Huntable Areas?!?!?

chase0109 said:
I don’t post much, but figured I’d give an update in this thread. I’m hunting Aberdeen area, South Dakota right now. Hunted yesterday and today. Lots of snow up here. Pretty much all the cover is under snow pack and the cattails are heavily snowed in! Unless a bunch of melting happens, plan to be pushing through waist to chest high cattails in deep snow to find your birds. Extremely physical work, so be prepared to suffer lol!

Seeing lots of pheasants, so it looks like they made it through the storm OK. But I would suggest not even going out to hunt until 1 PM each day. By the time legal shooting opens, the birds are all out in the open fields feeding. Personally, I’m letting them fill their crops before pursuing them early afternoon. I’m even seeing some pheasants out feeding in open fields until after legal shooting before flying back to shelter. Shot my limit yesterday and today. Every bird had a full crop of corn. But it’s a lot of work! Running 2 GWP’s’s in the cattails.

Most minimal maintenance roads are going to be too drifted to drive down. Most of the main gravel roads are plowed well enough to get around. I’ve had to park and walk half a mile down the road to get to spots I want to start hunting both yesterday and today.

So far we’ve only found one frozen pheasant in the cattails which one of my dogs retrieved. Both days I’ve been limited out by 4 PM giving the birds time to come back and roost. I figure every rooster I take home is less competition for the hens when things get worse this winter.
Chase
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Nice report and stay safe!
 
Drove from Wisconsin to South Dakota on Wednesday 12/28. Roughly 30 miles west of Sioux Falls on I 90 the snow thins out considerably. Made it to the area we hunt which is 50 miles west of Aberdeen and conditions are not great but definitely huntable. Did a ton of driving around and the snow cover varies greatly. It’ll go from completely buried in snow to bare fields with drifts only in the shelterbelts and sloughs. If you spend some time and look at the current snow depth maps they’re pretty accurate from what I saw. Hunted the last 45 minutes of the day and we kicked up probably 400 pheasants out of one marsh. My advice if you’re coming out to hunt is do not have one destination set in stone. Be ready to do a little driving to find the conditions right for you. From what I saw and have heard most everything south of I 90 is not covered in snow. We saw pheasants feeding all over. With all of that driving and four sets of eyes we only saw 3 dead pheasants on the side of the road. Did talk to a friend here and he found close to 30 dead when he went out and looked at his shelterbelts. Overall I think they came through that storm in good condition. Ended up with 3 roosters yesterday and several misses.
 
chase0109 said:
I don’t post much, but figured I’d give an update in this thread. I’m hunting Aberdeen area, South Dakota right now. Hunted yesterday and today. Lots of snow up here. Pretty much all the cover is under snow pack and the cattails are heavily snowed in! Unless a bunch of melting happens, plan to be pushing through waist to chest high cattails in deep snow to find your birds. Extremely physical work, so be prepared to suffer lol!

Seeing lots of pheasants, so it looks like they made it through the storm OK. But I would suggest not even going out to hunt until 1 PM each day. By the time legal shooting opens, the birds are all out in the open fields feeding. Personally, I’m letting them fill their crops before pursuing them early afternoon. I’m even seeing some pheasants out feeding in open fields until after legal shooting before flying back to shelter. Shot my limit yesterday and today. Every bird had a full crop of corn. But it’s a lot of work! Running 2 GWP’s’s in the cattails.

Most minimal maintenance roads are going to be too drifted to drive down. Most of the main gravel roads are plowed well enough to get around. I’ve had to park and walk half a mile down the road to get to spots I want to start hunting both yesterday and today.

So far we’ve only found one frozen pheasant in the cattails which one of my dogs retrieved. Both days I’ve been limited out by 4 PM giving the birds time to come back and roost. I figure every rooster I take home is less competition for the hens when things get worse this winter.
Chase
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My uncle reiterated the same thing, really slow going but the birds were there yesterday. He watched 50 fly into a slough and said it was combat hunting, but he had a couple flushes where he got dusted with snow they held so tight.

I'll likely wait until the middle of next week to decide where I'm going. My Dad has 2 new knees and is considering going with so I'll likely leave it up to him what he wants to do. But I am going :)
 
To be clear- I am positive the weather was too much for some birds. I do not believe it was terrible , at least in general. Some areas surely had some losses.

I was talking to a guy who said his buddy was out around the preserves around Winter and there were dead birds everywhere. I said yes those dead birds were probably pen raised birds. He responded I bet you are correct.
 
30 dead birds and they came through in good shape? Thats the ones he found, good thing it wasn't a bad storm. Another one coming Monday so maybe it would be good to let them have a break.
 
Gimruis - this is the SD forum. The Dakotas are expected to get snow both days with day two having higher winds.

Eastern side of MN could get more of a rain/snow mix ... yuk, but not in play for the discussion in this thread.
 
BRITTMAN said:
Gimruis - this is the SD forum. The Dakotas are expected to get snow both days with day two having higher winds.

Eastern side of MN could get more of a rain/snow mix ... yuk, but not in play for the discussion in this thread.
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I'm fully aware that this is the SD forum. My intel indicates a wintry mix for Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Monday.

Mon 02 | Day​

32°


74%

NE 12 mph
A mix of wintry precipitation in the morning. Then periods of light snow in the afternoon. High 32F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precip 70%. 1 to 3 inches of snow and ice expected.
 
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I hope they are wrong this time, give the birds a break. We got 18 inches but this week temps have been mid to hi 30's and it is going quick.
 
I hunted a hour yesterday a little before 3. It was 25° with a 20mph wind and at times snow. Piece of ground is a pasture with with a low area with cattails. I have hunted this spot a # of times and always gotten birds.

The cover/cattails start about 50 yards from the road on the north end. Walking that was 18" to 2' of snow. A little crusty but not terrible. The drifts going into the cattails were only 5 yards long and I figured 4' deep. Once in the cattails there was minimal snow. Problem was the drift. I slogged mostly thru it then got on top only to fall thru. Then I was in 4' of snow. Too high to break thru and too high to step up on. Well it was only 5 ' to the end so I slithered on to my back and wriggled the rest of the way. Hardest part was the dog thought I wanted to play and he was jumping all over me.
Slough is only 60 yards wide so I hunted down one side for only a little over a 100 yards. Never got a point but did bag a wild flush the the dog was trailing. Dog made a good retrieve on that bird as he never had a chance for a great mark. Chased out a dozen birds or so when all that was going on. Hunted back down the other side and only got a cold flash point. Took me a hour to hunt that little bit and called it a day.

That ground is about 120 acres and 75 of it is cattails. There are 4 other cattail pieces within a 1/2 Mile of there as well as plowed corn fields and cattle so I don't feel bad about the dozen birds I moved. The snow only lasted 45 minutes and never amounted to much.
 
Weimdogman said:
I hunted a hour yesterday a little before 3. It was 25° with a 20mph wind and at times snow. Piece of ground is a pasture with with a low area with cattails. I have hunted this spot a # of times and always gotten birds.

The cover/cattails start about 50 yards from the road on the north end. Walking that was 18" to 2' of snow. A little crusty but not terrible. The drifts going into the cattails were only 5 yards long and I figured 4' deep. Once in the cattails there was minimal snow. Problem was the drift. I slogged mostly thru it then got on top only to fall thru. Then I was in 4' of snow. Too high to break thru and too high to step up on. Well it was only 5 ' to the end so I slithered on to my back and wriggled the rest of the way. Hardest part was the dog thought I wanted to play and he was jumping all over me.
Slough is only 60 yards wide so I hunted down one side for only a little over a 100 yards. Never got a point but did bag a wild flush the the dog was trailing. Dog made a good retrieve on that bird as he never had a chance for a great mark. Chased out a dozen birds or so when all that was going on. Hunted back down the other side and only got a cold flash point. Took me a hour to hunt that little bit and called it a day.

That ground is about 120 acres and 75 of it is cattails. There are 4 other cattail pieces within a 1/2 Mile of there as well as plowed corn fields and cattle so I don't feel bad about the dozen birds I moved. The snow only lasted 45 minutes and never amounted to much.
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I was out with some buddies on Wednesday and there was a lot of interesting maneuvering to cross the drifts on the edge of the cattails. I'm a big fan of walking on my knees in those situations. Sage fell in a few times. Only once did she need me to pull her out. I would really like to have seen your dog trying to play as you made your way across the drifts!!

I think it's important to be cognizant of conditions facing the pheasants, but at the same time, there is a lot of variation from place to place and hunting pressure isn't going to affect the pheasants the way some might think. It's never bad to cull out a few roosters when resources are limited.
 
There is no more room for snow in the cattail sloughs around Alex-Fergus (albeit northern edge of the pheasant range) and across much of SE ND. Per Haymaker and others ... much of SD core pheasant range is also filled to the brim with snow.

ND appears to now be outside the "forecasted" snow belt on this next storm. Hopefully, that translates to lower snowfall levels across the SD pheasant range ...
 
Golden Hour said:
I was out with some buddies on Wednesday and there was a lot of interesting maneuvering to cross the drifts on the edge of the cattails. I'm a big fan of walking on my knees in those situations. Sage fell in a few times. Only once did she need me to pull her out. I would really like to have seen your dog trying to play as you made your way across the drifts!!

I think it's important to be cognizant of conditions facing the pheasants, but at the same time, there is a lot of variation from place to place and hunting pressure isn't going to affect the pheasants the way some might think. It's never bad to cull out a few roosters when resources are limited.
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I can't believe how smart these late season birds are! They will not hold for a close shot.The snow is deep and drifted in Montana. Very difficult to hunt.
 
Thank you Goose, you have made my point perfectly. Pheasants can be anywhere they want to be, so they are in the best place that they can find. Along comes the hunter and they have to leave and find the second best place to be. If they are full and the weather is not too tough, no problem. If they are hungry and in a weakened state they need some time to recover. Not all areas are equally tough, I am sure there are places that are fine to hunt.
 
benelli-banger said:
Calm day was harder than some wind…that helped obfuscate my presence or whereabouts…
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There was no wind on the Canadian. Cold,deep snow.We got a few birds,and had a great time.Loud crunchy snow, very deep in places, but at least 8 inches everywhere. My nephew got his first unassisted rooster, so that was great.he also got 3 sharptails unassisted!!
 
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