Hunting Pheasants in South Dakota

[wonder]

Any one with experience hunting roosters in SD?  Was planning a October trip and looking at lodges, guides, and even just going over there and hunting public land?

[mp.hunter]

Yes, fun times. A lot of places to hunt public there. The edges of fields in the ditches of any of the gravel roads you can hunt. Crp grass that is planted in those ditches held a lot of birds. The farmers there are very nice as well and most let us hunt their land. We were in the Winner area of SD.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[WAcoueshunter]

It's nuts.  I hunted a few years back just outside of Pierre.  Here's the outfit, the owner is a former work colleague of mine.  On more than one occasion there were 100+ birds in the air.  Just nuts. 

http://www.dakotawildhunt.com/


 

[Duckhunter14]

I went a couple years back, and it was truly amazing. Spoiled me for life when it came to pheasant hunting. As mentioned above the amount of birds over there is staggering. Hundreds....literally hundreds would come out of what they call shelter belts over there. We were lucky enough to have a connection over there and we were hunting private land, but we did hunt some public with success also. Muzzleloader whitetail deer tags were 2 for $80 at the time too, so we took full advantage and came back with full freezers. It was a blast (pun intended), you wont regret the trip...just a disclaimer. You wont be as excited the next time you hunt WA after a SD trip.

Clint

[salmonchaser]

Let me put this in some kind of perspective; hunting an awful lot, mostly in Oregon, up to six people following our shorthairs, we tallied limits 90 percent of the time and killed about 70 percent of the pointed birds. Most hunts were a full eight hours.
I've hunted south Dakota 8 years in a row, three of those with Dakota Wild. I have seen as many birds on a single field, as I saw all last season hunting 20 days. I'm going back this year.
it's just that good.

[Derailed]

Great hunting in SD, I wish I could convince the wife to let me move back there.

I use to miss a couple of weeks of school to go hunting with my dad. I miss those times.

There are plenty of great hunting spots, lots of public land, Google the South Dakota Walk in Atlas. There is a ranch that I hunted probably 20 years ago in white lake, that was a great hunt. http://birdhuntingsd.com/ I hunted with the Original owner but it is now run by his son.

There are a lot of good birds around Kimball, Woonsocket, and Huron.

I have family around De Smet and saw some birds there last fall. but I actually got a couple near Woonsocket.

[salmonchaser]

One more item regarding Dakota Wild, it's all wild birds. I guarantee the older roosters are the biggest you've ever seen.

[shootem]

I hunted SD the last 2 years. Two seasons ago the local newspaper greeted us with pheasant populations being down 60%. It is going to be a bad year. Sounds like it must have been compared to what has happened in the past. Being new and dumb I struggled to notice. I hunted with friends of my cousin who have been hunting the same farm for 30 years. The farmer walked with us a few times and apologized that only 100 birds got up out of a strip of corn. He wanted me to know there should have been at least 200 birds. I made sure he knew I was OK with how bad things were. 12 guys limiting in a few hours with dogs going nuts. Pretty hard to beat a bad year in SD. Last year birds were up but it was such a wet year corn could not be harvested by the beginning of the season where we hunt in central SD. It was actually a tougher hunt last year because so much corn was standing in spite of more birds. One day we had to hunt 4 hours to get our 36 bird limit. I survived though. It was nothing like spending 4 hours hunting elk with Coach. That has come close to putting me in the hospital. Like most hunting access is the key. A farmer who manages for pheasants really makes a difference. We paid a daily fee to hunt his property that was way worth it. If you don't know exactly where to hunt there will be a learning curve of a few years. Two years ago with birds down few were seen driving the dirt roads. Last year we always saw birds just driving down the dirt roads where it is legal to shoot them. Let us know if you go and how it went.

[jetjockey]

Don't let the stories of 100 bird flushes get you too excited.  Yes they do happen, no it's not in every field.  If the crops are in, hunting is tough, if they are out, it can be stupid good.  I've seen flushes where the sky literally turned black and you couldn't shoot because of all the birds.  Like guys have said, access is key.  The public land can be tough hunting, but you can hunt road edges as well all the way to the fence line.   Running roads with a pointing dog will put lots of birds in your bag if the dog will run out of a vehicle.

[wonder]

Thanks for all the tips and feedback on Pheasant Hunting in SD.  I have looked at these sites as well as others and it won't be cheap to hunt on private land but it sounds like it will be hard for it to not be successful.  I just need to decide how much I'm willing to pay for a quality hunt or spend my hunting time scouting?  I'm looking forward to it either way.

As the saying goes, your worst day of hunting is better than any day working!

[Duckhunter14]

I want to go back. We had a blast over there. It helped we had a bunch of guys and were able to surround corn fields and brush patches and push them with blockers. Some birds held tight, but a lot were runners too.

[Duckhunter14]

And just to clarify. We did not overharvest or overshoot our individual limits. As fore mentioned we had a really big group of guys. 

[Bluemoon]

I like it when you guys drive right through Montana.  There are no birds there

[Duckhunter14]

Keep on driving eh Bluemoon!  Ive done pretty good in MT also, we've hunted around the Chodeau area. But didn't see the numbers like in the Dakotas, although I've heard from guys in Eastern Montana that hunt private land and say that it can be comparable. That looks like one heck of a day there! Nice shooting.

[ELKBURGER]

I have family in both states. I would like to hunt either state