Opening Day Reports

meridiannursery

New member
I figured someone should get this new thread going. Looking for: Total number in hunting party....Total number birds...Area hunted... Total hours hunting....Finish time if bird limit accomplished...Feel free to spice it up with a funny story or two....I.E. how ur hunting buddy missed 7 birds in a row or had to many cocktails and hit the sack at 7 p.m.
 
Good thread.

UGUIDE will once again be collecting its harvest data at each Pheasant Camp each week and posting its results for public consumption on the UGUIDE Blog section. This year we added cripples to the metric data as they tell part of the overall picture.

http://www.uguidesdpheasants.com/news/category/pheasant-outlook-forecast-report/

Keep in mind. The data should be qualified with the fact that you know nothing about the shooting skills, dog skills or hunting skills of the group which has a TREMENDOUS impact on harvest data. Case in point is I had group of seven hunting at my farm, week 7 last year and they had 3 birds to there name after 3 days of hunting. All they told me was "We'd like to see a few more of them dumb birds". Needless to say the week 8 group came in behind them and said if they could shoot they would have had their limit everyday and rebooked there hunt for this year.:cheers:
 
Wishing everyone good hunting tomorrow on a the biggest holiday in the state of South Dakota. Yes I call it a holiday. Wish I was going. But with an injured dog I will wait until next week to get back at it. Don't feel too bad for me though. Still have plenty of days off after that to hit the fields. Hope to hear good reports and some good stories in the coming days.
 
Ole Roy and I have been sittin out at a slough at sunset watching the sun go down and watching wildlife. We call it "flight of the pheasant" because at last light the birds fly into this 10 acre slough to roost. The neighbor was combining his adjacent cornfield and he commented about how many birds he saw combining. We saw saw mainly roosters which could be an early indicator of a good hatch in June. Saw a nice buck and a bunch of does a fawns. Nice to see after the 2012 EHD.

Good Luck everyone.
 
A friend of mine from Sioux Falls called and invited me to hunt with him and 3 others on some private land west of Brookings. They don't have any dogs. So for lack of any place else to hunt on the opener I'm taking both dogs and heading down there. I don't expect we will find a lot of birds but the dogs and I can get some exercise. My 11 year old Britt hasn't had much exercise so I hope to put her down in some small fields and give Elle a break. But elle will have to do the heavy lifting. Good luck to all!
 
Back from the hunt west of Brookings and in the Volga area. 6 guys, 2 kids and 3 dogs. We hunted until nearly 4:00 and shot the only 2 roosters we saw. Only saw about 3 hens. Great cover but lots of crops in the field yet. The Good News, I'm 1 for 1 this season. Batting a 1,000 pct. :)
 
Let us know how things end up. Can't make it out this year, but I'm very curious on how things go. Good luck everyone.
 
keep the reports coming!!!

On duty today, so not able to go on opener. Will be heading there mid-week. Been checking the phone every half hour for reports, how sad is that:(
 
david0311

Hunting privaate land betweenWinner and Chamberlain

12 guys from down south NorthCarolina and Vic.

22 birds all wild

hunted from12 withahour for lunch...quit about 5

weather to warm for me prefer colder
 
The guy who owns the farm where we will be hunting next weekend said he had 8 guy's and they limited in 3 hrs:eek:. This group has hunted the weekend before me since I have hunted this farm. They are older and don't have good dogs. If they limited in three hours there are a lot of birds. He also said everybody he talked to limited quickly.

BTW that was with all the milo and 70% of the corn still in. Imagine that:) I guess those guy's should have stayed home. Can't wait till thursday morning
 
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Group pictures of dead birds, isn't really my style, so this will have to do..
 
11 hunters and 29 birds--saw lots and lots of birds I can't believe the number of hens we saw. Had a 150 + bird flush on the 1st walk---we knew they were there and 4 of us got in between the CRP and the corn field they wanted to get to--cut off the best of the escape routes did a number on them. That worked today --want to bet how it will work for the rest of the season.:D

Had a friends young (14 ) son walk up to me and say " wow that was just explosive" He had a limit with three shots. :thumbsup:

My take is that at least on my land the birds are back and in good numbers and there are a lot of hens. :10sign:

One down note--one of the hunters got SKUNKED today--not real bad but bad enough
 
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Near Winner, private ground, wild birds, five hunters, fifteen roosters in two hours. Very dry conditions so the dog work was spotty and we lost a few cripples that we shouldn't have. Saw far, far more birds than last year's opener on the same ground. No long spurs on any of the fifteen birds - all this year's hatch. A friend who co-wons the ground with me shot a beautiful piebald rooster at the end of the hunt that will soon occupy a spot on the wall in his office. This is my forty-second year of hunting in SD and I've never seen a bird like that.

We saw dozens and dozens of birds on the highway from Presho to Winner, far more roosters than hens.

Overall, an encouraging start to the season.
 
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