Urgent help needed

D

ddeslau

New member
Hunting near Onida/Pierre...had private land secured but fell through. We've hunted public the last 2 days with 7 guys, 10 dogs, over 20 miles of walking, and have 2 birds to show for it.

Looking for some private land with reasonable trespass fees for tomorrow and or Saturday. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Doug
 
Please don't take this as mean spirited, but I think you're doing something wrong. That many guys/dogs in that area should be putting up more birds than that.
 
The Pierre area gets pounded quite a bit. I would suggest heading north and east:
Faulkton, Orient, Polo, perhaps Gettysburg. Can't imagine 20 miles and only two birds in the bag!

Good luck - please report when you have time...
 
no birds there.......7 guys and 10 dogs could follow each other and find way more birds......in a normal year....what's wrong is the lack of birds...there are large areas which may be devoid of birds.....we found this to be true as well...things are changing in SD....i still see a scarcity of habitat as a real problem.....one guy has it and it is miles down the road to the next place...in those areas the public ground may be the only decent cover to hunt, so it sees a lot of traffic....hoping things rebound next year..but depends on a host of factors.
 
Still no luck..

I've been hunting over 30 years and like to think I know what I'm doing most days...not offended by your comment mutthunt but again today 2 birds with same group. We took johnnyb's advice and headed northeast but still wasn't much better. We hunted mostly game production areas with beautiful cover. Saw a few more hens but I think without good private land public hunting spots are hit to hard to be productive early in the season.

Haymaker thanks for the PM, sorry we couldn't make it work.
 
Am curious...are you still in SD wandering about, looking for birds? Can you send a final summary of your hunt?

Thanks!
 
ddeslau said:
I've been hunting over 30 years and like to think I know what I'm doing most days...not offended by your comment mutthunt but again today 2 birds with same group. We took johnnyb's advice and headed northeast but still wasn't much better. We hunted mostly game production areas with beautiful cover. Saw a few more hens but I think without good private land public hunting spots are hit to hard to be productive early in the season.

Haymaker thanks for the PM, sorry we couldn't make it work.
Click to expand...




You hit the nail on the head with GPA being unproductive early. They tend to get better later in the season, especially the ones with cattails. But don't discount public ground as a whole. I hunt a lot of public ground and some of it has been very good year after year. It's a matter of branching out and covering ground until you can dial in on some birds.

Forgive me if I missed it but are you hunting with dogs as well?
 
public is dried up

Hunted public land Friday and Saturday....got a rooster each day but that was because of some good shooting!!!!! Was 1 for 1 on roosters on Friday and 1 for 2 on roosters Saturday......hunted wia, and GPA's.....Saw lots of hens though. 2 guys 1 tired dog. Birds were skittish at best and had to walk and walk and walk to find them......tried new tactic on Sunday...limit by 1pm, all public stayed off the big GPA's concentrated on WIA that had harvested corn.....figured the corn was still up for some of the season, and very little cover for a group of say 5 guys to even consider....well these worked out well for 2 guys and a dog..we hunted fence rows...small sloughs and shelterbelts and saw over 50 roosters!!! No way a group of 4 could hunt the cover we hunted together. Really just nice walking for a single guy and dog. I'll be back in December for rd 3! I love SD!
 
Private land much more productive

3 days of public hunting and not much to show for it. We were able to get on some private ground the last day of our trip and were much more successful, limited out in 4 hours. Found a local farmer with CRP that charged a modest trespass fee. I am still surprised by the lack of birds we saw on the public grounds, some of which were literally across the street from the private ground we hunted.

Overall we had a great trip. I would hunt public lands again but in future I would hold off on hunting the GPAs until later in the year, the WIAs we drove past were a waste of time, think golf course length grass, and some of the CREP spots had really nice cover as well.
 
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