Any reports from hunters ?

TGM said:
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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We are hunting NE of Faulktin. All premium private ground. Birds are down 70% is our best estimate. Last year fields that produced 50-100 birds now produce 5-10 birds.
Scary part is all 2 year old birds or birds are just getting color. Tells me first two hatches were busts and a few 3rd nests made it. We are hunting all day. Always shot limits everyday every year for last 13 years. We are averaging 1.0 birds per guy after 2 days.
If you are coming out expect very challenging hunting. Birds are just not here and no matter how ideal nesting season is next year birds can’t come back for at least 2 years. Just not enough hens around.
 
Report from Friday Saturday and Sunday around the Pierre area. Was a good 3 days of hunting. 4 of us and 3 dogs hunted on prime private land in and around national grassland and killed 29 pheasants and 8 grouse between the 4 of us. Dogs did great we had a seasoned German shorthair on her 5th hunt in this area and two dogs on their very first hunts; a 2 year old black lab and 1.5 year old springer spaniel. Both of the young guns did extremely well for their first hunts. Springer broke a little early and lab missed a retrieve.. but mistakes happen on first and second hunts! Very proud of them! Weather wise the wind was terrible. Wind definitely was the biggest factor in all of our hunts this year. We’ve hunted the same ground for 6-7 years now and had to totally change our tactics this year from what we usually do. Winds from the N-NW at 35-40mph had birds hanging low in cover. And when they did get up you better have a flanker out wide on the down wind side or Someone on that side that is your best shot because the birds would get very high and catch the wind to get away in a hurry. The winds were only bad in Friday and Sunday. Saturday was a very pleasant day. Sun shined and the wind was half of what it was the three two days. (Picture perfect hunts). The habitat we saw most birds in was anything that was out of the wind and somewhat near food sources. We hunted quite a bit on some milo fields and corn fields. But we also hunted a lot of national grasslands that were public access near those crops and did very well. Grouse are very thick in the Grasslands in this area. Chased them a lot from the Grasslands to cane fields and back. Other observations from the hunts this weekend was when the wind is high Hunt the trees, ditches, snow fences and anything that the wind does not touch. Cattails are good this year (if the wind is not howling) they are very very jumpy when the wind is howling and you walk cattails. Another observation: coyotes are absolutely terrible in this area. We saw coyotes in just about every drive we made in every different kind of habitat on all of our hunts. Farmer we hunted on wanted us to thin them out so if we ever had a shot they would be dispatched. Seems like with the drought the pheasants are condensed down to the very little food left and water in cattails and the coyotes have figured this out. We hunted cattails near a pond and ran out 4 in a single drive. They are targeting the pheasants heavily because we found signs of Fresh pheasant kills and piles of feathers. I hope that this report helps some. We love going hunting in this area. And if the weather cooperates I would say it will still be good for a couple more weeks until all of the good sources start drying up.
 
Black and white dog said:
Report from Friday Saturday and Sunday around the Pierre area. Was a good 3 days of hunting. 4 of us and 3 dogs hunted on prime private land in and around national grassland and killed 29 pheasants and 8 grouse between the 4 of us. Dogs did great we had a seasoned German shorthair on her 5th hunt in this area and two dogs on their very first hunts; a 2 year old black lab and 1.5 year old springer spaniel. Both of the young guns did extremely well for their first hunts. Springer broke a little early and lab missed a retrieve.. but mistakes happen on first and second hunts! Very proud of them! Weather wise the wind was terrible. Wind definitely was the biggest factor in all of our hunts this year. We’ve hunted the same ground for 6-7 years now and had to totally change our tactics this year from what we usually do. Winds from the N-NW at 35-40mph had birds hanging low in cover. And when they did get up you better have a flanker out wide on the down wind side or Someone on that side that is your best shot because the birds would get very high and catch the wind to get away in a hurry. The winds were only bad in Friday and Sunday. Saturday was a very pleasant day. Sun shined and the wind was half of what it was the three two days. (Picture perfect hunts). The habitat we saw most birds in was anything that was out of the wind and somewhat near food sources. We hunted quite a bit on some milo fields and corn fields. But we also hunted a lot of national grasslands that were public access near those crops and did very well. Grouse are very thick in the Grasslands in this area. Chased them a lot from the Grasslands to cane fields and back. Other observations from the hunts this weekend was when the wind is high Hunt the trees, ditches, snow fences and anything that the wind does not touch. Cattails are good this year (if the wind is not howling) they are very very jumpy when the wind is howling and you walk cattails. Another observation: coyotes are absolutely terrible in this area. We saw coyotes in just about every drive we made in every different kind of habitat on all of our hunts. Farmer we hunted on wanted us to thin them out so if we ever had a shot they would be dispatched. Seems like with the drought the pheasants are condensed down to the very little food left and water in cattails and the coyotes have figured this out. We hunted cattails near a pond and ran out 4 in a single drive. They are targeting the pheasants heavily because we found signs of Fresh pheasant kills and piles of feathers. I hope that this report helps some. We love going hunting in this area. And if the weather cooperates I would say it will still be good for a couple more weeks until all of the good sources start drying up.
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nice hunt, nice report...thanks.
 
Heard from a friend today that hunted at a lodge in Pierre over the weekend. I dont know if it was wild birds, released birds or a combination but they filled up in the first 2 hours 4 days straight.
 
UplandHntr said:
Heard from a friend today that hunted at a lodge in Pierre over the weekend. I dont know if it was wild birds, released birds or a combination but they filled up in the first 2 hours 4 days straight.
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I'm not certain but living near Pierre and hunting a lot I would wager the lodge he was hunting releases birds. I if you knew the name of the lodge I could tell you for certain if they release or not
 
Just got back from the Pierre area. There are a ton of lodges there. Most release birds. In fact driving by one I saw a melanistic pheasant in the ditch. I hunted with 1 other guy, one very seasoned vizsla and a young pointing lab. 10 birds for 3 days. We definitely worked hard for the birds. The numbers are way down. In years past you would see tons of birds by farm sites, cattle ranches and shelter belts. This year you would drive by these and not see a single bird. The birds were near corn, water and sunflowers. It was super windy on Sunday and even worse on Monday. All the party hunters I talked to said they weren't seeing many birds. Still a ton of crops in the field. I would estimate 40% corn is harvested and 45-50% for sunflowers. Beans are done. Ditches and CRP were cut for hay. It might be a couple years before numbers come up. Even with a good year next year things will be tough. If there is a tough winter things could be bad going into spring. My hope is that cutting the CRP actually improves the cover for the future. It was still very fun and my dog taught the pup a thing or two. So fun to see a young dog figure things out. The one positive was the hunter numbers were also way down.
 
I will throw my quick report on here, after 5 days of going through alot of work for little to show for it. 3 guys, 2 dogs

Thursday - Monday

Thursday- windier than I have ever hunted in. Saw a couple rooster, a few hens - all roosters got up out of range as they were older birds (a common thread for the trip)

Friday - very windy again, but shot 1 bird, missed 2 others. Jumped about 10 hens

Saturday - shot 1 bird, missed 1 other.... talked to a farmer that said he had never seen it this bad in 30 years. Found out about an ice storm that apparently killed loads of birds around Christmas last year... left that area.

Sunday - Shot 2 birds, missed 3 more, got up 15 hens. Talked to another local that told us we could hunt his private land, but he just combined 160 ac of corn and blew out 2 whole birds. This piece is the only center pivot within 30 miles. Usually has hundreds of birds in. We left those birds for seed and ended up going 40 miles away to get those 2 birds previously stated.

Monday - drove 100 miles and hunted a new area that looked ok, windy again, but got up a nice rooster out of range and a couple hens.... maybe have to try this area next year if we take the trip that is.

3 guys - 4 birds - 5 days..... holy crap
 
Thanks for the report - sorry you had such poor hunting.

Were you hunting in MN or SD? Assume SD due to the windy condition.
 
South Dakota. I understand people are finding birds out there in pockets, and good for them. We however, will not go back to this area for 2-3 years as there is no way the population could possibly rebound before then.

Good luck all, I will be doing better in Minnesota the rest of the year
 
Flushedup said:
South Dakota. I understand people are finding birds out there in pockets,
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That sums up my group's experience. If you hit a pocket, it could be decent hunting. These pockets, however, were pretty rare and hard to find. We hunted both private and public.

We did the very best on private land where the owner cut some strips into his corn for his visiting hunters. Other than that, it was tough sledding.

As far as "where", I don't get specific. Let's just say central SD.

Like Flushedup heard, the Christmas ice storm I mentioned long ago in this forum had, I believe, a devastating effect on local bird numbers where my group usually hunts.

We hunted first 10 days and 85% of the corn was still unharvested, beans were 95% done, flowers 99% still unharvested. Almost every bird we got was found in or around the corn. Sloughs were not really productive....if you could find one that hadn't been baled. The unbaled ones had pretty short boot-top high cover for the most part.

School lands we essentially worthless. We had a GPS with the public land map on it and also an wireless iPad that could show Google earth when we were in service range. So, we could see if the public land over the hill had a slough or possible crop land before walking a half mile over bare ground pasture school land. Some of the walk-in was decent with crop stubble but we didn't hunt the ones with standing crops even if not outlined in red. Just not good politics IMO. The WPA were pretty much useless. A very, very few of the GPAs actually looked like they had been developed with Game Production in mind. It was rare to find a GPA with a good shelter belt or two, some sort of food source crop and a little cover. Most of them were just low grass plots with no real structure to them. Almost everywhere we went the ditches had been mowed short and baled.

I didn't keep exact score but I think we averaged right around 2 birds per day per man. However, without the corn strip hunts, I think it would have been around 1 per day per man.

Definitely a down year but nonetheless a good year. Had some great dog work, shot some birds, had good times with friends.

What's not to like? Not every year is going to be a record breaker.
 
"It was rare to find a GPA with a good shelter belt or two, some sort of food source crop and a little cover."

This is something SD lacks IMHO. Of the numerous public WMA's or WPA's in SD I've hunted I know of only a couple that have a corn or other type of food plot on them to attract wildlife. I see more of these food plots in MN and they definitely attract wildlife and should improve survival rates probably, although by the time winter comes the corn plots are pretty well cleaned out by the pheasants, deer, and raccoons, etc. As for who pays to put those food plots in, it could be a local Pheasants Forever chapter, or maybe the MN DNR, I don't know. I suspect they pay a local farmer to put them in, and once the food plot has been established it probably does not require much time on following years. This type of effort is something I would be willing to donate money and time to.
 
stillsteamn said:
"It was rare to find a GPA with a good shelter belt or two, some sort of food source crop and a little cover."

This is something SD lacks IMHO. Of the numerous public WMA's or WPA's in SD I've hunted I know of only a couple that have a corn or other type of food plot on them to attract wildlife. I see more of these food plots in MN and they definitely attract wildlife and should improve survival rates probably, although by the time winter comes the corn plots are pretty well cleaned out by the pheasants, deer, and raccoons, etc. As for who pays to put those food plots in, it could be a local Pheasants Forever chapter, or maybe the MN DNR, I don't know. I suspect they pay a local farmer to put them in, and once the food plot has been established it probably does not require much time on following years. This type of effort is something I would be willing to donate money and time to.
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Lets be clear, WPA, Waterfowl Production Areas are purchased by money raised thru the purchase of the migratory bird stamp. The sole purpose and management of the land is for migratory birds (ducks). That is why they generally have no trees and no food plots. They are not managed at all for the benefit of pheasants or deer but often both thrive on the land. License sales do not fund WPAs duck stamps do.
 
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"That is why they generally have no trees and no food plots." I would add "and no pheasants". Seems like an opportunity, no?
 
stillsteamn said:
"That is why they generally have no trees and no food plots." I would add "and no pheasants". Seems like an opportunity, no?
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Trees/tree lines act as roosts for aerial predators and home for ground predators and have basically no positive gain for ducks that is why they aren't there. Less waterfowl would nest and be produced if tree lines were introduced on WPA. Would tree lines maybe winter more pheasants, sure but it would be at the expense of the reason the lands are purchased, Waterfowl Production. You are going to get higher nesting success rates without the trees as well for both pheasants and waterfowl.

I can assure you plenty of pheasant are killed on WPAs every single year. In many areas of the state it provides some of the best nesting cover around and also some of the best winter cover in the cattails that generally go hand in hand with wetlands littered in a WPA
 
Interesting topic. I hunt SD "public" land pretty much exclusively - WPA, GPA, WIA & CREP. My knowledge is based only on these lands in east-central SD. I usually don't venture more than 1.5 hours from Sioux Falls. I find plenty (for 1 guy or a real small group) of pheasants on all these different types of public areas, depending on weather conditions. Yes, they vary year to year too obviously. I can't remember the last time I hunted one that actually contained a food plot or good shelter belt. My guess is that money isn't spent on these improvements because in general, the public areas are almost always near private land that has food, trees, or whatever the public land lacks. When the birds need these amenities, they jump the fence & go there. Much of the public land around here is used primarily for nesting, roosting & winter cover. Obviously, if pheasants don't have everything they need (whether on public or private land), survival & propagation will be difficult. But since in most cases, birds DO have the things they need nearby, I suppose the government doesn't feel the need to spend money to improve the public land. And maybe this is because they're managing the land for the benefit of the wildlife, rather than for the benefit of the hunter. Thoughts?
 
I agree and have killed pheasants on Waterfowl Production Areas. Those that have some cattails, weeds, sloughs, maybe a few trees, and especially those that border farm fields especially corn fields. Those Waterfowl Production Areas that happen to exist in an all-prairie area with no corn or grain fields around, and only light slough grass might have a duck or two occaisionally but never a pheasant or pheasant hunter. Those in particular seem like a wasted opportunity. Back to the WMA's, they could benefit from small food plots and it would not cost a lot.

I've hunted public spots that looked good but had zero pheasants. A short distance away another spot that looked good but included a small corn food plot (MN), plenty of pheasants. If the birds don't have everything they need (or want, like corn) in an area, they won't be there. I realize a corn plot is of somewhat temporary benefit, kind of like a candy store for pheasants. But many public spots don't have everything needed to round out all of the wildlife's needs or desires and sometimes the adjacent private land does not have it either. If you think about it I'm sure you can think of many public spots you've driven past, slowed the truck down but did then drove on and said, nope not gonna be any pheasants in that one. If it's large waterfowl production area that includes a lot of grass, I don't think there would be any harm to the waterfowl by adding a food plot away from the water.

And we've highjacked this thread, sorry I will try to stop.
 
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Part of the problem was just this year's weather I think. Many of the public areas were boot high grass. The sloughs were dry and short as well. Not much for a pheasant to hide in.

In a year like this one, even a scraggly little patch of short droughty corn provides some alternative.

Nonetheless, an effort to put some different types of habitat into a GPA would provide "edge" and, IMO, greater upland opportunity.
 
Chestle said:
Nonetheless, an effort to put some different types of habitat into a GPA would provide "edge" and, IMO, greater upland opportunity.
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Yes, it would, and being an avid public land hunter, I'd love to see it. But edge costs money.

However, I think that in areas where basically all pheasants' needs are met (whether on the public or if they have to occasionally go private for some things), the benefit to hunters would be minimal. 2 weeks into the season, they'd go elsewhere for edge. Once the season ends, though, the effect could be pretty dramatic if birds didn't have to travel & work hard to survive a tough winter. In areas where even the surrounding private land doesn't meet their needs - different story.
 
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