Opening weekend and Monday, Shocked!!! Kimball, Chamberlain, Platte area.

K

kansaslabman

Member
This was my first non-resident opener in about a decade. And where the heck is all the orange in the fields?

We were stunned at the amount of hunters we saw driving up on Saturday.

We took highway 18 that was south of Mitchell headed towards Platte to try to get on some public hunting with a couple hours to spare before sunset. The first hunter we saw was directly south of Mitchell about 30 miles. This surprised us but figured we would maybe see more hunters. We didn’t see any until we got to our first public hunting spot around Platte. And that was only two hunters for a big public hunting area.

The next public hunting area we went to closing out the last hour or so of the day didn’t have any hunters! We saw about 5 birds at each public hunting spot, but only got two hard shots off at the first spot.

We heard the reports that this was supposed to be the best bird counts in South Dakota in a long time. HMMMM is all I got to say to that.

We hunted private land Sunday and Monday around Chamberlain, Crow Creek, Lyonville and Pukwana and it was pathetic. Great looking habitat too. Tried food plots , sloughs, tree rows, etc. Strips of food plots like Milo near cut corn or cover was best.

The wild bird population has drastically reduced!!!

This was very discouraging!

Saw about 20 birds per day! Not enough for our gang of hunters encouraged by these South Dakota pheasant forecast and reports.

However, what was encouraging is some people telling us that they have gotten into some good quail action around southwest Kansas and prairie chicken numbers in South Dakota in the hundreds!

With all this negative report the scenery is stunning in South Dakota especially Chamberlain and lots of good quality time with friends and got to see our dog sniff up some birds. Our pup was happy!
Oh, by the way, we’ve hunted South Dakota pretty much every year from about 2002 until 2021.
Any feedback on this and why things have changed so much would be appreciated.
I really hope others find some more wild birds than us. We used to see hundreds and in good years around 1000 birds per day.
 
What I've seeing is that fields that we hunted last year are much harder to hunt this year. The grasses are taller and thicker and exhausting to hunt hard. I'm sure there are birds in it but the dogs ( and me) get tired a lot more quickly having to push their way through it. May spend aome time ditch hunting :)
 
SD resident here, I spent 4 days in counties along and just east of the river.

You likely didn't see many hunters Saturday afternoon/evening because it was 70 degrees and most everybody I know shut down their dogs & hunting before it got that warm. Hell I fished in shorts and a hoodie saturday night. Sunday where we hunted, the birds were all in areas where harvested crops, water, and cover were all within 100 yards of each other. Many birds were put up in the shadows of cedars where it felt noticeably cooler. The dogs had a very tough time scenting in the hot and dry conditions. I can't even count how many birds I saw get up behind our walkers while I was posting on Sunday. A cool down, some moisture, and a little more harvest progress and I think we'll really be able to tell what bird numbers truly are; but from my observations on the land I've been on both pheasant hunting and duck hunting, numbers are in fact up.
 
kansaslabman said:
We heard the reports that this was supposed to be the best bird counts in South Dakota in a long time.
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Not sure where you saw or heard that, but SD stopped doing their roadside counts years ago.

The only surefire way to confirm whether there's birds around is to get your boots on the ground or talk to someone that lives in the area, IMO.

You obviously did that now, so the results speak for themselves.
 
The pheasants forever forecast

2024 Pheasant Hunting Forecast

www.pheasantsforever.org www.pheasantsforever.org

Here’s some parts that stood out to me:
…stars finally aligned and reports from across the state are that prime habitat conditions have produced a bumper crop of birds this spring…
“It’s looking like it will be the best fall in a long time,” says Matt Gottlob, Pheasants Forever’s state coordinator in South Dakota. “Pheasant harvest totals from last year were above the 2022-2023 season, and most of the people I talk to in the state are saying bird numbers are as good as they can remember.
gimruis said:
Not sure where you saw or heard that, but SD stopped doing their roadside counts years ago.

The only surefire way to confirm whether there's birds around is to get your boots on the ground or talk to someone that lives in the area, IMO.

You obviously did that now, so the results speak for themselves.
Click to expand...
 
gimruis said:
Pheasants Forever is in the business of promoting upland bird hunting. They aren't going to publicly broadcast that hunting is going to be worse. That's not good marketing.
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I get that. But I thought I’d read reports from them before where they won’t deny drought or floods, etc. Or won’t deny if bird numbers are down in a certain state.
 
kansaslabman said:
The pheasants forever forecast

2024 Pheasant Hunting Forecast

www.pheasantsforever.org www.pheasantsforever.org

Here’s some parts that stood out to me:
…stars finally aligned and reports from across the state are that prime habitat conditions have produced a bumper crop of birds this spring…
“It’s looking like it will be the best fall in a long time,” says Matt Gottlob, Pheasants Forever’s state coordinator in South Dakota. “Pheasant harvest totals from last year were above the 2022-2023 season, and most of the people I talk to in the state are saying bird numbers are as good as they can remember.
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Here’s another report I’d read before going from South Dakota game and fish. Lot of strong words used in this report too.
…one of the best in recent years….
Habitat across the primary pheasant range is looking excellent given favorable conditions throughout the spring and summer.
…“Everything is falling into place”…

 
My experience so far, as well as almost every report I've heard (from people who'd be likely to know), is that bird numbers are up in nearly every part of the state's pheasant range. And up over last year (being a really good year) means they're quite good. Not seeing pheasants during a 3-5 day period doesn't mean they're not around. That's a really small snapshot in time. Uncharacteristically warm weather dictates a special set of tactics.
 
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I drove from PA and hunted a mix of public and private. Bird numbers were awesome on the private. Good on the public. I did not hunt any public in the evenings.
 
So I hunt as much as anyone and I will tell you the weather and the habitat greatly effect the # of birds and most importantly where you will find them. 5 and 6 years ago we had a lot of birds and unusually wet ground and the birds were hard to hunt without hipboots. All the cover meant birds could be dispersed many places. Next we had years of drought with cover shrinking and condensing the birds. There were still good numbers when you could find them.

Now we had a wet spring and the birds had good nesting cover and weather. Bugs were plentiful. Bird numbers are high but the cover is thick and dry. The weather has been warm dry and windy. Birds are everywhere but even great dogs have trouble in these conditions.
 
Weimdogman said:
So I hunt as much as anyone and I will tell you the weather and the habitat greatly effect the # of birds and most importantly where you will find them. 5 and 6 years ago we had a lot of birds and unusually wet ground and the birds were hard to hunt without hipboots. All the cover meant birds could be dispersed many places. Next we had years of drought with cover shrinking and condensing the birds. There were still good numbers when you could find them.

Now we had a wet spring and the birds had good nesting cover and weather. Bugs were plentiful. Bird numbers are high but the cover is thick and dry. The weather has been warm dry and windy. Birds are everywhere but even great dogs have trouble in these conditions.
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Wait. I almost think I hear you saying you could hunt a place 1 year with certain results, but come back to that place another year, it may look fairly similar to how you remember it, but your hunting results could be DIFFERENT, even if you hunt it the same way you did last time??? 😉
 
Weimdogman said:
So I hunt as much as anyone and I will tell you the weather and the habitat greatly effect the # of birds and most importantly where you will find them. 5 and 6 years ago we had a lot of birds and unusually wet ground and the birds were hard to hunt without hipboots. All the cover meant birds could be dispersed many places. Next we had years of drought with cover shrinking and condensing the birds. There were still good numbers when you could find them.

Now we had a wet spring and the birds had good nesting cover and weather. Bugs were plentiful. Bird numbers are high but the cover is thick and dry. The weather has been warm dry and windy. Birds are everywhere but even great dogs have trouble in these conditions.
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Yep, my older lab has had some scent issues this fall.Very dry.She has located some, but its been a challenge.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Wait. I almost think I hear you saying you could hunt a place 1 year with certain results, but come back to that place another year, it may look fairly similar to how you remember it, but your hunting results could be DIFFERENT, even if you hunt it the same way you did last time??? 😉
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Well you might extrapolate something along those lines.
And from there you may deduce that you may need to change your tactics.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
My experience so far, as well as almost every report I've heard (from people who'd be likely to know), is that bird numbers are up in nearly every part of the state's pheasant range. And up over last year (being a really good year) means they're quite good. Not seeing pheasants during a 3-5 day period doesn't mean they're not around. That's a really small snapshot in time. Uncharacteristically warm weather dictates a special set of tactics.
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We hit a new spot each day. All different types of habitat. Sloughs, Food plots, CRP, tree belts, etc.
Day 2 was the best. Huge fieds of cut corn and around it was shelter belts with strips of Milo next to them. That’s where we saw the most wild birds. But still very surprising how little the numbers were.
 
I'm seeing good numbers and there are alot of acres of crop left standing. Less crop in the fields puts more birds in the grass. Also I get a better understanding of "numbers" of birds after it gets cold and they bunch together.
 
That1uncle1776 said:
I'm seeing good numbers and there are alot of acres of crop left standing. Less crop in the fields puts more birds in the grass. Also I get a better understanding of "numbers" of birds after it gets cold and they bunch together.
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For your area, i won’t ask specifically where that is, how many birds is good numbers? Like how many you’d see in a day or good field for example.
 
kansaslabman said:
For your area, i won’t ask specifically where that is, how many birds is good numbers? Like how many you’d see in a day or good field for example.
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Keep in mind if you are north of I90 in the area you mentioned, that prime week of hatch some places had north of 9 inches of rain. I am south of I90 and rain totals were not as bad, and I expect to see 250 to 300+ per day. If we get weather and they group up, I will see more.
 
Really, you only need 2,3 or 4 opportunities depending on the state. Too many birds can be a distraction and counter productive. But it is nice to know the birds are around, if you have access. Some of our best hunting have been in “off” years.
 
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