Please Help. First SD Trip This Fall

yup key word is if frozen 2 to a bag ...

i just dress my birds... ill leave all the feathers on till i eat 1 or get them home hope fully 3 to a bag...

ive had really bad luck leaveing birds out side not in a cooler left 2 roosters a mn limit on my roof of van 1 yr at a hotel damn cat stole 1 birds eat most the other bird lol up grouse hunting in mn had weasl and pine martin steel my birds now they go in a chaep styrofoam cooler at least plus in a plastic bag from a store tied in a knot...

i was checked while camping at a camp/rest area last yr middle of nite a sd county sherriff rolls up shines lite in my van i get out chat with him and b4 he leaves he say i better do my job a? checks my drivers license on radio and hunting license along with my birds b4 he left i had 9 birds 3 to a bag he just said wow all on public land thats good wear u hunting??? i told him sone b/s area and he left if it was not 10:30 at nite i mite of been more helpfull to the guy...???
 
Gettin Birdy said:
I started coming to SD from Ohio several years ago and here is my advice (I still go to SD every year but live in TX now).

1. If you hunt first week expect a lot of people on public land. I would not go first week if I did not have land lined up that was private.
2. If you hunt later in season like mid Nov or even Dec you will have several public places to hunt with little pressure.
3. If you hunt in Nov and Dec you can hunt public while knocking on doors and asking to hunt. Many people later in the season will let you hunt if you have a small group.
4. I used to believe paying was not right for me. After 20 years of hunting IA, SD, IL, KS, NE for birds I have come to meet some great farmers that we pay to hunt. However I look at it as habitat expenses are being covered. If you think a farmer is getting wealthy on 150/day/gun not a chance. Make sure they have good habitat and birds before you decide to pay!
5. The further you are away from the main towns the better the chances of finding farmers to let you hunt private.

Good luck hunting!
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Follow this and you will have a great time. Mid november on private access eases up a little, in my experience. Also public is a ghost town during the week after thanksgiving. As far as paying a trespass fee goes, the farmer planting food plots and leaving some for the birds, is not getting rich at 150 a day. I do a mixture of both.
 
First time

I'm relatively new to all of this too, and hunt public and pay to hunt some. Don't forget about the ditches. I spend a fair amount of time in the ditch bottoms and I've been surprised at the luck I've had. I try to stop and ask if I can hunt their ditches and even tho for the most part the right-a-way is legal, they appreciate knowing that I'm there. A couple of farmers allowed me access. I spend most of the time out there as a single hunter so ditches lend themselves pretty well to that situation.
 
Can you guys give me a run down of where (what cover) to look for pheasants in the morning and where they will be in the afternoon and then in the evening. I know they can be everywhere but any general rule of thumb for the different time of day and where you will most likely find pheasant?

Thanks!
 
Depends on the party. If I have my kids I stay close to the road, mostly ditches and stuff. When it's just me, I look for cat tails close to a feed source. Sloughs in grain fields where no one else wants to walk. You can't hunt until after the birds have transitioned from morning feeding to roosting so I focus there. Never really had to hunt into the evening, but road hunting is a good way to wind down after a long day.
 
atbrdly said:
Can you guys give me a run down of where (what cover) to look for pheasants in the morning and where they will be in the afternoon and then in the evening. I know they can be everywhere but any general rule of thumb for the different time of day and where you will most likely find pheasant?

Thanks!
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Mid-day "Loafing" areas are a good place to start in the afternoon. Typically I would describe loafing cover as good protective cover convenient to a morning food source (ideal is harvested corn) and also probably convenient to evening roosting cover. Having all three close by is a great situation for the birds and a great place to start looking.

Again this approach works well after the majority of crops have been harvested. If corn is still up where you are hunting the corn often becomes both the morning food source and the loafing cover.

Evening or more appropriately the "Golden Hour" before hunting closes is ruled by good roosting cover. Good roosting cover provides thermal protection for the evening and can be prairie grass or marsh grass. I've seen roosters use both when available but the taller thicker marsh grass and eventually cattails get used more & more often once snow & cold come into the picture.

Roosting cover close to a food source in general is the best. When the corn is still up I love to start hunting roosting cover during the golden hour right next to the edge of the crop fields. Often the roosters will just walk from the corn into the grass rather than expose themselves while flying. They may not stop close to the edge but they will leave a trail and if your dog is good with ground scenting then the game is on.

Once the corn is harvested the roosters will more frequently fly between the food source and roosting cover. In this instance I linger less near the edges and hunt more towards the thicker roosting cover or middle of the fields.

Goes without saying but all of the above is relative and fluid. Mid-season for instance means things are in transition so the birds can and do utilize a lot of different cover and what they choose as good cover can change day-to-day.

Hunting public land also introduces the variable of increased hunting pressure. In this situation the definition of good loafing cover and sometimes even good roosting cover can change a lot. Roosters do get pushed into some pretty thin cover or pretty small patches of cover. Prospecting pays off in these situations.
 
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Thanks downtown bang and reifer! I just returned from Michigan hunting grouse and woodcock and it seemed like I needed to be a biologist to find those things!!! I am hoping SD pheasant is not the same case. SO basically I could find pheasant in anything near a food source other than a harvested bean field (absolutely no cover) or mowed grass/pasture etc?

One other question. I am trying to put the finalizations on my trip and am going to be hunting public....

What areas would you more concentrate on finding example WIA, GPA, WPA, CREP, Etc??? which areas would you try before others? so say I hunt around Aberdeen......Would you try and hit the GPA's or would you try and hit the WIA's? or are they all about the same? Is any better than others?
 
I too am heading to SD for first time this year. I've always hunted North Dakota but after moving to Illinois....South Dakota is much closer....will be something new. I've done my homework...hope it pays off...just me and my 2 wirehairs... hunting all public...leaving this Saturday...hunting for 4 days. all this talk about snakes has got me a bit "rattled" I don't want to see any rattlesnakes...trying to go back again 3rd week of November for a couple days also.
 
atbrdly said:
Thanks downtown bang and reifer! I just returned from Michigan hunting grouse and woodcock and it seemed like I needed to be a biologist to find those things!!! I am hoping SD pheasant is not the same case. SO basically I could find pheasant in anything near a food source other than a harvested bean field (absolutely no cover) or mowed grass/pasture etc?

One other question. I am trying to put the finalizations on my trip and am going to be hunting public....

What areas would you more concentrate on finding example WIA, GPA, WPA, CREP, Etc??? which areas would you try before others? so say I hunt around Aberdeen......Would you try and hit the GPA's or would you try and hit the WIA's? or are they all about the same? Is any better than others?
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All of the above public parcel types can work. It just depends on the location and quality of the cover. I have some public parcels where the cover is good enough and diverse enough that I hunt them every year. Large parcels with lots of marginal cover I tend to only hunt during years when harvested corn is adjacent to them. Parcels with good roosting cover very near crop fields I actually like to hunt when the corn is still standing but in these situations tend to concentrate on the Golden Hour.

I know it sounds like the variables are endless but it is really just about reading the cover relative to the time of day, pheasant behavior etc. and making good choices. For instance if the corn harvest is very late in a given year I spend a lot of time early in the day trying to find good loafing cover near a cut soybean field. Because of hunting pressure cattail sloughs on public land very often hold good numbers of birds. Being a solo hunter with just one dog I don't hunt them early to mid-season unless I have to but smaller sloughs inside or adjacent to crop fields can be very productive even for a solo guy or small group.

I use the morning hours before hunting opens to scout. Take notes right on the hunting atlas and then use that information to formulate my plan for the day.

Some general observations on the specific public access types. In areas where waterfowl hunting is very good lots of the walk-in areas will be acquired for that specific purpose and although they will hold some pheasants the hunting can be very tough. Some of the cover in the CREP parcels is still pretty thin and in some cases downright poor. A lot of WPA's are not actively managed and have very mature grass stands that may not be heavily used by pheasants if better options on private land are close by. In general GPA's tend to have the most diverse cover and are the most actively managed but again in certain areas they may not be managed for pheasants specifically and also tend to get the most hunting pressure. Like above scouting and making good choices can be the key.
 
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