Early season thoughts

Rude One said:
I was out for opener. First time hunting on the opener. The first day I didn't see nearly as many birds as I had anticipated. The amount of fields unharvested was really high. They were going hard though and it made a huge difference as the week went on. Each day I saw more birds and by Monday and Tuesday the numbers were looking really good. The cover is better than it has been in the past couple of years. I had a blast and hopefully will be back later in the season. I will mention that on Saturday I saw a group of about 20 guys hunting a patch of sorghum at 9 am? Do the pay to play guys have different rules or were they just blatantly breaking the 10 am start time.
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I might add though, what time zone were you in? You can hunt at 9:00 if you’re in the western part of the state in mountain time zone.
 
I was in the central time zone. If I would have been in the moutain zone it would have been 8am even worse. My guess is it was a preserve.
 
I just got back from South Dakota yesterday, been going for several years now. Saw more hunters in “my spots” then ever before. Birds were there but between the crops not out, my shooting and the warm weather it was a lot more work for them. Saw lots of Sharpies and chickens. Cover looked great, I suspect in a month it will be really good hunting.
We hunted a mix of public and private.
 
We are hunting NC part of state. Bird numbers down a little from last year. Our area had 25 inches of snow in April.
 
I've been happy with the bird numbers that I've seen so far this season. Very similar to last year. There is still a lot of standing corn in the area I hunt. Once that is harvested, I am confident that we'll be in for some really great hunts.
 
Golden Hour said:
There is still a lot of standing corn in the area I hunt. Once that is harvested, I am confident that we'll be in for some really great hunts.
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This is the time period every season that I almost always have my best success of the season. Its usually around the middle of November. If it coincides with a fresh snowfall, even better.
 
Golden Hour said:
I've been happy with the bird numbers that I've seen so far this season. Very similar to last year. There is still a lot of standing corn in the area I hunt. Once that is harvested, I am confident that we'll be in for some really great hunts.
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I have been going to SD for at least 25 years. I have been in late October and thought birds were down a bunch, only to return in December and find hundreds if not thousands in a few days. It is impossible to know how many birds are there until the crops come out.
 
I ended up with a dozen birds over my 5 day stretch.. If I had to guess, I’d say there are a few less birds this year.. but hard to say with all the crops around. We hunted pretty hard, putting on 10+ miles 4 out of 5 days. I flat out missed a couple birds and couldn’t find a couple others. My dogs did a heck of a job, and I have zero complaints. If I wasn’t such a chicken about the dogs running into barbed wire I know we could have been done quicker most days. Hoping to be back later this year when the crops are out.
 
We just finished a 10-day hunt in the NC part of SD. A few observations. Public land only hunt. Bird numbers seemed down from the past couple years. Cover was notably thinner on average than last year. Hunter number were up based on the areas we traveled. Many CREP lands have been mowed around the Aberdeen area. Our group averaged 1.3 birds per day for the first trip out this year. We will be back out in mid-November and early December for another go. Good luck!
 
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