We are hunting near Onida, Gettysburg and Agar right now. Hunted yesterday and today (Saturday the 21st). Most crops are still in the field, but they are harvesting like crazy to take advantage of the warm dry conditions. A lot of the hunting depends on if you have good dogs or not. If you have good dogs then the walkin ares are good, as well as WPAs and other fields. With just okay dogs then I would concentrate on field edges and ditches. With no dogs I would hunt nothing but ditches. We have good dogs and hunt a variety of stuff but the ditches wind up working the best for us. I even shot two birds off of my 15-yr old lab this morning. With a group of 2-4 we put one guy and one dog out at an interesection with good cover and then drive around to the end and drop somebody off to walk another mile. Do this enough times and you will get all your birds. This strategy works anywhere in SD since it is legal to hunt the right of way along roads. Usually we just find dirt roads out in the middle of nowhere and it works well. We also like WPAs, especially if the weather is nasty or it is snowing. Right now there is no snow at all and all the fields are open. Most of the birds we have killed have been loafing on field edges, especially those with cut wheat. Corn produces birds too, but if isn't cut then they can run a long ways before they flush.
We like to hunt new areas every time we come but we have found this general area north of Pierre to the ND border to be pretty good and doesn't seem to have many people hunting it.
The weather has been good and should be really nice tommorow, but then it changes. We usually have better luck in good weather, but if it is snowing it can be incredible. The long-range forcast is calling for good weather after Thanksgiving. Let me know how you do--good luck.
Mark
