My wife and I just returned from a week of pheasant hunting in the Mound City area of South Dakota. This was our first time there, but went with a friend who has been hunting the same area for 18 years. We had access to two different private farms as well as walk in areas, but the birds were few. My friend said he had never seen it so bad. He said they usually see hundreds of birds a day. I killed two roosters, lost one and missed three others. My wife only had shots at two roosters.

There was still a lot of standing corn, but we didn't even flush birds out of there. On the high side, the dogs hunted hard, had some classic points and overall had a grand time.

We are going to try Kansas after Christmas.

Was it a wet year in SD? We had a very wet year up here and the upland game bird nesting success was pitiful. Far fewer birds around than normal.

Dean

I don't think so Maki. The farmers were saying the populations were up receeding the season. I think, but am not certain, that the birds were too heavily hunted during the first two weeks of the season to make for a great third week.

465 H&H and I hunted pheasants opening week in Presho, SD. I have a lease there. This is a place that I have been hunting at least once a year for the past 6 years. I have always experienced outstanding bird numbers and this year was no exception. In South Dakota the following counties form the core of "pheasant heaven": Lyman (where we hunt - "Ground Zero" to quote a Pheasants Forever Biologist); Tripp and Brule.

South Dakota has had the wettest year in recent memory. I grew up in SD and continue to hunt there for 3 weeks every fall. It took my party 3 days to find the birds as our traditional spots were very waterlogged. Every low spot that normally held pheasants now held ducks.

As soon as we began hunting areas outside the "monsoon" area we found many pheasants and limited daily.

Generally speaking Hwy 281 was the delineator. West of 281 was great and north of Hwy 34. We did not investigate the Aberdeen or Winner areas as my farm is in east central SD. Hope this helps.

I hunted in the Pierre area last week. We had a group of 11 and hunted 3 days with an outfitter. We shot limits every day and even killed a few grouse and one prairie chicken on day 1. I've never seen so many pheasants. Each field was more than I'd see in a lifetime of CA hunting. We loaded up with Remington #5s at the DakotaMart and nobody had trouble killing birds. Hitting yes but not killing!

NoCAL

We hunted the Chamberlain area with success, but I do feel the bird count was down. We shot more late hatch roosters than normal. We did not see any Sharpies or Chickens, but this is more of a function of the area. We were not in the prime area for either. This year more of the corn was harvested which allowed us to hunt the grass and food plots with pointers. I love SD and the people. Great place and I will return next year, God willing!

I'm from the Mitchell area and we were drown with water the entire summer. The James River was above flood stage for the longest I can remember. On opening weekend we had a pretty typical opener with a lot of crops still in and the birds numbers ok but not great. We saw a lot of late hatch birds which was promising. The hunting always gets better later in the season in my experience.
I personally don't like the fact that we open the public grounds to the residents only for two weeks prior to the regular season opener. Mitchell was dead compared to normal, usually the town is crawling with orange but it was really pathetic and business owners really took a hit. If I was a non-resident I would be really discouraged by this.

Just got back form the clark area west of clark fair bird numbers south of clark and between Henry no birds locals said due to a major hail storm in that area.

Hunt public land a freind of a freind was surpose to line up some private land that deal fell thru. We shot birds but nothing great.

quote:

Originally posted by edholum: Mitchell was dead compared to normal, usually the town is crawling with orange but it was really pathetic and business owners really took a hit. If I was a non-resident I would be really discouraged by this.

I just got back last night from Mitchell. We had a group of 15 hunters. The first day we limited after 4 hours. All the other days we limited in under 2 hours. 45 birds under 2 hours, our guide said this season has been one of his best for finding birds. He guides 7500 private acres. We found some areas flooded, but they still held birds. The best areas were the higher ground right next to the little ponds. I personally saw over a thousand birds. Each day I saw at least 200 roosters and 4 or 5 times as many hens.

I am surprised to hear that other areas had fewer than normal birds.


I read that Kansas had a great opening weekend. I may go there for Thanksgiving since Shikaribabu canceled the hunt that he offered to me to share with him that week.

"Disappointment is a function of expectations." The only disappointing pheasant hunt I have ever been on was because we were snowed out and had to leave early.

The Shottist there is a huge differants between a guide private land hunt and a do it your self public land hunt. Lots of private land hunts huge numbers of birds are release.

If your guide had 7500 acres to hunt I woulds bet that the joperation does good land mangement and maybe even releases birds.

For enough money one can buy great bird shooting anywhere.

A bud of mine hunted Kulm,ND in mid-November this year.....said the pheasant hunting was middling at best. Now the duck hunting OTOH was fantastic, and they could've killed a 1000 snow geese a day if they wanted to.