Sanity Check?

TomU

TomU

Active member
Coming up from Utah for solo Pheasant Nov 10 for 7 days. Searched all the forums, looked at the harvest maps, spoke to conservation officers and scoured ONX. Originally settled on basing out of Plankington, but now I'm leaning towards Webster. Webster appears to have more public land with good crop land and a decent bird outlook. Am I making a mistake?
 
That area and north of it have had substantial rain. Better plan accordingly. Many crops were late or not planted at all. This makes hunting tougher this year but maybe better for years to come.
 
TomU said:
Coming up from Utah for solo Pheasant Nov 10 for 7 days. Searched all the forums, looked at the harvest maps, spoke to conservation officers and scoured ONX. Originally settled on basing out of Plankington, but now I'm leaning towards Webster. Webster appears to have more public land with good crop land and a decent bird outlook. Am I making a mistake?
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I think your original plan is better.
 
If it was me I'd hunt around Plankington, even though there is less public land. Definitely higher bird numbers there than Webster area.
 
While you may find some pheasants in the Webster area it's not a pheasant hot spot. I live in Watertown (50 miles SE of Webster) and bird numbers have been down in this area for many years. You may see a lot of public land in the Webster area but the majority of it is WPA consisting of sloughs and cattails, difficult to hunt. I'm not familiar with the Plankinton area but I think there are much better areas than Webster.
 
There are certainly birds in Webster, or even East of there in Minnesota. But if you are looking for a population density that is more representative of the SD hype you need to head further West. Many (like me) drive through Webster on their way West. The James River Valley to the MO river is the more traditional 'hot spot'.

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TomU said:
Coming up from Utah for solo Pheasant Nov 10 for 7 days. Searched all the forums, looked at the harvest maps, spoke to conservation officers and scoured ONX. Originally settled on basing out of Plankington, but now I'm leaning towards Webster. Webster appears to have more public land with good crop land and a decent bird outlook. Am I making a mistake?
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Do you make it to South Dakota very often or is this a rare trip? If its a rare trip, I'd suggest the Plankinton (no 'g') area just because it is a more traditional pheasant area. There will be more competition for public land down there, but there are also more pheasants. Plus, the ditches are legal to hunt.

Do you and your dog have plenty of experience hunting pheasants? If so, I think you'd be fine going to Webster. I'd spend a day or more scouting before engaging your license. As others noted, population density isn't as high and there's a lot of water in the area, but you'll have as much land as you could dream to hunt on. It might mean hunting several parcels in a day and focusing on the best habitat in each spot, but it's beautiful country and if you are striking out, it isn't that hard to drive west into the James River valley.
 
Don’t pin yourself down, you don’t need to. You can’t hunt til 10, be mobile and scout and hunt what looks good. Pick a town midway between and burn some gas…160 miles between the 2….80 miles is nothing…get there early, hunt your way back to the motel…pick new areas each day…by day 3-4 you’ll know where birds are.
 
It's unanimous. I originally picked Plankinton but then seeing so much WPA instead of the Walk in, CREP and GMA mix I was expecting I started second guessing myself. A little more digging and I'm finding that WPA's aren't just for ducks and there is some other public stuff I can drive to that's not too far so I'll stick with Plankinton!

Golden Hour, This will be my first SD hunt. My dog is 18 months old. We hunted KS last December with some other pups but hunting was dismal and he didn't get the amount of experience I was hoping for. But he works well, has enormous drive and loves training. His favorite activity is finding and retrieving whole (frozen) Pheasant & Quail hidden in the sagebrush around the house so hopefully that will help once we get back in the field.

Thanks for your advice and comments.
Tom
 
TomU said:
A little more digging and I'm finding that WPA's aren't just for ducks and there is some other public stuff I can drive to that's not too far so I'll stick with Plankinton!
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For what it's worth, in the part(s) of the state I hunt, WPAs are the best, on average. Have fun where you end up!!
 
Woollybob said:
There are certainly birds in Webster, or even East of there in Minnesota. But if you are looking for a population density that is more representative of the SD hype you need to head further West. Many (like me) drive through Webster on their way West. The James River Valley to the MO river is the more traditional 'hot spot'.

View attachment 3843
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Not that many years ago that dark orange area in eastern SD was west of the Missouri.
 
Funny to me that you landed on those two spots. I scout and hunt exclusively so I get around to a lot of the east river. I turn around and head back north at about Wessington Springs to stay on the best grounds so Plankinton would be at the edge of what I would recommend. We often road hunt home to MN but put away the guns when we reach Webster as there is little ever seen near or east of there in my experience.

There is a sweet spot down the middle of that GFP map above. Draw a line from Sioux Falls to Mobridge. Stay within 50 miles either side of that line. West of that area is cattle country and not enough crops to sustain large bird populations until you get right near the Missouri River. Little grass to hunt either as it has been mowed/grazed hard. East of that line it gets too wet too often as I never seem to find good bird numbers consistently around bodies of water larger than a cattle dugout.

That farther northwest you follow that line, the fewer hunting lodges and public areas. I suppose because the crop numbers are consistently better so farming that ground pays better than a hunting setup or keeping it in government programs. Willing to supplement public land hunts with scouting, driving, hunting ditches and knocking on doors for access?- head towards the northwest where you will find less hunter pressure. Want a more sure thing with public land and outfitters, stay towards Sioux Falls but deal with the competition, though that will have died down considerably in the 3-4 weeks after opener that you are planning to go.
 
PeteRevvv said:
Funny to me that you landed on those two spots. I scout and hunt exclusively so I get around to a lot of the east river. I turn around and head back north at about Wessington Springs to stay on the best grounds so Plankinton would be at the edge of what I would recommend. We often road hunt home to MN but put away the guns when we reach Webster as there is little ever seen near or east of there in my experience.

There is a sweet spot down the middle of that GFP map above. Draw a line from Sioux Falls to Mobridge. Stay within 50 miles either side of that line. West of that area is cattle country and not enough crops to sustain large bird populations until you get right near the Missouri River. Little grass to hunt either as it has been mowed/grazed hard. East of that line it gets too wet too often as I never seem to find good bird numbers consistently around bodies of water larger than a cattle dugout.

That farther northwest you follow that line, the fewer hunting lodges and public areas. I suppose because the crop numbers are consistently better so farming that ground pays better than a hunting setup or keeping it in government programs. Willing to supplement public land hunts with scouting, driving, hunting ditches and knocking on doors for access?- head towards the northwest where you will find less hunter pressure. Want a more sure thing with public land and outfitters, stay towards Sioux Falls but deal with the competition, though that will have died down considerably in the 3-4 weeks after opener that you are planning to go.
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Jesus Pete you might as well post up a map with all youre favorite spots with a big red X on them. :ROFLMAO:
 
I'll do that after opener when I find out where they are again in large numbers this year. I do that every year if you look at my past posts. Exception is 2021 when I was out sick- avg non-resident bag success was down 13%- coincidence? I don't think so. Every area holds some birds year after year but I am talking about densities that allow us to get birds every year with just one week to find them. We trade max effort to find large bird numbers vs. max effort to scratch out some birds on the same marginal ground year after year. Fun for us and when I say YMMV, I really mean that.

That's 200x50 miles or 10,000 sq miles of a general suggestion. There are 9 states smaller than that. Granted, my situation is a little different than many posters here-
  • I hunt a lot of ditches without a dog so my "public walk in area" is every gravel road with a cornfield beside it. I have a lot of options. I don't covet the perfect WIA with the perfect cover and 50 acres to work the dog/s. Not my thing- you're welcome to it if I run across it so I'll let you know.
  • Hotspots with lots of birds can go dormant for 5, 10 or 20 years. The triangle of Doland, Conde, Watertown was super hot in the 90s. We called it the chicken coop. It flooded a couple years, hailed some others, crop changes happened and it hasn't been the same since, like Dakotazeb indicated.
  • 80% of birds you get are this year's hatch. If a whole bunch of people shoot up the area I suggest, they'll jus make more. You can't hoard birds from year to year.
  • Smaller 10x10 mile sections change almost every year for good bird numbers based on micro-climate changes like rain, hail or a farmer deciding to mow ditches this year. More than likely, I'll be 50 miles away the next year anyway.
Who's going to listen to me or would actually show up opening week? New hunters gonna be head down in an atlas like teenagers on tiktok and waiting for prime weather in Nov.
 
Pete,
Thanks for "the line" and general information. I went into ONX and drew it. My plan was to work roughly north and NE of Plankinton. That will take me towards the line and hopefully into birdy areas. This, and the other comments in this post give me some comfort in my choice. Now I just have to wait ‘till November, pound some ground and hope for the best.

On a side note, I found out that there are a lot of Urban's in the Plankinton area. Maybe I'll find a distant relative with a section or two of good hunting :)

Tom (Urban)
 
TomU said:
Pete,
Thanks for "the line" and general information. I went into ONX and drew it. My plan was to work roughly north and NE of Plankinton. That will take me towards the line and hopefully into birdy areas. This, and the other comments in this post give me some comfort in my choice. Now I just have to wait ‘till November, pound some ground and hope for the best.

On a side note, I found out that there are a lot of Urban's in the Plankinton area. Maybe I'll find a distant relative with a section or two of good hunting :)

Tom (Urban)
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Say hi to Keith
 
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