Any reports from hunters ?

blackstorm said:
did poor on the opener and Tuesday was a complete loss, Hunted in Faulk & Edmonds Co's mostly private land did hunt two waterfowl production area's, 5 of us shot 6 birds on opener, 14 on Sunday, 12 on Monday, one on Tuesday but flushed a bunch before bagging it, Wed was our best day with a full bag of 15. we hunt waterfowl in the morning before the noon start and bagged our first swan on Wednesday.
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hey, pretty good overall, I would say...you guys averaged about 2 birds per day per guy for the trip...not too bad, considering...good luck to you.
 
I would like to think we know what we are doing but it really boils down to the quality of the dogs, we had 4 for the five of us. The superstar was my pointer Bo who found stuff in that weather and I still don't know how he did it. and the other guys lab did a bang up job on the waterfowl and so so on the pheasants. My labs could have been better prepared they did ok stamina wise for a change, but I did not work them on near enough live birds in training and it showed. But we had a great camp for the guys that made it this year, now on to the waterfowl season.
 
UGUIDE'S camp at Highmore is about 15 or 20 miles W of Miller...6 hunters on pheasant-friendly acreage (700?) shot 21 over 3 days...averaged about a pheasant apiece per day on private land during the first 3 days of the season...I suspect the Miller area got severely impacted by the drought....I know that to be the case, fwiw....UGUIDE'S results there kind of verify's that. There could be exceptions...
 
benelli-banger said:
UGUIDE'S camp at Highmore is about 15 or 20 miles W of Miller...6 hunters on pheasant-friendly acreage (700?) shot 21 over 3 days...averaged about a pheasant apiece per day on private land during the first 3 days of the season...I suspect the Miller area got severely impacted by the drought....I know that to be the case, fwiw....UGUIDE'S results there kind of verify's that. There could be exceptions...
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thank you!!! I know it will be worse than last year, but we will still kill birds. 9 of us each year. 2015=127, 2016=117.
 
Hitting the road Wednesday for the 20+ hour drive to chase the wily roosters. I wouldn’t miss it for anything, regardless of how the reports are. Me and my GSP meeting my hunting buddy of 27 years, the last 15 of those chasing pheasants in S Dakota. We always work until sunset and we always seem to either just barely hit our limit or come within 1 or 2 birds of doing so.

Here’s hoping the combiners are hitting the corn fields hard as we speak and knocking that corn out! Go get ‘em!!
 
A little early to tell for sure, especially with conditions a little more difficult than usual. I'll know more once more corn is picked & we get some snow. But I'm thinking the public land and walk-ins in the Salem/Howard/Oldham/Ramona vacinities have similar bird numbers to last year. Maybe somewhat less, but similar. Seeing about a normal percentage of 1st year birds so far, most of which have good plumage. Not very many real young ones.

That said, I hunted a couple public spots this weekend that I thought should've had pretty good potential. Right time, right conditions, etc. Not much going on. Ended up finding a ditch that I thought looked promising. Hadn't walked 100 yards when Buzz busted 3 roosters simultaneously right in front of me, which for us is really rare. Bang, bang....(Should I or shouldn't I? The first 2 looked like good hits, but he's getting out there a bit & I've got 2 birds down.)....bang. Maybe not the most responsible shot I've ever taken, but I couldn't help myself. Buzz retrieved all 3 perfectly from the standing corn. 2 dead. 1 mostly dead. My first (and possibly only) true triple - 3 birds in the air at the same time. He & I were both pretty proud of our teamwork.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
A little early to tell for sure, especially with conditions a little more difficult than usual. I'll know more once more corn is picked & we get some snow. But I'm thinking the public land and walk-ins in the Salem/Howard/Oldham/Ramona vacinities have similar bird numbers to last year. Maybe somewhat less, but similar. Seeing about a normal percentage of 1st year birds so far, most of which have good plumage. Not very many real young ones.

That said, I hunted a couple public spots this weekend that I thought should've had pretty good potential. Right time, right conditions, etc. Not much going on. Ended up finding a ditch that I thought looked promising. Hadn't walked 100 yards when Buzz busted 3 roosters simultaneously right in front of me, which for us is really rare. Bang, bang....(Should I or shouldn't I? The first 2 looked like good hits, but he's getting out there a bit & I've got 2 birds down.)....bang. Maybe not the most responsible shot I've ever taken, but I couldn't help myself. Buzz retrieved all 3 perfectly from the standing corn. 2 dead. 1 mostly dead. My first (and possibly only) true triple - 3 birds in the air at the same time. He & I were both pretty proud of our teamwork.
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Great shooting and dog work A5! Congrats!! That's very cool
 
BrdHntr said:
Great shooting and dog work A5! Congrats!! That's very cool
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Thanks! At least 90, maybe even 95% of the birds I shoot are singles, so even a double is a real treat for us. Buzz was right back with the 1st bird as usual, & it took some convincing to venture back out into the corn not 2 but 3 times. I'll bet he wondered how in the WORLD there got to be 3 birds to find all at once.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Thanks! At least 90, maybe even 95% of the birds I shoot are singles, so even a double is a real treat for us. Buzz was right back with the 1st bird as usual, & it took some convincing to venture back out into the corn not 2 but 3 times. I'll bet he wondered how in the WORLD there got to be 3 birds to find all at once.
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a lifetime memory for you, and you did it with perhaps the best dog you will ever partner up with!
 
PheasantSlough said:
We South Dakota residents are broken up that you're considering not joining us at all. Had a great resident-only opener, by the way.
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You should be! Out of State hunters pump a LOT of money into small towns to chase birds around. I'm pretty sure that there indeed a LOT of South Dakota residents that are (will be) broken up if lots of out of staters stay home. Tell the waitress in the dinner, the bar owner, the little gas station owner that its good you think people may stay home. :mad:

Aside from that, you should be way more concerned about the long term population trends and habitat trends and what that has led to (i.e. out of staters cancelling trips). I sure haven't heard much about any results from the Governor's "task force" that got put together what, a year ago? Easy wins (like prohibiting roadside mowing in spring/early summer) still sit on the table. Easy wins, like increase Non-Resident licenses a few bucks and increase payouts to landowners for WIA or CREP - then limit how much of a WIA area can be mowed etc.

Start thinking about the big picture.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
A little early to tell for sure, especially with conditions a little more difficult than usual. I'll know more once more corn is picked & we get some snow. But I'm thinking the public land and walk-ins in the Salem/Howard/Oldham/Ramona vacinities have similar bird numbers to last year. Maybe somewhat less, but similar. Seeing about a normal percentage of 1st year birds so far, most of which have good plumage. Not very many real young ones.

That said, I hunted a couple public spots this weekend that I thought should've had pretty good potential. Right time, right conditions, etc. Not much going on. Ended up finding a ditch that I thought looked promising. Hadn't walked 100 yards when Buzz busted 3 roosters simultaneously right in front of me, which for us is really rare. Bang, bang....(Should I or shouldn't I? The first 2 looked like good hits, but he's getting out there a bit & I've got 2 birds down.)....bang. Maybe not the most responsible shot I've ever taken, but I couldn't help myself. Buzz retrieved all 3 perfectly from the standing corn. 2 dead. 1 mostly dead. My first (and possibly only) true triple - 3 birds in the air at the same time. He & I were both pretty proud of our teamwork.
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wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that is something!!!!! very cool.....
 
A friend got back Sunday from SD. His quote"

" Killed 0 pheasants, but saw a lot of them. "Dog" was flushing them too far away."

We had a good time last year should have easily limited everyday but excitement killed my shooting and maybe his. All public land. I will be leaving for SD 11/10 but meeting up with friend mentioned above to get details on where to make my focus. I suspect the same places as last year but he purposely tried new areas. Once I talk to him I will have a better idea of birds seen in his trip to NE SD.
 
Just returned from our first 5 day trip, hunted miller area and north. Also hunted 1 day down by Mitchell on private ground. All said we came home with 35 birds for 4 guys and should have been more in the neighborhood of 42-45 but there were missed shots and a couple lost birds. Weather wise it was a challenge, not so much because of temps but the wind on thurs and fri. Thurs the winds were sustained 40mph and gusting to 50-55mph made for a tough day but we did manage to bag 10 and should have shot our limit of 12 but we lost 1 and a couple were missed. Fri we hunted private land down north of Mitchell and did manage our limit by 4pm with most of the birds coming out of a cut corn field and tree strip and slough. Sat we managed 9 on public ground but we did have to work for them a lot of driving and boots on the ground. Sun we hunted for about a hour and the rain started and we decided we had a enough, packed up the campers and headed back home so we really only hunted 4 full days. My observations would be what most others are saying, birds #'s are down, at least 25-35% some areas more some less. This was the first year in my 23 years of going that I have saw birds that could barely fly, on numerous public and private spots we flushed birds that were the size of a softball and could barely fly. So I am guessing a mid/late august hatch? I hope they grow quick so they can survive the winter. I would still call it a good trip but no where near a great trip like years past. The group guys I hunt with are just as nuts about pheasant hunting as I am and we hunt 3 different states over the course of the season so we put a lot of miles on both vehicles and boots and this was a tough trip even by our standards. A lot of the public areas have been hayed or grazed and much of the corn was still standing making it that much tougher. Once the corn is out hunting will be better but I am not sure how much better. For all the guys planning going to SD plan on tough hunting and some extra effort to get your birds but they can be had! Good luck to everyone!
 
waterdog09 said:
Just returned from our first 5 day trip, hunted miller area and north. Also hunted 1 day down by Mitchell on private ground. All said we came home with 35 birds for 4 guys and should have been more in the neighborhood of 42-45 but there were missed shots and a couple lost birds. Weather wise it was a challenge, not so much because of temps but the wind on thurs and fri. Thurs the winds were sustained 40mph and gusting to 50-55mph made for a tough day but we did manage to bag 10 and should have shot our limit of 12 but we lost 1 and a couple were missed. Fri we hunted private land down north of Mitchell and did manage our limit by 4pm with most of the birds coming out of a cut corn field and tree strip and slough. Sat we managed 9 on public ground but we did have to work for them a lot of driving and boots on the ground. Sun we hunted for about a hour and the rain started and we decided we had a enough, packed up the campers and headed back home so we really only hunted 4 full days. My observations would be what most others are saying, birds #'s are down, at least 25-35% some areas more some less. This was the first year in my 23 years of going that I have saw birds that could barely fly, on numerous public and private spots we flushed birds that were the size of a softball and could barely fly. So I am guessing a mid/late august hatch? I hope they grow quick so they can survive the winter. I would still call it a good trip but no where near a great trip like years past. The group guys I hunt with are just as nuts about pheasant hunting as I am and we hunt 3 different states over the course of the season so we put a lot of miles on both vehicles and boots and this was a tough trip even by our standards. A lot of the public areas have been hayed or grazed and much of the corn was still standing making it that much tougher. Once the corn is out hunting will be better but I am not sure how much better. For all the guys planning going to SD plan on tough hunting and some extra effort to get your birds but they can be had! Good luck to everyone!
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very good report...hope you have a good season.
 
Hunting report from Faulkton Oct 27- 30
2 people, one dog. Hunted hard for 3 1/2 of 4 days. 10-20 mile radius from Faulkton. All public land. High winds for 3 of 4 days. Last year during same period we got our limit all but one day. This year we did not get a single bird. Only two roosters within range. One miss, one gun didn’t fire (time to get rid of my SBE). About 20 hen flushes (singles or groups of up to 4). Extremely dry conditions. Got rain on 3rd day which really helped the dog locate birds. Lots of places hunted last year had no cover this year due to mowing. Most of ditches are mowed. Hard to give any advice. Tried everything we could think of. Birds are just scarce. Obviously frustrating but still enjoyed the trip.
 
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