Any South Dakota pheasant guys here?

[rhart]

We went to Iowa several years in a row to hunt pheasants. However the area we were going seemed to have fewer and fewer birds. That coupled with the fact that every farmer that used to let us hunt for free got wind that guys are paying 100 to 150.00 a day per gun to hunt, we stopped going. Now, I have decided to take a trip to SD. It has been considered the "pheasant capital of the world" usually harvesting over 1 million birds per year.
I can look at the internet reports til I'm blue in the face, just want some feedback from anyone thats been in the last few years to help us narrow down to a certain county or area. Looks like there are tons of "walk in" public grounds to hunt.
This will probably be the last big hunt for my 9 year old lab and she deserves a good one.
Thanks

 

[Taylorz71]

My coworker goes out there a couple of years and sounds like the almost run into the end of your shotgun out there. He ins't much of an outdoors man or anything, but always get his daily limit pretty quick. I will get you the info on where he goes later today. I would love to go out there sometime-maybe when my son is done with football.

 

[Taylorz71]

OK, I lied. He goes to ND, here is the link to where he goes: Pheasant hunting in North Dakota, Hunting for Humanity, www.huntingforhumanity.com

I still would love to go sometime.

 

[gunrunner0]

I'm leaving in 3 weeks with my dad for my first hunt out there. He's been going every year for the last 15 or so years and loves it. He's been going to a place around Aberdeen for the past 5-7 years and has nothing but good things to say about them.

Here's their website:

ROOSTER TAIL INC.

 

[Wheezy50]

Our annual trip to SD is the weekend of Oct 28,29,30. My dad and i have been going for about 4 yrs in a row now. We go to the North central part of the state and hunt a farm between Hoven and Tolstoy. It's not a commercial hunting place so they don't have a website.

I wouldn't quite say they fly into the barrel of your gun, but its not far from it. We normally have a group of 6-8 hunters and have never not gotten a limit of birds. There are times that hunters enter one end of field and literally hundreds of birds get up out of the cover. The blockers at the other end are usually overwhelmed and it gets difficult to pick out one rooster. I'm not sure if it's like this everywhere, this farmer leaves some standing sorghum so they have protection in bad weather. He also has several thickets of pines/brush they like. There is NO shortage of birds though.

From what i understand there are lots of "walk-in" areas to hunt, I think you can get maps of them on their Game, Fish and Parks website. We've driven past some of them on the way to and from the farm and it does appear that the public areas get crowded from time to time so you might want to have several places in mind in case there are other hunters in the area.

I look forward to this trip all year long. My dad doesn't hunt the rest of the year, pheasants are the only thing he has ever showed interest in. It's always a great weekend together.