UGUIDE
Active member
8 Camps in 8 Days
As promised I said I'd give an update on the results of a whirlwind trip to hunt and stay at all the pheasant camps I consult with and book for. Now I can truly say "yes" when someone asks "Chris, have you hunted and stayed at this place?" I'll try to make this short.....
The first day we hit the Century Farm and the Choteau Creek. We hunted a few plots on the Century farm with no luck and then we got into them. Weedy milo with nearby cattail sloughs was the ticket. We hit a couple more plots while picking up a few more birds and it was getting late so we decided to head over to the Choteau property. There was one section here that I had not hunted before, the fabled Section #34. Long story short is we put up about 1000 birds in about 2 hours. Lot's of standing corn, CRP, Milo and trees. We initial went in from one end with 11 guys but the birds were ahead of us. We started to send out flankers and walking blockers and then we started getting birds. I had 4 in my game bag in about 10 minutes. We ended the day there about sunset.
Next day we hit the Cattail Haven and had a similar expereince although the cover was very diverse (CRP, Koshia, Cattail sloughs, food plots and just generally dirty farming). We put up about 1000 birds there from 10-3. Some held surprising ly tight and we had several points from labs. From 4-5 my partner and I did a little road hunting since he was behind the camera most of 1st and second day. We added 2 more birds to the game bag and saw a few whitetails to boot.
The next day we were off for Presho and the Double Oarlock. Sure enough you could tell the area was hit hard by drought. All the birds we saw were in and around the farmsteads where ther was trees food and cover. We also got birds out of weedy corn stubble plots, corn silage piles surrounded by Koshia and road ditches near farmsteads when road hunting.
The following day we were off to Highmore and the J Bar Lazy 7. Here is a 5000 acre ranch with hardly a lick of CRP. The bird pop would support this. The highlight was some successful milo food plots which had been no-tilled in and were waist high. We found several roosters and an abundance of hens. The highlight for me was shooting my first sharptail. The owner has plans to get some CRP in for next year. Yeah!!
The next day we packed up, loaded up on coffee and were on the road to Timber Lake and the West River Adventures Camp in Dewey County. The day presented some fog and frosty conditions and gave us one of those frosted tree kind of back drops. Very beautiful. Our slow start afforded us the opportunity to pick up a few birds road hunting on the way there. Once we arrived we hit a shlterbelt by the owners place and knocked down several birds and miss several more. That was fun. We hunted some other plots and found that the birds had congregated in the tree rows in a 1000 acre walk-in adjacent to the 1000 acres of CRP we were hunting. Long story short we must have seen several hundred birds which were higly educated. with only 3 guys it was next to impossible to get close to them. The birds won that round.
And on the last of our hunting days we headed for Ipswich and the Ipswich Pheasant Camp. Here we found birds in the cattail sloughs and what remained of the standing corn fields which were stunted as evidenced by the lack of moisture. We found and killed birds in sloughs, food plots and CRP and tree groves.
We headed back for Lake Andes and the Pheasant Camp Lodge but did not hunt it since other hunters had the weekends book and I did not want to upset the rest schedule on the property. Besides, I am headed back out there for a week of hunting after Christmas with fathers, sons and friends and will give you guys a report on that one around the New Year.
I hope this Holiday Season finds you and yours in good spirits and good health. Let me know if you have any questions on the particulars.
As promised I said I'd give an update on the results of a whirlwind trip to hunt and stay at all the pheasant camps I consult with and book for. Now I can truly say "yes" when someone asks "Chris, have you hunted and stayed at this place?" I'll try to make this short.....
The first day we hit the Century Farm and the Choteau Creek. We hunted a few plots on the Century farm with no luck and then we got into them. Weedy milo with nearby cattail sloughs was the ticket. We hit a couple more plots while picking up a few more birds and it was getting late so we decided to head over to the Choteau property. There was one section here that I had not hunted before, the fabled Section #34. Long story short is we put up about 1000 birds in about 2 hours. Lot's of standing corn, CRP, Milo and trees. We initial went in from one end with 11 guys but the birds were ahead of us. We started to send out flankers and walking blockers and then we started getting birds. I had 4 in my game bag in about 10 minutes. We ended the day there about sunset.
Next day we hit the Cattail Haven and had a similar expereince although the cover was very diverse (CRP, Koshia, Cattail sloughs, food plots and just generally dirty farming). We put up about 1000 birds there from 10-3. Some held surprising ly tight and we had several points from labs. From 4-5 my partner and I did a little road hunting since he was behind the camera most of 1st and second day. We added 2 more birds to the game bag and saw a few whitetails to boot.
The next day we were off for Presho and the Double Oarlock. Sure enough you could tell the area was hit hard by drought. All the birds we saw were in and around the farmsteads where ther was trees food and cover. We also got birds out of weedy corn stubble plots, corn silage piles surrounded by Koshia and road ditches near farmsteads when road hunting.
The following day we were off to Highmore and the J Bar Lazy 7. Here is a 5000 acre ranch with hardly a lick of CRP. The bird pop would support this. The highlight was some successful milo food plots which had been no-tilled in and were waist high. We found several roosters and an abundance of hens. The highlight for me was shooting my first sharptail. The owner has plans to get some CRP in for next year. Yeah!!
The next day we packed up, loaded up on coffee and were on the road to Timber Lake and the West River Adventures Camp in Dewey County. The day presented some fog and frosty conditions and gave us one of those frosted tree kind of back drops. Very beautiful. Our slow start afforded us the opportunity to pick up a few birds road hunting on the way there. Once we arrived we hit a shlterbelt by the owners place and knocked down several birds and miss several more. That was fun. We hunted some other plots and found that the birds had congregated in the tree rows in a 1000 acre walk-in adjacent to the 1000 acres of CRP we were hunting. Long story short we must have seen several hundred birds which were higly educated. with only 3 guys it was next to impossible to get close to them. The birds won that round.
And on the last of our hunting days we headed for Ipswich and the Ipswich Pheasant Camp. Here we found birds in the cattail sloughs and what remained of the standing corn fields which were stunted as evidenced by the lack of moisture. We found and killed birds in sloughs, food plots and CRP and tree groves.
We headed back for Lake Andes and the Pheasant Camp Lodge but did not hunt it since other hunters had the weekends book and I did not want to upset the rest schedule on the property. Besides, I am headed back out there for a week of hunting after Christmas with fathers, sons and friends and will give you guys a report on that one around the New Year.
I hope this Holiday Season finds you and yours in good spirits and good health. Let me know if you have any questions on the particulars.
