Just got back from a SD trip over Thanksgiving around the Winner Presho areas. We stayed in Winner and had hunters at our hotel from, Wisc, MN, Col, Ks, Ark, Ne and Ia all looking for the pheasants. All I can say is if it is down 30% then I am shocked as we saw well over 1000 birds, yes we some some on places you couldnt hunt as they ran around like rats in peoples yards and ditches. We also seen a ton if not more sharpies, but because the weather was so warm and extremly dry we had a hard time pinning anything down with the dogs. We did hunt all public ground and found our best success was fields with sorgrem in or around it. Will say one thing about these birds as they know where the escape doors are and how to find them without flying. Look forward to going back in the future after a little snow hits and then next year for the early season sharptails.
Winner area hunt
- Thread starter hunter
- Start date
MiUplander
Member
It'll take a few sightings for sure to be able to distinguish them. Here's a few of the ways I tell the difference:
- If it "cluck-clucks" as it's flying away, it's a sharpie.
- If you see it sitting (in a tree or on the ground feeding), the sharpies will sit with a taller neck/head. Pheasant hens will tend to skulk down.
- Sharpies have a faster wing beat and their wings are curved downward when viewed from behind. Hens have a much louder and slower wing beat with their wings being flatter.
- Sharpies have much shorter tails than hens. Picture the difference between tail feathers of a rooster and a hen, and that is about the same ratio between a hen and a sharpie.
- When you see a bird or birds flying by, the sharpies flap and coast.......flap and coast.......flap and coast and then disappear. The hens will flap like mad to get away and then coast to a landing spot.
- When flushed up close, sharpies are whiter on the underside, while hens are the drab brown.
Hope this helps
Brett
Bird Buster
Active member
A buddy of mine spent all last week around Presho hunting walk in areas and reported having one of his worst trips ever there. Said cover was about a foot lower than the previous year at same places. He said birds were scarce and spooky. I am starting to wonder if the good reports are mainly coming from the private stuff up there. So what kind of #'s out of curiousity did your party come home with?
ranchodeluxe
Member
I think the weather has been so mild that the birds have not been forced into heavy cover yet in Presho area. We stomped the WIA's and GPA N of Presho last week with little success. But there is some very good cover that will get good if it ever get's cold. 47 degrees at 8:30 AM in Murdo this day. There's no shortage of birds in the area,but, talk about wild.
mnmthunting
Banned
It's typical for late season pheasants to be concentrated in the safety zones. Like building sites. Good thing in the long run. Shelter, food and better security from the predators. Smart birds, survivors, how so many survived the brutal winter of 010/011.:thumbsup:
We hunted mainly around Winner and went up close to Preso 1 day, just two of us with 4 dogs and focused mainly on small public areas. We saw allot of hunters being the holiday week so hunted allot of spent ground as the days went on. We hunted four days and limited out all but 1 and we headed home early that day. It was our first trip to SD so we didnt know allot of the area other than our maps so we just looked for the yellow and red dots to hunt and went there. We did hunt fields that people were coming off of but didnt have dogs so we jumped in with ours and produced birds that they never did. I was also told later as we headed home that most of the ground owned up that way around presho is owned by Ted Turner former TV network owner and he has like 120,000 acres in just that area. We went with the intention of just training dogs and getting them on lots of birds and we did so hunt sucessfull for us.
ranchodeluxe
Member
Hunter makes some very good points,many hunters do not use dogs or use dogs which lay on the couch year-round, then are expected to magically transform themslves into gun dogs for five days. I hunted with some guys from out-of-state last week who were frustrated with their dogs inability to perform,they should be frustrated with themselves. I pointed one guy to a known honey hole and sent him in with his dog and watched. It was a right-of-way. I then hunted my Glenwood Springer on the same piece after he told me "ain't nothin' but hens in there". I asked if he wanted to shoot over her, as I had a limit? He told me it was a waste of time. I let two roosters fly away as he and his buddy watched from the truck.
I learned a long time ago by hunting deer in the BH Nat Forest to largely disregard other hunters. For one, you can't do anything about it, but bitch.For two, a lot of hunters simply know not what they are doing.
Bird Buster
Active member
My friend has hunted the same area with good dogs for several years and is a pretty fair hunter so I am going to rule that out. Maybe he hit spots that had just been hunted possibly who knows. Well glad to hear someone else did better around that area on public for sure. Sounds like you had a pretty good trip there Hunter if it was your first time in SD. Congrats!
Didn't go this year to SD but have hunted the past several years around Presho and Winner. I've hunted that lake area(need steel) and had good luck there and yes, it has pressure. Too many hunters only hit the trees, the birds were in the west WIA and north. The last two years mud stopped hunters from using the poor dirt roads. The pay hunters are on the south side of the road and they drive the field away from the lake area. Another WIA was northwest of Presho, mile section of tall grass.
Birds around Winner were better south and east. Had a friend I hunted with on his nephews 6000 acres, some was pasture with lots of sharptails!
Interesting note, my buddy and I hunted eastern CO last Wed and his comment at the end of the day was
'Saw more pheasants today than I saw in 4 days hunting Presho'!:cheers:
Birds around Winner were better south and east. Had a friend I hunted with on his nephews 6000 acres, some was pasture with lots of sharptails!
Interesting note, my buddy and I hunted eastern CO last Wed and his comment at the end of the day was
'Saw more pheasants today than I saw in 4 days hunting Presho'!:cheers:
ranchodeluxe
Member
you are correct,sir.
beach004
Member
Our trip last week
Have time for only a brief report. We hunted three days, bagged a total of 14 birds between the three of us, with my daughter being high gun! All on private land; birds down a lot from last year, owing to a heavy rain in June says the landowner, who tries to keep pheasants in mind when doing his farming, but isn't obsessive about it. His son guided us one day, and was a huge help.
Only on one day did we have the benefit of a dog. Oh my gosh! Of the four birds we killed that day, three would absolutely have been lost without that black Lab; he was beautiful to watch, and we hope next year he and his owner will join us again. The next day I shot a bird in high grass and retrieved it by the rash expedient of locating some flutter under the weeds and flinging my nearly-70 year old body full sprawl on the spot, and not getting up till I had a rooster neck in my hand. I'm still aching.
We shot what the pheasant cleaner called an albino pheasant; the only difference was that it had white legs; the cleaner said he'd only seen one other in 20 years.
Overall, had a grand time as usual. Highly recommend the Dutch Oven bakery in Platte; this is the only time of the year I feel I can indulge in such calories, knowing I will walk and shiver them off.
Beach004
Have time for only a brief report. We hunted three days, bagged a total of 14 birds between the three of us, with my daughter being high gun! All on private land; birds down a lot from last year, owing to a heavy rain in June says the landowner, who tries to keep pheasants in mind when doing his farming, but isn't obsessive about it. His son guided us one day, and was a huge help.
Only on one day did we have the benefit of a dog. Oh my gosh! Of the four birds we killed that day, three would absolutely have been lost without that black Lab; he was beautiful to watch, and we hope next year he and his owner will join us again. The next day I shot a bird in high grass and retrieved it by the rash expedient of locating some flutter under the weeds and flinging my nearly-70 year old body full sprawl on the spot, and not getting up till I had a rooster neck in my hand. I'm still aching.
We shot what the pheasant cleaner called an albino pheasant; the only difference was that it had white legs; the cleaner said he'd only seen one other in 20 years.
Overall, had a grand time as usual. Highly recommend the Dutch Oven bakery in Platte; this is the only time of the year I feel I can indulge in such calories, knowing I will walk and shiver them off.
Beach004