to get things where he wants them”…I’ve been patronizing his lodging and land for that length of time…I’m lucky first and foremost for the friendship…means a lot…Friday, the day before deer opener, we saw a good buck with does on some of this CRP that’s about 2 years old…I told him, and Saturday am he called pretty early to request assistance loading his buck…a nice 5 x 5. He would have hunted there regardless, it’s a great area for deer, but that was fun. If I was in one of the nearby towns with motels, and driving back and forth, and just eating out at nite, the cost differential vs what we’re paying is a rounding error. My buddy loves creating habitat, and seeing birds…we talk year round, he’ll call and tell me what he saw…and mostly, he loves having happy hunters! He gets a charge out of that…I get that..I gave my dogs a break a few of the days this past trip, it was in the 50’s, and watched 3-5 of the guys hunt small patches and pieces…saw them kill 8-10 birds…I enjoyed that as much as having been with them! Anyway, Goose, you do you…tell me where I need to make a pilgrimage to confess and atone for my sins…I’ll kill a really young rooster just to make it a “twofer”!