10 Day Hunting Trip

The last year I made a 9 day trip to SD for pheasant with my 13 month lab to freelance public land and end it with a guided hunt on private land. It worked out to 36 hours of travel time and the rest 4 days on public and 3 days on private. I was solo on the public land hunt and met up with a group from home for the private land.

This year, I stretched it to 12 days, but due to a fall in a gopher hole and a day of terrible weather, I ended up with one “zero-day” sight-seeing the black hills and bad lands, and one day loafing at the farm house.

The only thing that would have made the trips better was if I had a buddy that rode up with me for the freelance days.
 
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Personally I have shot enough ducks in my younger years. I would probably do a Montana/ North Dakota sharpie/hu hunt and finish up with a three day freelance in Sd on the way home.
 
guf54 said:
I saw a thread like this on another forum and thought it would be good to see what people came up with on the subject here. If you had 10 days to take a bird hunting trip where would you go? Nothing specific just general areas. Would you hunt multiple species? Would you split the trip up and go to multiple places?

I would love to do an early October hunt in North Dakota or Montana for phez, sharptails, and huns.
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I know the trend here is to go to exotic locations, and I understand completely. In my limited experience I would stay in MN. The 2nd week of season I stayed in state and bagged a limit of roosters 3 days in a row and then went north and filled my tag for prairie chickens. What a great state, and really great hunting. I am not an internet guru, I found my birds organically.
 
My friend from Minnesota is a S.Dak. landowner and comes here to bow hunt deer on his property. He also is the guy who got me into pointing dogs 40 years ago. He buys a couple non resident license every year to hunt pheasants. This last year he told me he is hunting every piece of public ground within 50 miles of his property. 2 years ago I took him to some public ground he hadn't ever hunted and then early last year another friend told him of a good piece of public he hadn't been on either. So he realized there is way more public ground available and he wants to check them all out.

He bowhunts early then a quick nap before a short bird hunt. Drives to another location which gives the dogs a rest reflection time then another short hunt towards sundown.

He wants quality dogwork and doesn't care if he shoots any birds. Good points on hens are fine with him. He says he will get enough birds that both dogs will get some retrieves .
He does spend a bit of money on gas but eats groceries and has free lodging thru another friend.

Pretty ideal 10 day hunt!
 
I did not get to hunt much at all this year due to a big project at work that consumed most of my time. Two weekends is all that I was able to sneak away, which sucked. For this season I plan on hunting much much more...and would like to venture out of state. I would be willing to trade a hunt in Iowa for 3-4 days for the same in SD or ND if anyone is interested in a swap. Bird numbers were the best i've seen in the limited time I could hunt this year. PM me.
 
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