beach004
Member
Time, perhaps, for a report from the North Carolina contingent--those without dogs, without a guide, without a put-and-take site. We just showed up and walked: CRP, WPA--and ditches. Lots of ditches: One day I measured 8 miles by mid-afternoon. We were based in the Platte/Kimball area, hunting Nov. 15-18.
Man, if you don't like the weather in SD, wait a day! The first two days the two of us were literally hunting in our shirtsleeves--and the birds were impossible to find, it seemed like; even on SDjim's lovely land, we rarely ran on a bird.
That night, 1.4 inches of rain--unheard of in South Dakota! The next morning, 37 degrees, the perpetual strong north wind, and every minimum maintenance road was slick as owl snot; had to wear a raincoat and hood, adding to the difficulty hearing a bird flush. But now there began to be more birds seen; one field had 25, all but two hens--but at least it was something to see. We gave up on the CRP--with only two people and no dogs, I'm sure the birds cackled silently and let us walk by them, over and over. Instead we focused on ditches. It took some selectivity--many of them had been closely mowed, especially if there appeared to be groomed milo strips in the adjacent field; but that's understandable. We adopted the technique recommended often in this Forum: drop one off, drive a mile, leave car and keys; walker collects the car and leapfrogs; then continue. A nice aspect of the flat country is that even the cheap walkie-talkie radios would reach up to two miles. So we had some success.
The final day was another adventure. Temp in the low 40's, that was nice; but sustained winds 40 mph gusting to 60! Hard to even get the car door open! This was the 8 mile day; and we saw, literally, hundreds of birds; great majority hens, almost all at no-shoot distances, or over land to which we had no access; but it was thrilling to see them, and encouraging for next year to see all those potential mommas. So I reckon, God willing, we'll come back again next year; the weather will always be a crapshoot--the day we left, snow came right behind us and blanketed the area--and I still have no answer to the dog question. But there's a lot more wild pheasants in SD than in NC!
There is already a plethora of portraits of dead poultry on this Forum; I will attach a couple of roadside scenes; they are now my screensavers, reminding me of what beauty can be found, on the backroads of South Dakota.
Man, if you don't like the weather in SD, wait a day! The first two days the two of us were literally hunting in our shirtsleeves--and the birds were impossible to find, it seemed like; even on SDjim's lovely land, we rarely ran on a bird.
That night, 1.4 inches of rain--unheard of in South Dakota! The next morning, 37 degrees, the perpetual strong north wind, and every minimum maintenance road was slick as owl snot; had to wear a raincoat and hood, adding to the difficulty hearing a bird flush. But now there began to be more birds seen; one field had 25, all but two hens--but at least it was something to see. We gave up on the CRP--with only two people and no dogs, I'm sure the birds cackled silently and let us walk by them, over and over. Instead we focused on ditches. It took some selectivity--many of them had been closely mowed, especially if there appeared to be groomed milo strips in the adjacent field; but that's understandable. We adopted the technique recommended often in this Forum: drop one off, drive a mile, leave car and keys; walker collects the car and leapfrogs; then continue. A nice aspect of the flat country is that even the cheap walkie-talkie radios would reach up to two miles. So we had some success.
The final day was another adventure. Temp in the low 40's, that was nice; but sustained winds 40 mph gusting to 60! Hard to even get the car door open! This was the 8 mile day; and we saw, literally, hundreds of birds; great majority hens, almost all at no-shoot distances, or over land to which we had no access; but it was thrilling to see them, and encouraging for next year to see all those potential mommas. So I reckon, God willing, we'll come back again next year; the weather will always be a crapshoot--the day we left, snow came right behind us and blanketed the area--and I still have no answer to the dog question. But there's a lot more wild pheasants in SD than in NC!
There is already a plethora of portraits of dead poultry on this Forum; I will attach a couple of roadside scenes; they are now my screensavers, reminding me of what beauty can be found, on the backroads of South Dakota.
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