Any reports from hunters ?

I just returned from 5.5 days of hunting bliss. If you stayed home this year.... you made a mistake. If you stay home any year.... you made a mistake. The area I hunted was hit hard with drought and hail. But, there were more pheasants this year than last year. That is my opinion. Also talked to several other farmers whom have hunters come to hunt their land. General consensus was same or slightly more birds this year compared to last. I went with two guys whom can not walk well and are even worse shooters. They each only shot one rooster all week. Sounds bad right? Well here is the rest of the story. The farmer we stay with was able to hunt all week with us and he is a good shot like myself. The farmer and I shot 32 birds in 5.5 days. Our blockers shot 2 birds and I don't know how many they could have shot and missed but it was easily a limit.

We only hunted for about 2.5 hours in the field each day. Then took a snack break until about 3:30 then road hunted the ditches. With only having one dog, I didn't want to burn her out after three days. We hunted all private and public ditches, which I don't think made a difference as we saw birds everywhere. I sat with the farmer deer hunting every night and the birds coming into the CRP's and trading back and forth at dusk is just an unbelievable site. This year was the most birds I have seen since I hunted near Ipswitch back in 2006. In 2006, we would stop the truck at a CRP and anywhere between 100-300 birds would immediately get up and flush a couple hundred yards and return to the ground. I have never seen those numbers since. However, this year while road hunting we stopped at many small cattail slews next to the road and up to a few dozen would bounce around.

In my opinion the male to female bird ratios was the highest I have ever seen. Glad we took 34 roosters out of the mix. Cattails were great producers, followed by fireweed chocked pheasant food plots. Waist high grass held many birds too as long as it wasn't too blown down.

This is the seventh year I hunted this same area which is within 1 hour from Mitchell. Every year I do better, regardless of the road counts. Last year we had 6 people in our hunting party with 4 experienced dogs and four experienced hunters and harvested 64 roosters (the same two blockers I had this year did about the same last year). This year one dog and two experienced hunters and 34 roosters. 40% decline....... I don't think so.

From the first time I went to SD hunting in 2006 I vowed I would go every year as long as I could still walk and even if I couldn't walk anymore, I would still try to go. I live in Clemson SC and usually am looking for fellow hunters to fill my party. I like to take 6 people total. Must have a dog. Will always go after Thanksgiving from now on.
 
Report from last week in North Central SD. As mentioned earlier my son and I were out last Wednesday and back to Minnesota on Saturday. Hunted mostly private land and a few public WPA’s. It is crazy dry out there. All small ponds and sloughs are completely dry. My farmer friends said they haven’t seen it this dry in over 20 years. The bird numbers are without question way down. The ice storm last December hurt the existing population of birds. This was compounded by extremely dry weather through spring and summer. No bugs for pheasant chicks plus a lack of dew in the mornings really hurt production. Also most road ditches were hayed and there is not alot of tall/thick grass for good nesting. Areas where I normally see plenty of birds had very few if any. We did not hunt on Wednesday due to 30 to 50 mph winds. The blowing dust/dirt was terrible. Our dogs would not been able to pick up any scent. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were very nice days with light wind and temps in the upper 40’s. We found some birds in cattails around picked corn fields. My watch said I walked 19,700 steps on Wednesday. It took us from 10 am until 3:30 to get our 6 birds. Friday was the same walking 18,800 steps. We shot 5 birds on Friday. Both my Griff and my sons Springer were pretty beat after day 2 with most of our time hunting cattails. My son went back home Friday evening. I checked out some areas I had not hunted near the ND border Saturday morning and at 11:00 found a very small slough near a picked corn field in a WPA. Hunted for about 30 minutes and 1 rooster got up right at the end of the slough which I did get. Decided to quit at 11:30 and head back home in N. Central MN. Very disappointing to see the lack of cover across the area from Aberdeen to Leola to Eureka SD. My farmer friends said the weather and lack of CRP does not bode well for the pheasant population. We stayed at the Old Bank Lodge in Leola and we were the only ones there. We saw no other hunters which does hurt the businesses in the small towns. Not sure if I will go out next year. May just hunt central and western MN. Will see how the winter and spring goes. Areas where 7-8 years ago held hundreds of pheasant have very few if any at all. Really sad to see!!!
 
Hunted Saturday only this past weekend. Spent the last 45 minutes of shooting hours at one of my favorite, large WPA's in the Spencer vicinity, a place that normally is quite productive for me maybe 3-4 times a season. The weather was clear & nearly calm. Beautiful evening!! While hunting & then up until about 20 minutes after sunset, I didn't see, hear, smell, or shoot a single pheasant. There are other public/walk-in areas nearby, & I also didn't hear a single shot. Pretty uncommon. The first time I hunted the same area about 3 weeks ago, I shot a limit but saw relatively few birds. Something was hard on them at that spot this year. :mad:
 
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Just returned from five days in SD. First few days were rough on public ground with limited birds seen.

We did spend a day with our friend SDJim on his land and his program is obviously paying off with the number of birds we did see. Build it and they will come does hold true. Great times with great friends is what its all about.

On public ground from what I seen numbers are down 50% in the areas we hunt. After a bundle of miles we did dial in on some birds. We only had one young birds out of what we well able to shoot. I would the others were 2 or 3 year old birds.

Overall it was a great week with two of my young female setters who were just pups last year showing great promise in difficult conditions. I wish the numbers would of been better to get them more exposure. Couldn't beat the weather either for the first week on Dec with it running in the 50's pretty much the whole time we were there. Now will have to wait for next year, hopefully we will have a good spring and the birds will bounce back.

Good luck out there!
 
Myself and 4 others, along with 5 seasoned dogs hunted Dec 1 through Dec 3 on various properties/places. On Friday, 3 of us and 4 dogs hunted public N of Mitchell, and found water in a cattail slough on the very back end of the WPA; we had a chance to shoot a 3-man limit there, but could not make it happen. Still we saw 14 roosters, had shots at 9 of them, and saw at least that many hens on this piece of public ground.

Saturday and Sunday the 5 of us hunted PTP ground near Eureka. We were told right out of the gate that most groups had been averaging 1 bird per gun per day, but we were certain we could beat that average...and Saturday we almost doubled up. Saturday was warm (52F), very light W wind, and mostly sunny. We saw a grand total of 13 roosters, maybe half that many hens, and were lucky enough to put all 8 roosters that gave us an opportunity in the bag. The lack of hens was a topic at dinner; I’ve been hunting SD for 15 years, and cannot ever recall seeing so few hens…it is troubling, to say the least

Sunday was a different story; mostly cloudy, a good WNW breeze, and 44F; we hunted our butts off for a total of 6 birds. We did have a LOT of wild flushers, and saw many more hens on Sunday, so it wasn't that we weren't seeing birds, we just couldn't get close to them. The high and dry conditions were partly to blame, the wind was probably to blame, and one of the guys never stops talking no matter what, so I blame him (LOL). We saw 25 roosters, probably twice that many hens, enough hens that I sort of lost count...that's a good thing.

I was going to continue to hunt alone on Monday and Tuesday on public, but I managed to put a screw in a tire (slow leaker thank God), and Monday the weather turned a bit nasty between Eureka and Aberdeen...so I headed home.

This is the same PTP outfit where, in 2016, 8 of us took 28 birds in 2 days, and 5 of us took another 14 on the 3rd day...it has the habitat necessary to maintain a population of birds...but they were down at least 50% from what we saw a year ago

We knew going up that a Eureka-Leola-Aberdeen area had been whacked by the 2016 Christmas ice storm, then hit by the drought, so the lack of birds wasn't surprising. Mostly, I'm more than a little irritated my hunt trip was cut short with a tire issue, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

I won't get back to SD this year, but will head home to NE for a January duck-goose-pheasant hunt in the western part of the state...and I'm thinking about going to Kansas...maybe.

Last thing: if you own a Ram truck that has a locking lug nut, DO NOT under any circumstances lose the lug key...you'll have to order a new one, as no dealership in SD has a master set.

Good luck to all the rest of the season.

-Vam
 
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Hunted between Ramona and Howard this weekend. Yesterday hunted a WIA and one cattail ditch. Saw 3 roosters & was done. No hens. 1 hr, 20 min.

Today hunted 2 little WPAs & several little stretches of cattails in the ditch near corn. Got 3 in 2 hrs, 30 min. Saw plenty of hens and about 5-6 other roosters that flushed out of range. Happy with what I saw.

However, of 6 birds shot, only 1 was this year's bird.

Buzz was awesome.
 
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returned last night from trip #5...birds had definitely bunched up...spookier than in November...good hunt, for sure...some several 50-100+ bird flushes...always fun! Gotta go...leave again tomorrow...decent weather!!!!
 
Recently just from a 2.5 day solo hunt.Sunday 12/10 to Tuesday 12/12... Day one 1pm, arrived at a nice WIA with good cover, cattail pond and other good cover, cornfields all around (West River) I saw a fair number of birds, mostly flushing out of range, had 3 shots, got 2 birds. Dog tracked one wiley rooster out the side and pointed him like on TV!!!! Very cool. I was very encouraged. This is the only good piece of public in this area however. Moved to 2 other separate WIA s about 20 miles away that were very good last year and I flushed no birds. One spot was a huge cattail pond that provided 100 bird flushes the last 2 years. It is at the very back of a mowed field so not many people make the walk to it. No birds there. Day 1 over. Day 2 Hunted my way North and East out of Pierre, kept moving and looking for bird tracks, hunting any good looking cover as I went, and drove almost 100 miles looking for a pocket of birds. I never saw a bird on the road this day, until dusk. First three WIA's no birds at all, these are spots I have hunted before with good success. I mostly hunt cattail pockets near corn that I can cover with just me and 1 dog. Or good ditches, but these are hard to find this year. Next 2 areas yielded 4 hen flushes in a cattail creek, nice narrow cover, easy to hunt...But no roosters, at least I am seeing some birds now ....I keep looking and driving from spot to spot, I am now looking at places I have never hunted before, all new to me. I Finally found an area of ponds and vast cattail marches (WPA) that had birds...lots of birds, very thick and deep cattails, hard to walk and cover for just one old guy and 1 old dog....But I shot 1 rooster, excellent recovery in cattails by my 10 yr old lab. Flushed a bunch of hens and missed 2 other roosters. (but they were longer shots) That 1 rooster was very rewarding. I am beat, my knees are sore, my dog is limping. We worked HARD today. Of course I found this area late in the day, 100 miles from my hotel and had only a short time to hunt before dark.....Ok, now I know public is always harder; but tomorrow I hunt the really good stuff on private land!!!!! I can't wait!
Day 3, I pack up and change locations to Oacama. I am very excited to hunt a pay to play farm near Reliance that I hunted last year, and got 2 man limits easily. It is a section of Milo field cut into strips perfect for 1 or two guys and a dog. This year wind and drought had beat down this field, there were ZERO birds flushed in 2 hours of walking. Last year every strip would yield flushes and shots..... No tracks in the snow at all. Very disappointed. Land owner pointed me to a different small location that had good cover. I hunted that with no flushes, but the dog got birdy. Cover was a bit much for one man there. Land owner graciously offered me a refund, I declined as he provided me a service of land to hunt, and I hunted. There are no guarantees in life and especially not in hunting. Last year, the hunt exceeded expectations this year the opposite, so I guess it evens out. I cancelled the next days hunt however. Frustrated with this area, I decided to head home, as the only area I had found birds was almost 200 miles away by this point and not on my way home. I did stop at the Walk in area of day one, and managed to flush 2 roosters, with none killed. One shot was longer, but one was a gimme. This is the first day I have ever blanked on Pheasants in South Dakota. I should have shot trap before this trip. Good shooting would have yielded better results. All in all a hard trip. But I did get some fresh memories with my aging dog. We don't do this for meat any way, we do it for the experience. But lets be honest, the guy on the TV show said "The scenery is great, but I didn't drive for 12 hours and spend hundreds of dollars for scenery, I want to see some birds in the air". I did see some birds in the air, but not a lot. I may try again over Christmas, and focus on that area up North only. Some more snow would help.
 
wyosteve said:
Recently just from a 2.5 day solo hunt..........I may try again over Christmas, and focus on that area up North only. Some more snow would help.
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Yikes. Sounds like the areas you hunted took it in the shorts pretty hard this year. Also a prime example of how difficult pheasants can be late season with mild weather & little/no snow on the ground. I plan to be out both days this weekend & fully expect it to be considerably more difficult than last weekend. Maybe I'll dumb my way into a few.
 
Here is a brief report from our trip: Got to Yankton SD about 6 am on Sunday morning and started driving back roads north and west to meet our friends who had arrived a day earlier. We looked at lots of good public habitat but never saw a bird. Our friends finally found a few on a public piece and we went and met them and hunted and were able to get 2 birds there and then moved to another public piece and took 2 more. We started the next morning with our same routine, leave the motel about 7 am and we each went different directions. We would drive roads, look at public pieces and then meet back at up at 10 to hunt. Between our 2 vehicles, none of the mornings yielded sightings of large numbers of birds as it has in past years. Two days we ended up hunting two hours from our starting point and one day we ended up well west of the river. Once hunting time came, we hit the ground and each day we walked 6-7 miles through some great looking habitat.
We saw birds but I would guess 20-30% of previous years. We were able to kill about 12 in four days. We have always hunted in December and can use the weather/snow/cold to help contain the birds but this year that was not possible. On several nice pieces of habitat that had a few birds, we would hunt the area only to have the birds walk out the far end of the cover across open crop fields. We only saw one small flock of grouse, about 6-8, and we usually spend part of a day trying to pattern those and pass shoot a couple but with the low number we did not even try.

It was a difficult year but we saw more birds than the reports led us to believe might be there. We did run into several pieces of public we have hunted in the past not having enough cover to hunt or hold birds. I hope the drought subsides a little and there is favorable weather in the spring to help rebuild the numbers.

Were we disappointed? It was a hunting trip, how can you be down about being out there???? We are concerned with the future of the habitat and the hunting, however, if the weather conditions continue to be a detriment to the population. We also saw more clearing, cutting and destruction of habitat than any year we have been there.

Hope everyone finishes out the year well and I hope you guys get a little snow!! Good luck!
 
We finished off three and half days, and got our limit one day. But our shooting could have been better, and weather was a little too nice. If you get everything that gets up in range you will do ok. There just isn’t enough extra birds to allow any mistakes. My wife and I ended up with 14, but it easily could have been 20 with some better shooting. I guess that’s why we hunt, it’s exciting on the flush!
 
Saturday a buddy & I & our 2 springers hunted public land in the Ramona to Howard area. Birds finally somewhat bunched up. Easier to find; harder to get near. Had to split them back apart to be able to hunt the singles that flew here & there. Got 6 in 2.5 hours on a WPA. I hunted alone for a little while Sunday on a different WPA & a couple little ditches & got 2. Saw good numbers of hens. Of the 8 roosters shot, only 2 (possibly 3) were this year's birds.
 
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Hunted for 3 days Dec 16, 17, 18. Found plenty of birds along with plenty of roosters to shoot. The best chunk of public I hunted held close to 100 birds I would estimate. Lots of hens for sure. For my 1st go round I would say I couldn't be more happy. For one guy a 2 year old britt and a 6 month old britt I'd say we gavem' hell. Keeping my eye on the weather for the last weekend. It was truly a pleasure to hunt SD
 
heading out early tomorrow morning, cant wait, looks like there will be some fresh snow too!! it'll be chilly but hoping it helps us out
 
Hunted yesterday (using the term loosely), although mostly just an excuse to get out with a friend & dogs & concern ourselves only with guy stuff. The word of the day was "cold", as it was a steady 17-18 below from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mostly drove around (springers Buzz & Dash road in the back seat) but walked several little stretches of ditch, never staying out of the truck for more than 15-20 minutes. We saw a "fair" number of hens & managed to get 4 roosters. Then driving home saw a couple big sloughs adjacent to one another with maybe a couple hundred pheasants scattered about in the field scratching around for food. Seemed to be a relatively high number of roosters, like maybe 35-40%. Most birds I've seen all season. Having Christmas with the in-laws today, but will investigate this area further tomorrow. Don't think any of it's public.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Hunted yesterday (using the term loosely), although mostly just an excuse to get out with a friend & dogs & concern ourselves only with guy stuff. The word of the day was "cold", as it was a steady 17-18 below from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mostly drove around (springers Buzz & Dash road in the back seat) but walked several little stretches of ditch, never staying out of the truck for more than 15-20 minutes. We saw a "fair" number of hens & managed to get 4 roosters. Then driving home saw a couple big sloughs adjacent to one another with maybe a couple hundred pheasants scattered about in the field scratching around for food. Seemed to be a relatively high number of roosters, like maybe 35-40%. Most birds I've seen all season. Having Christmas with the in-laws today, but will investigate this area further tomorrow. Don't think any of it's public.
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Three of us (my son & hunting pal) just returned from annual late season hunt. We have had some cold trips over the years, but this one topped them all! We chose to skip day 5, and drive home after our day 4 hunt, just felt it was a safe move for the dogs, and us, as that was the first day of -10 degree weather
We had a great trip, worked hard to find pockets of birds, and focused on hunting those areas. No snow until the last day, which makes pheasant hunting truly special. We had good action and results every day.
That's the good news. The bad news is many of the spots we've had good success with held no birds, or the cover was gone. Some of these areas held hundreds of birds, and those bird numbers were way down.
Seeing the loss of habitat was depressing. The addition of CREP's has helped, no doubt. There is no greater correlation to bird #'s than acres of habitat. The loss of habitat the past 5-7 years is startling. I truly hope this trend can be somewhat reversed. South Dakota wild pheasant hunting is special, we love coming out there, enjoy talking to the friendly folks, and patronizing the local establishments. The next few years will be crucial to the future of sustainable bird numbers for public land hunters like us. Best of luck to those finishing out the season, and Happy New Year to all!
 
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