[Linked Image from imagizer.imageshack.com]

I hunt SD every year and I'm in the "3-legged Greyhound" group. The bird in the photo is a case in point. The dog was over hunting with my son and I walked down a shelter belt. The dog then came along behind me and slammed into a point 20 yards back. I had walked just a few feet from them and neither the rooster nor the hen he was with moved a feather. Without the dog I would have never known they were there.

We end up hunting some roadsides from time to time but I am never comfortable doing it -- too many things there that can injure the dog, like broken glass. A dog will walk through broken bottles and not think a thing about it, and take itself out of commission for a month.

I would listen to BK -- either find some quality land to hunt, and a friend with a good dog, or stay home, shoot preserve birds and save a lot of money. I've shot a lot of both wild and preserve pheasants. Within a couple of weeks of being freed a preserve bird is wilded up well enough, and flying strong enough, that you cannot tell them from pure wild birds (until you get a close look and know what to look for). 99% of guys will have a much better hunt at one of the lodges that augments with released birds and provides dogs and handlers than they will walking ditches without a dog, or watching an untrained dog put birds up a hundred yards out.