Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game SD hunting ground- unguided

Does anyone have any first hand recommendations for some unguided ground/trespass fee pheasant property? Lodge or no lodge is fine, I’ll hotel it. I just started sending emails out this week to several places and thought I’d put it out here as well. I have a great pair of Griff’s and I want to make the drive north this year for a week of birds.

Thanks

Get a walk in atlas from the gfp and fug trespass fee.

Plenty of advice in the other SD thread.
I have no leads on a trespass/private ground hunt, but good luck to you.

I have knocked on a few doors at random and unless the landowner leases the place to an outfitter, I rarely have been turned down.

Where are you going?
Should you happen across a small town, with a bar, and as long as you don`t look like you just came from Cabela`s with all new cloths on, old, well used and bloody are good, some of the locals MAY talk to you. Be polite, maybe offer to buy them a beer, and maybe get to hunting after a bit of conversation. These are good people, treat them as such, and you should walk out with more ground to hunt than you can in a week.
If you should go up to Tulare, just south of Redfield, stop at the Blue Room. Barry might still be behind the bar, tell him I sent you. Be sure to stop AFTER the hunt too.

Shoot, just leave your dogs at home and walk the "borrow pits" for free. Limits will jump in your truck...

Seriously, I might pick a few locales outside the traditional pheasant range and wait to see what happens based on the hatch next year. Just because someone had pheasants this year, doesn't mean they will next year. A poorly placed drought or hailstorm can and will wipe out someone's careful hunt planning between now and then.

Great advice there

Ok.


As fun as driving 12 hrs to go to a bar where I can’t wear my new vest my kids got me and finding a guy who possibly worked their and being nice to the bar folk who “MAY” talk sounds, I think I will respectfully pass on that hot tip.


Located a great set up for public hunting and local lodging and I’m covered and locked in.

No need for further help here, thanks!

Great advice there

You just couldn't help yourself could you?

I am bored so I just went through my SD pheasant pictures from 2017 and 2018. In 2017 I went with a group and had a hoard of very well trained dogs and we limited out for 5 days straight hunting the big sorghum fields and some corn north of Mitchell.
In 2018 I went to the same area but later in the season for 4 days by myself, sans a dog. I limited out every day and earlier each day by hunting the ditch lines and borrow pits due to all the crops being cut. The birds were in the only cover they could find, other than the big, non-crop state sections. Sometimes it took some walking for sure but the birds were concentrated and not running hundreds of yards in any direction like they do in fields.

There's plenty of ups and downs to both approaches, though watching a dog work is part of the fun sometimes.

Have spent a couple years now hunting SD...and getting the locals to talk with you is about the last problem you will have. You will have to look hard to find a more friendly population. Have new or old hunting clothes on, and if you can’t strike up conversation with more than a few locals about Bird hunting, it will be your fault..

You meeting for a Ditches and Bitches trip?

Yes, but only obviously. Heavy on the bitches please.

Pastime Steakhouse? ABC?

The possibilities are endless.

I like endless possibilities!! My "lucky" shirt from ABC is getting pretty tattered, thinking I need to make are return trip for a replacement.

welcome join me. I hunt mostly ND though. I have 2 griffs too