Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge

J

jackrabbit

Active member
I still have a 5 day period of my hunting license to use. I am very familiar with SD pheasant hunting in the central and southern parts of the state, but have never been to this area. I am maybe looking at switching up the areas for a January hunt if the weather and dates cooperate.

I am just looking for some very general observations from people who have hunted this area before? Is it all cattails around the lake? Is it grasslands within or around the cattails? Is it accessible in the winter? From what I have researched, it probably holds quite a few birds, it is probably pretty tough to walk/hunt, but they are there if they don't flush out wild or have so much cattail cover that they never have to fly and can just burrow down in them.
 
So far the snow depth isn't terrible. Most of the refuge is cattails and the perimeter has grasslands. The perimeter is a mixture of high diversity seedings, warm season plantings and brome stands. I've hunted it twice now this year. First time I was done in 45 minutes. 3 roosters, 3 shots. Second time myself and a friend hunted it and they just wouldn't hold at all. I was able to scrap 2 birds in 4.5 hours of walking cattails. My legs were cramping up that night giving the kids a bath. Sand Lake has birds but I think the bird numbers are way down even on the refuge. I have lived here since 2002. I use to see easily a thousand birds a day granted most of those birds were a half mile away. But now I see maybe 50-100 a day so its definitely tougher. I guarantee you will see birds but these birds are wild and in the cattails.
 
4.5 hrs walking those cattails would have done me in too. Some of those there are impossible. I had some great hunts up there 9 or 10 years ago and the 5 or 6 years before. Used to go every year when they opened it up. When the water is up you can use it as a blocker of sorts even frozen. Those birds learn when they are young they can’t go that way to escape, and it seems many of them have no interest in flying over it even when it’s frozen. Just be careful on that ice in the cattails. I was down there one year and we set up in the tails down from an adjoining cornfield and shot several like ducks when they flew in around the end of shooting hrs. That would have been around 2009. They were thick that year. That was on the west side.
 
If hell was a cool place, Sand Lake would be cooler. In the 80s/90s when the regular season ended in early or mid December & they'd open SL up for a couple weeks, we'd run up for one last hoorah w/ the pheasants. Our very first trip was the day after like a 14" snow. You couldn't fall down if you tried in those cattails; they'd hold you up. Then one time I honestly wasn't sure I'd make it back to the truck. Cold. Dark. Windy. The snow would just about hold you, each step, then you'd break through up to your thigh. For what seemed like miles. Pretty sure that was my last hunt there, & I have no desire to return. But....pheasants.
 
Thanks for the posts all. They kind of sum up what I expected, but wanted to confirm from actual hunters rather than just newspaper articles, tourism sites, etc.

If you are up for a challenge and a tough hunt, go for it, because the birds are there. Are they worth how tough it could be though? Who knows....
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
If hell was a cool place, Sand Lake would be cooler. In the 80s/90s when the regular season ended in early or mid December & they'd open SL up for a couple weeks, we'd run up for one last hoorah w/ the pheasants. Our very first trip was the day after like a 14" snow. You couldn't fall down if you tried in those cattails; they'd hold you up. Then one time I honestly wasn't sure I'd make it back to the truck. Cold. Dark. Windy. The snow would just about hold you, each step, then you'd break through up to your thigh. For what seemed like miles. Pretty sure that was my last hunt there, & I have no desire to return. But....pheasants.
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Post of the year! Damn near spit Diet Coke on my phone reading this post. Not familiar with this place at all but it sounds like a slough on my buddies land that he always wants to walk. I am not sure how he even talks me into walking it.
 
NDPheasant said:
Post of the year! Damn near spit Diet Coke on my phone reading this post. Not familiar with this place at all but it sounds like a slough on my buddies land that he always wants to walk. I am not sure how he even talks me into walking it.
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This is over 20,000 acres. Maybe 1/3 of it is nothing but cattails. Our first trip in 1987 or 88 (so actually, still teenagers), I think we hunted every square foot of them. 🤣 We'd trudge & trudge. See a bunch of birds fly "over there". And trudge some more. Over & over again. 2 of us. No dog. We shot like 7 roosters that day & lost every one of them in that fresh powder. They'd fall & disappear without a trace. Oy.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
This is over 20,000 acres. Maybe 1/3 of it is nothing but cattails. Our first trip in 1987 or 88 (so actually, still teenagers), I think we hunted every square foot of them. 🤣 We'd trudge & trudge. See a bunch of birds fly "over there". And trudge some more. Over & over again. 2 of us. No dog. We shot like 7 roosters that day & lost every one of them in that fresh powder. They'd fall & disappear without a trace. Oy.
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Was goosemaster and his lab with you.......:ROFLMAO:
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Haha. Don't get me wrong. We had some really enjoyable trips up there too. We were in our 20s though, invincible, & planned minimally at best. But boy, was I glad when they lengthened the regular season & I didn't have to do Sand Lake any more.
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Moved to Aberdeen in 1978 and hunted Sand Lake many times for a lot of years. The regular season would close in early December and then they would open up Sand Lake for a few weeks until the end of December. All I remember today is those were some damn cold and difficult hunts. I don't ever remember shooting very man birds. Like A5, I too was glad when they extended the regular season so I didn't have to hunt Sand Lake. With the extended season we have now there are a lot of better and easier places in SD to hunt.
 
I can attest to almost being lost in those cattails. I was up there the first day it opened for upland maybe 2000. It was cold that December and I remember air temperature being somewhere in the 18 below range with wind chills close to -40, but when you make the 8 hr trip and only have 4 days to get it done your not going to sit in the hotel. Me and my buddy hit a patch of standing corn food plot they had in where we got a couple and we saw a bunch moving a couple hundred yards in the cattails. So we headed in. Like A5 said, there is literally no end to those things. I was probably 37 or so and was in good shape, but I got 5 or 6 hundred yards in and they were parts that were 7-8 feet tall. I got tired quickly and got tangled up and went down. My dogs heard me and came over looking a little concerned as part of me just wanted to give up. There are birds in there that probably never get a shot fired at them. Just spend their lives laughing at hunters. It will be an experience for sure. I have gotten too old now for that type of brush busting. Ten yards in the cattails now and I am good
 
A couple of friends and I with our GSP hit Sand Lake a few years back on our annual hunt trip to SD . Mistake!!! _ I am usually good for moderate brush to CRP type covers but I went into those cattails for about 40 yds, that was it. Our GSPs were no good in them. We had to whistle them back for about what seemed forever but actually it was more like 4-5 minutes. They looked at us when they got back with a look as to say "you guys our nuts".
Saw birds but no shot. I had both knee replacements done when I was 55 yrs old and that hunt took it to me. Never been back. I have other SD places to hunt where I can enjoy a glass of bourbon afterwards. For the rest of you brave ones GOOD LUCK.
 
I use to live on Sand Lake NWR. I hunted the late season every chance I could. Walked out of my front door at 10:00am and walked my usual spots. I could usually get my 3 in an hour. The dog I have now grew up there. She loves those cattails and is amazing in them. Every day I hunted that refuge I just thought some day this will have to end but I savored every hunt I had when I was there. I remember sitting in a tree stand in the early season and I could hear my kids playing in the front yard. That place provides memorable hunts but not easy hunts!
 
3car, to me you make it sound like Heaven--now, come on down to Indiana for dinner and convince my WIFE of 48 years!!
 
Wolfchief said:
3car, to me you make it sound like Heaven--now, come on down to Indiana for dinner and convince my WIFE of 48 years!!
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Is this Heaven? No, Its South Dakota.... lol Honestly its insanely tough to hunt deer and pheasants. Almost all cattails, very flat and hardly any trees.
 
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