If you could only pick one week...

I'm planning on a public land hunt and have Oct 19 to 23, Nov 25 to 29 or Dec 10 to 14. The first is right after opening weekend so not too keen on that. The second is right after Thanksgiving which might not be bad. Then there is December.
I did like the comment about doing December and having the next for next season.
 
TomU said:
I'm planning on a public land hunt and have Oct 19 to 23, Nov 25 to 29 or Dec 10 to 14. The first is right after opening weekend so not too keen on that. The second is right after Thanksgiving which might not be bad. Then there is December.
I did like the comment about doing December and having the next for next season.
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Have to buy license on/after 12/15 to carry license over
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
There's no way I could pick 1 week as my favorite. Just no way. From the 2nd (resident's) weekend in Oct. to the last one in Jan., I love 'em all. Granted, there are highlight times - opening day, when most of the corn is finally out, first good snow, Black Friday (just because I always hunt on that day), Christmas-to-New-Year, and stuff like that. And I can say that if I could pick my favorite TYPE of pheasant hunting, it'd be cattails after the first good snow. But most things change so much from season to season that I really couldn't even nail it down to a favorite month.
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Your opinion doesn’t count because you don’t have to pick. You kind of suck and I kind of have a resentment against you guys that live up there.😀 . But still post about your hunts because I like reading them
 
Second week of December for me . I need the cattails ice to be thick if you know what I mean
 
carptom1 said:
Your opinion doesn’t count because you don’t have to pick. You kind of suck and I kind of have a resentment against you guys that live up there.😀 . But still post about your hunts because I like reading them
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I was thinking about posting a map with all the best spots, times, & ways to go about hunting them. Now if I do, you're not welcome to look at it. 🤣🤣 No, I'm well aware that I'm very blessed by geography. I've kind of made some of my own luck that way, but still, I'm pretty thankful.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
I was thinking about posting a map with all the best spots, times, & ways to go about hunting them. Now if I do, you're not welcome to look at it. 🤣🤣 No, I'm well aware that I'm very blessed by geography. I've kind of made some of my own luck that way, but still, I'm pretty thankful.
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That’s ok you can keep your map of the Rapid City pheasant hotspots.🤣🤣🤣
 
2nd weekend of November. Not toooo hot not to cold. All the crops are out, maybe get a little snow. Nov. 8-Dec15 is when I would go.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
I was thinking about posting a map with all the best spots, times, & ways to go about hunting them. Now if I do, you're not welcome to look at it. 🤣🤣 No, I'm well aware that I'm very blessed by geography. I've kind of made some of my own luck that way, but still, I'm pretty thankful.
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There are two outdoor activities I prefer to do over all others. One is chase pheasants and the other is to catch King Salmon especially on a fly rod. So I settled in Ak figuring I would spend more time fishing and then travel to the lower 48 every fall to chase pheasants. Also factored in was there are way less people in AK and I would make way more money so traveling to hunt pheasants would be very doable. Forward 40 plus years and I still travel to hunt pheasants, but the King Salmon are basically extinct in my area, so maybe I made the wrong decision as where to live.Hindsight and what ifs?
 
I have enjoyed every week that I have hunted early or late season, but I would probably choose week 3-4? The weather has always been moderate and most crops are out.
 
carptom1 said:
Your opinion doesn’t count because you don’t have to pick. You kind of suck and I kind of have a resentment against you guys that live up there.😀 . But still post about your hunts because I like reading them
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😂😀
Tom..I always had a hard time deciding myself ..when I had one of those ..darn job things🙄
Have now decided on opener until last guiding commitment in December!!
Need to rest up some now..had two tough weeks fishing in Alaska🙄..just got home yesterday.
 
2nd week of season. That's usually (emphasize usually), on our 6 farms, time enough to have corn out. Nobody hunts those farms opening week so we have bunched up, un-spooked birds. And normally the weather is still good although 2020 we hunted in snow all week.
 
dawgs14 said:
2nd week of season. That's usually (emphasize usually), on our 6 farms, time enough to have corn out. Nobody hunts those farms opening week so we have bunched up, un-spooked birds. And normally the weather is still good although 2020 we hunted in snow all week.
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That sounds like a good setup - Everyone pushes birds off of public ground for a couple of weeks into your private and then let the turkey shoot commence... If you ever need a guy with couple of great bird dogs to help out with that you just let me know ;)

We always go out 2nd week on public and find it varies year-year. Sometimes it is great, especially if opener was too hot or rainy, or the crops just came out. Some years it is the worst - crops still in and dumb birds were shot the weekend before (or pushed to one of your private farms).

2020 was fun though - Fresh foot of snow and the birds had no idea what to do so they just sat there waiting for a dog to flush them.
 
Woollybob said:
That sounds like a good setup - Everyone pushes birds off of public ground for a couple of weeks into your private and then let the turkey shoot commence... If you ever need a guy with couple of great bird dogs to help out with that you just let me know ;)

We always go out 2nd week on public and find it varies year-year. Sometimes it is great, especially if opener was too hot or rainy, or the crops just came out. Some years it is the worst - crops still in and dumb birds were shot the weekend before (or pushed to one of your private farms).

2020 was fun though - Fresh foot of snow and the birds had no idea what to do so they just sat there waiting for a dog to flush them.
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We're in the New Holland, Platte, Corsica area and the birds had been tough to come by until 2020. Last two years has been really good. Not 1999-2008 good but much better than 2015-2019.
 
I've been doing roughly the first 8-10 days of November for the last 20 years

- the early season hunters of October are usually done and gone by then
- more corn and other crops are gone, moves the birds more towards the remaining cover
- cooler weather than October, I don't like the dogs getting too hot, but usually the weather is still fairly mild

- lastly, I don't think I've seen it mentioned here; that also covers a good portion of the Minnesota deer season for rifle hunters and I always feel like a lot of the Minnesota hunters in SD for birds may be back in MN to try to get their deer. Maybe that's flawed thinking but it makes me feel better about the time that I pick though.

Now that I bought a house up in SD though, I can go a lot more often, be less specific about when I go, and from reading here, I'm liking just after Thanksgiving more and more. I've done some MUCH later season hunting (Christmas to the end of January) and there's a lot of birds but damn are they hard to get up on them.
 
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