Aberdeen Area Trip Report - Oct 22 thru Oct 25

[MillenialMiller]

Love this forum, thanks to all members who won’t let it die on us. I’d rather be here than a Facebook group any day.

We hunted public land only all around Brown, Spink, and Beadle counties week. With 4 guys we easily had chances to shoot 12 birds all 4 days. We do hunt ALL day on these trips, and cover around 12-15 miles according to our watches. We hunt hard a mix of grass, cattails, and water grass. It took a lot of hard walking and solid bird dogs, but the opportunities were there. Without 3 good bird dogs, we probably wouldn’t have shot more than 4-5 per day total. Birds ran a ton on us and do what pheasants do.

I’d say corn was 60-70% out, which helped a ton.

Bird numbers seemed to be about the same as the last 3 years, which has been rock solid.

The citizens of SD were warm and welcoming to us Indiana Hoosiers as always. We love spending some time out here each year. Good luck to everyone this season

 

[kansaslabman]

Love this forum, thanks to all members who won’t let it die on us. I’d rather be here than a Facebook group any day.

We hunted public land only all around Brown, Spink, and Beadle counties week. With 4 guys we easily had chances to shoot 12 birds all 4 days. We do hunt ALL day on these trips, and cover around 12-15 miles according to our watches. We hunt hard a mix of grass, cattails, and water grass. It took a lot of hard walking and solid bird dogs, but the opportunities were there. Without 3 good bird dogs, we probably wouldn’t have shot more than 4-5 per day total. Birds ran a ton on us and do what pheasants do.

I’d say corn was 60-70% out, which helped a ton.

Bird numbers seemed to be about the same as the last 3 years, which has been rock solid.

The citizens of SD were warm and welcoming to us Indiana Hoosiers as always. We love spending some time out here each year. Good luck to everyone this season

Thanks for the report.
Would you say a lot of your opportunities came near the last hour or two of the day hunting cover near crop?

 

[MillenialMiller]

great question! From 10-12 we usually got 3-5 birds. From 12-3 it was brutally slow, maybe 1 bird avg per day. from 3 to sunset we usually shot 5-6 birds with our group of 4. Those last two hours of the day were by far the best. Midday was super slow

 

[kansaslabman]

great question! From 10-12 we usually got 3-5 birds. From 12-3 it was brutally slow, maybe 1 bird avg per day. from 3 to sunset we usually shot 5-6 birds with our group of 4. Those last two hours of the day were by far the best. Midday was super slow

Really glad your group got into some good action hunting public ground.
Did you see many hunters? We sure didn’t on Saturday hunting the last 2 hours on public and driving by public hunting places the next few days.
I know I’m asking a lot of questions and feel free to tell me to shut up after this lol, but what would you say the hen to rooster ratio was that you saw? The two spots we hit was about 1 rooster to 4 hens.

 

[MillenialMiller]

We really didn’t see many hunters on public land at all. We did see quite a few big groups but they were all hunting private ground.

Our rooster to hen ratio was actually really high we all thought! I feel like it was truly 50/50. Now the roosters definitely ran more while the hens sat tight, but overall a good number of roosters.