Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game SoDak Rooster 411...

Hunted SouthDakota Pheasants for the first time, Last Season.

Food/ Lodging in Aberdeen, and drove an Hour-ish to hunt Public Sections.
Two Roosters on Day One, Limit, Limit, and a Single, Day Four (burnt the MoneySpot).
Thoroughly enjoyable experience, ...but not interested in hunting Public again (a splash too competitive).

Wondering about ANY opportunities, for Single Hunter/ Pay for Private Land access, that AnyOne may be aware of?
Can Drive 60 Minutes or so, from Aberdeen.
Don't really need Lodging/ Meals, just Private Land access, for 3 or 4 Days.

Greatly appreciate any Information You may provide. Feel free to PM, or Post.
Thanks for Your Time/ Info.

Todd,I've hunted S.D. for over 25 years. One of my wifes ancestors homesteaded there in 1875...still have family land to hunt.
I am friends with several farmers and ranchers whose lands I prairie dog shoot and coyote call on and could bird hunt on if I wished but I much prefer to hunt the ditches.
If you read the hunting laws you can legally hunt most public right of ways,being mindful of the 660' rule.I've hunted roadways with the Game Warden.
You want the right cover,the tall brown brome grass is good. If you find an isolated patch of wild sunflowers in the ditch check them.While traveling look under cedars and plum thickets.
Next to corn stubble is best.

I'm not familiar with the Aberdeen area.The area that I mostly hunt is pretty open with roads nearly every mile and after the crops are out the only cover is the ditches and shelterbelts around the farmsteads.

Later in the season it is easier to get permission to hunt by knocking on doors if you want to hunt private land.Late in the season if you can get permission to hunt around an old abandoned grown-up farmstead you can usually find birds.

Some of the minimum-maintenance roads get super greasy with just a little rain or snow.Several years ago we got 17 inches of snow with 70mph wind on the 3rd day of pheasant season.Four wheel drive truck and I always take a tow chain and shovel or two.
Be very mindful of the snow drifting and back out if in doubt.

Stay away from tribal land.

When walking ditches there are badger holes to step in,glacial rocks the size of microwaves to trip over,and old t-posts laid over from snow drifts that can cut you.You would think that you would see all of them in the grass before you hit them but you don't.Be careful!

Thanks TeamPDog, ...very much appreciate Your Information/ Experiences posted.

Betting Uve seen the gamut of TwentyFiveYears worth...

You might contact Cam Wyly, www.wylyfarmandranch.com.

Yes,they get some weather up there.I've been in three blizzards while up there hunting(the 17 incher was my first white-out),hunted in the snow several times which reminds me,if the ditches and cat tail sloughs are drifted shut but the snow has blown out of or melted in the stubble fields then it's going to be tough getting on the roosters.
I've seen it in the upper 80s the first week and down to 10.A few years ago there was a bad drought and for 3 days and nights the wind blew hard,it was like the dust bowl photos,like dusk at mid day even dust drifts on some of the roads.Was on a long minimum maintenance road that had no cross roads for several miles when a prairie fire came over the hill and we had to drive with fire on both sides of the road in front of and behind us(if we would of had a gas leak we'd of been done).
Was up there one year when they had an earthquake(a mild one 3. something but it still shook things off the shelves at the store).
Was coming back from prairie dogging and stopped for the night in a bad storm...tornadoes and hail...one hail stone found in Dante was measured the next day and was something like only 1/4" smaller in diameter than the largest on record world wide.
Was prairie dogging in Sept. one time and had 7 funnels on the ground one after the other in a span of maybe 40 minutes.They weren't real strong maybe FO or F1 but not good in a dog town with no shelter.They came from the north-east...I'm a trained Storm-Spotter in my county Emergency Management Agency and I'd never heard of such a thing.At a training seminar I described them to a NWS meteorologist and he said they were some kind of cold air funnel phenominum and very rare.
So yeah you never know what you're going to encounter out there but it sure is fun.

Did you try any chislic?
Were you in the area where they released the banded roosters?

Lance

One more thing that I just remembered.
When I first started hunting S.D.,we used to see two older men probably in their 70s,from Texas and hunting the right of ways with a new Lincoln every year.Never saw them when there was snow and they stayed on the graded roads but we sure got a lot of chuckles from seeing them.
Good times!

Lance

Never found public areas east of Sand Lake crowded though busy enough opening week. Not so busy as areas south of Aberdeen anyway. Stay west of Pickerel Lake as pheasant population really starts to drop off east of there. We look for weedy right-of-ways between spots, it's a convenient loitering area for birds coming out of cropland after feeding. And a few hang there nibbling on weed seeds. If you can find one across from where they're taking out crops it can be magic. (Do follow the 660' rule, little pisses off landowners more.)

You did well considering the pheasant population dip, hopefully we'll have a good spring for production. It's been a dry winter which is good, pheasants can take the cold.

Can't help on pay hunting, won't do that.

THANKS JB, exactly what Im interested in researching...

TeamPD, thanks again for the input. Negative on the Chislik/ BandedBirdz.

Hawk, will note Tips, Thanks for the Info...