Honey and I just returned from a 4.5 day trip to East Central SD. Maybe closer to a 4.1 day trip -- We hit one spot in South Western MN before crossing the border and picked up a late hatch rooster in the last hour before sunset.
Numbers for SD: 2, 2, 1, 0. The last day was misting, and the birds were not out and about. We only truly hunted one spot in SD and one spot on MN on the way home. The rest of Sunday was just looking for birds on the back roads as we went back to MN.
The good: Except for the 4th Day in SD, and mostly due to the weather that day, we could have gotten our limit each day. Missed some shots, and had a couple Olympic class cripples escape the first 3 days. Plenty of hens in many of the spots we hit.
The not-so-good: We didn't get into any areas with really high bird numbers. We have only ever hunted January in SD, after MN season ends. I thought we'd break from that tradition, since there were some good reports of higher numbers. Our ratio of hens to roosters was about 5-7 hens for every 1 rooster, most places. My guess is there was too much rain in the spring where we were hunting (as is the case in many areas in Minnesota), so not many chicks survived. Of the roosters that did exist, and also like Minnesota, we were hunting mostly seasoned, higher will-to-live roosters too. Now, even though we didn't get into higher numbers, we still had fun and it was a good trip. We just had to work harder for the birds we did get. And me, myself, and I had some heated discussions amongst ourselves about some of our missed shots, since there weren't as many shots to be had.
The great: Shot the heaviest rooster I've ever taken. Seemed like he was 1.5 times the weight of a large rooster. We were hunting a chunk of a WPA that you have to cross some wet-ish cattails to get to from the more accessible portion. The birds had been heckling us the evening before across the slough. We were working the edge, next to cut corn, with the land sloping down 150 yards or so to the cattails. Honey stalked/tracked him near the cut corn edge, for 50 to 100 yards, and then realized he was running for the cattails, and bolted for him. As she is a touch faster than me, I was probably 50+ yards from her when she got him up near the edge of the cattails. Luckily, a stiff wind, parallel to the cattails, possibly aided by his corn belly bulk, made him hang in the air for a moment and I somehow managed to take him out of the gene pool with one shot. He was a 2nd year bird, so hopefully he passed on those genes to others this past spring.
The wild: We were having a rough go of it the 3rd day (Saturday). The day started with me spying 2 roosters and some hens out for a morning stroll in the ditch, next to some cut corn, with a game production area across the gravel road. This was at 9:30 AM. As we waited down the road a ways for shooting time, I saw one rooster and a couple hens walk over the road to the public land, about 50 yards from where we were parked. The rooster stopped before the cover and gave me a good once over, through my driver's side window. That edge of the public land has a row of evergreen bushes parallel to the road, about 50 yards in. There is also a private road that bisects the public land, coming out to a Tee at the gravel road. The wind was maybe 10-15 mph, coming from the direction of the row of evergreens.
When 10 AM came around, we started working the edge of the road, 10-20 yards in. Honey found the scent of where the birds crossed, but didn't find them. I figured they crossed through the evergreens, where there isn't much ground cover for scent, and that we'd find them in the field grasses on the other side. We were just down at the end of the row of bushes when we saw 2 pickups turn onto the private road (and they should have easily seen me). They also drove past my vehicle, parked 10 yards down from the Tee. We continued to make our way around the end of the row, when *bang*, someone shot, no more than 10 seconds from when we last saw the trucks. Sure enough, we poked our heads out the other side of the row, and they were scrambling to get their dog on a bird 100 yards down from us, that they had shot in our direction. I checked the map app on my phone to make sure we weren't still in Minnesota. Besides the poor sportsmanship aspects, that could have been a very dangerous situation if we had rounded that row of trees a few seconds earlier.
They ended up waterfowl hunting on the edge of the lake by the farm that is at the end of the private road, for about an hour, and then left. We did get the other rooster up shortly after they continued on to the farm, but the low going away boy escaped mostly unscathed.
About 1.5 hours before end of shooting, after driving a little out of the way, we finally found a spot that looked promising. A WPA with a really old section road that cut through part of the water, but raised high enough that we could walk it. The end had dirt piled up, so it wasn't driveable, and there was a thicket growing on it (but a path through the brush). To the left of the original ditch was cut corn. On the other side of the water, to the right, as we walked down the road, was a farm, about 300 yards away. Behind that farm was standing corn, with the WPA edge following it down and around a right angle corner. There was possibly about half a mile of linear edge in common between the WPA and the standing corn field, total. Part way down the section road, you can get between the first pond and another that is further down.
Honey found one rooster that ran down to the cattail edge before we rounded the water, but I missed the long shot and he sailed over into the corn. All told, we ended up flushing 5 hens and 6 roosters. A welcome ratio switch from all the other spots we hunted.
There was a spot around the bend of the corn field where the cattails petered out a bit, that was a little wet in spots, but cross able, to get to some higher ground on the other side of the 2nd pond. We had just crossed it and were working between the cattails and some trees that were higher up, when honey got birdy and a rooster flushed wild, heading right to left, wanting to get over that run of cattails sticking out from the pond, close to the pond edge. I knocked him out of the air, but was pretty sure he wasn't down for the count. Honey was down there in a flash -- and a splash. It was shin deep water there. She was working even deeper water right on the edge of the pond, so I assumed he had run toward the open water edge.
As I looked around where he went down, trying to step on cattail clumps to keep the water below my muck boot tops, she came back and went the other direction, away from the pond, about 20 yards. She locked up next to a hump of folded over cattails and then dove in. I thought for sure she had him. She came out with a full mouth full of feathers!? I ran over as she was spitting them out. She acted like he wasn't in the spot anymore. What the heck!? There was water around it. I should have seen him if he darted out of there. I peeled the cattails back, only to find another huge pile of feathers!!! No bird in sight! I checked the feathers, and they were from a rooster. Since there was no bird there, I assumed some animal had killed one there the night before, and Honey happened to find the remnants.
We both went back to where the bird went down. I am guessing we were there no more than 10-15 seconds, when all of a sudden, there was flapping and splashing right back where we found all the feathers!!! Our bird was in its death throws right where we had just been and where there had been no sign of him! Honey was on him in an instant, followed by me. He was wide eyed and coming around, like he had just woken from a nightmare. I put him back to sleep for good. He had zero tail feathers and most of his butt feathers were gone too.
My best guess at what happened was: Honey found him hiding, dove in, grabbing him by the butt, and shoving him down under the water, where he got tangled in the vegetation. As she tried to pull him out, all the feathers came off. She spit out the feathers and was left with no bird to scent, making her believe he had scooted out of there somehow. After we walked away, his air supply must have run out and his death throws magically brought him to the surface for us to hear and see. He wasn't able to escape his nightmare, as Honey was on him again, this time for keeps.
He was the only rooster we downed at that spot. I think we got shots at 3, including him. He was the only bird of the day, but a memorable one.
Here is a photo of the heavyweight bruiser from Saturday:
Numbers for SD: 2, 2, 1, 0. The last day was misting, and the birds were not out and about. We only truly hunted one spot in SD and one spot on MN on the way home. The rest of Sunday was just looking for birds on the back roads as we went back to MN.
The good: Except for the 4th Day in SD, and mostly due to the weather that day, we could have gotten our limit each day. Missed some shots, and had a couple Olympic class cripples escape the first 3 days. Plenty of hens in many of the spots we hit.
The not-so-good: We didn't get into any areas with really high bird numbers. We have only ever hunted January in SD, after MN season ends. I thought we'd break from that tradition, since there were some good reports of higher numbers. Our ratio of hens to roosters was about 5-7 hens for every 1 rooster, most places. My guess is there was too much rain in the spring where we were hunting (as is the case in many areas in Minnesota), so not many chicks survived. Of the roosters that did exist, and also like Minnesota, we were hunting mostly seasoned, higher will-to-live roosters too. Now, even though we didn't get into higher numbers, we still had fun and it was a good trip. We just had to work harder for the birds we did get. And me, myself, and I had some heated discussions amongst ourselves about some of our missed shots, since there weren't as many shots to be had.
The great: Shot the heaviest rooster I've ever taken. Seemed like he was 1.5 times the weight of a large rooster. We were hunting a chunk of a WPA that you have to cross some wet-ish cattails to get to from the more accessible portion. The birds had been heckling us the evening before across the slough. We were working the edge, next to cut corn, with the land sloping down 150 yards or so to the cattails. Honey stalked/tracked him near the cut corn edge, for 50 to 100 yards, and then realized he was running for the cattails, and bolted for him. As she is a touch faster than me, I was probably 50+ yards from her when she got him up near the edge of the cattails. Luckily, a stiff wind, parallel to the cattails, possibly aided by his corn belly bulk, made him hang in the air for a moment and I somehow managed to take him out of the gene pool with one shot. He was a 2nd year bird, so hopefully he passed on those genes to others this past spring.
The wild: We were having a rough go of it the 3rd day (Saturday). The day started with me spying 2 roosters and some hens out for a morning stroll in the ditch, next to some cut corn, with a game production area across the gravel road. This was at 9:30 AM. As we waited down the road a ways for shooting time, I saw one rooster and a couple hens walk over the road to the public land, about 50 yards from where we were parked. The rooster stopped before the cover and gave me a good once over, through my driver's side window. That edge of the public land has a row of evergreen bushes parallel to the road, about 50 yards in. There is also a private road that bisects the public land, coming out to a Tee at the gravel road. The wind was maybe 10-15 mph, coming from the direction of the row of evergreens.
When 10 AM came around, we started working the edge of the road, 10-20 yards in. Honey found the scent of where the birds crossed, but didn't find them. I figured they crossed through the evergreens, where there isn't much ground cover for scent, and that we'd find them in the field grasses on the other side. We were just down at the end of the row of bushes when we saw 2 pickups turn onto the private road (and they should have easily seen me). They also drove past my vehicle, parked 10 yards down from the Tee. We continued to make our way around the end of the row, when *bang*, someone shot, no more than 10 seconds from when we last saw the trucks. Sure enough, we poked our heads out the other side of the row, and they were scrambling to get their dog on a bird 100 yards down from us, that they had shot in our direction. I checked the map app on my phone to make sure we weren't still in Minnesota. Besides the poor sportsmanship aspects, that could have been a very dangerous situation if we had rounded that row of trees a few seconds earlier.
They ended up waterfowl hunting on the edge of the lake by the farm that is at the end of the private road, for about an hour, and then left. We did get the other rooster up shortly after they continued on to the farm, but the low going away boy escaped mostly unscathed.
About 1.5 hours before end of shooting, after driving a little out of the way, we finally found a spot that looked promising. A WPA with a really old section road that cut through part of the water, but raised high enough that we could walk it. The end had dirt piled up, so it wasn't driveable, and there was a thicket growing on it (but a path through the brush). To the left of the original ditch was cut corn. On the other side of the water, to the right, as we walked down the road, was a farm, about 300 yards away. Behind that farm was standing corn, with the WPA edge following it down and around a right angle corner. There was possibly about half a mile of linear edge in common between the WPA and the standing corn field, total. Part way down the section road, you can get between the first pond and another that is further down.
Honey found one rooster that ran down to the cattail edge before we rounded the water, but I missed the long shot and he sailed over into the corn. All told, we ended up flushing 5 hens and 6 roosters. A welcome ratio switch from all the other spots we hunted.
There was a spot around the bend of the corn field where the cattails petered out a bit, that was a little wet in spots, but cross able, to get to some higher ground on the other side of the 2nd pond. We had just crossed it and were working between the cattails and some trees that were higher up, when honey got birdy and a rooster flushed wild, heading right to left, wanting to get over that run of cattails sticking out from the pond, close to the pond edge. I knocked him out of the air, but was pretty sure he wasn't down for the count. Honey was down there in a flash -- and a splash. It was shin deep water there. She was working even deeper water right on the edge of the pond, so I assumed he had run toward the open water edge.
As I looked around where he went down, trying to step on cattail clumps to keep the water below my muck boot tops, she came back and went the other direction, away from the pond, about 20 yards. She locked up next to a hump of folded over cattails and then dove in. I thought for sure she had him. She came out with a full mouth full of feathers!? I ran over as she was spitting them out. She acted like he wasn't in the spot anymore. What the heck!? There was water around it. I should have seen him if he darted out of there. I peeled the cattails back, only to find another huge pile of feathers!!! No bird in sight! I checked the feathers, and they were from a rooster. Since there was no bird there, I assumed some animal had killed one there the night before, and Honey happened to find the remnants.
We both went back to where the bird went down. I am guessing we were there no more than 10-15 seconds, when all of a sudden, there was flapping and splashing right back where we found all the feathers!!! Our bird was in its death throws right where we had just been and where there had been no sign of him! Honey was on him in an instant, followed by me. He was wide eyed and coming around, like he had just woken from a nightmare. I put him back to sleep for good. He had zero tail feathers and most of his butt feathers were gone too.
My best guess at what happened was: Honey found him hiding, dove in, grabbing him by the butt, and shoving him down under the water, where he got tangled in the vegetation. As she tried to pull him out, all the feathers came off. She spit out the feathers and was left with no bird to scent, making her believe he had scooted out of there somehow. After we walked away, his air supply must have run out and his death throws magically brought him to the surface for us to hear and see. He wasn't able to escape his nightmare, as Honey was on him again, this time for keeps.
He was the only rooster we downed at that spot. I think we got shots at 3, including him. He was the only bird of the day, but a memorable one.
Here is a photo of the heavyweight bruiser from Saturday:
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