Tips for planning SD pheasant hunt

J

Jo6pak

New member
My brothers an I have been talking for years about getting together for a 3-5 day pheasant hunt in SD. (we are open to other areas within a day's drive of western WI.)

We decided on thanksgiving that 2014 is the year we will finally get it done.
I've have been looking at websites and trying to research places or ranches to go, but everything just seems to blend together in my head.

We are looking to do a semi-guided hunt of wild birds. We can hunt planted birds here, so we want something different and more challenging.
Also, we wouldn't be against throwing a bit of fishing in the mix.

We don't need/can't afford 5-course catered meals and a 5-star resort. But we don't want to be sleeping in someone's shack eating old C-rations either.
We can cook our own meals, and clean out own birds and fish.

Looking at something like 4 (maybe 5 brothers), most skilled hunters possibly with a dog for a 3-4 day pheasant/fishing trip.

For those of you who have done this sort of thing before, how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? Or if you have had a good hunt somewhere, please give me a name and a review of you experiences.
I see that some places include licenses/stamps. etc. and some don't.

I've never had to plan something like this before, so any tips/recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 
I would call the local DNR guys in an area you're interested in, usually they have a good feel for what's going on in the area, along with knowing any guides/outfitters/ranchers that would put you up.

That's where I started when planning a hunt last year, you get good info from the horses mouth so to speak. We ended up on public land and did good there ( deer hunting)
 
Oh what fun !!!

We can hunt planted birds here, so we want something different and more challenging.
Click to expand...
If you are going on a guided hunt with planted birds then not much to plan for or read. However, free-range birds are a different story as they are wilier and you really have to read what they are doing, in the hunted area. Just make sure you can tell the hens, from the roosters. I have never heard a hen, cackle, when it's flushed. Keep an eye on the dogs as they will let you know What's happening. The handler knows how to read his dogs and listed to him as well. ..... :cool:

Might be asking, if it's worth it and it sure as heck is !!! :)

Good luck and;
Be Safe !!!
 
Its good to start researching now. The landscape has really changed in SD. This is the first year we have not gone hunting in many years. A lot of the CRP has been plowed under for corn production and they had a bad winters and poor nesting this year. TO do a combo cast n blast you either have to be near the Missouri River or the NE corner near Webster. We have done self guided in the Webster area as there is a lot of public hunting land and lots of great fishing lakes. We have stayed at Lynn Lake Lodge many times hunting and fishing. Clean dog friendly accommodations close to hunting and fishing. We have also Stayed in the West Pollock area good fishing on the river but public hunting was limited. You are better off going with an outfitter that has access to private land for hunting success. Pheasants are resilient if they have the right winter and nesting next spring it can be great. Impossible to predict now. A good website to ask questions is Ultimate Pheasant Hunting . com. Are you bringing boats? Only one dog? A multi day bird hunt is pretty hard to do with only one dog. Its not the same as hitting some WPA in western WI for an hours hunt. Some areas can be very large. OR out by the river your dog will encounter sand burrs, possibility of cactus etc. MY first trip out there tore my dogs pads up quickly and she had hunted 3 or 4 weekends in SW MN but her feet were not prepared for what was hiding in the weeds out there. Learned to bring multiple dogs and rest them and dog boots or your need to road them on gravel roads in the off season to toughen pads as trips to the grouse woods do not toughen them enough either. Good luck and enjoy the change of scenery.

Mwal
 
Pheasant Hunt

I live in NE WI and a group of friends and I have been hunting Pheasant out west for many years now. For years we went to South Dakota and have many great memories. I took us a few years to get to know the people and the area. In SD we had a larger group of 12 guys so we needed to have some acreage to hunt. Our experience has been that most of the land open to the public is so heavily hunted that you are lucky to have much luck in those areas. We hunted in the Winner area in Tripp County for several years. We ended up paying a rancher a daily trespass fee to hunt his land. We generally did quite well and probably limited out with the 12 guys 75% of the time. Year to year the number of dogs we had varied from a low of 15 to as many as 23 dogs one year. Be careful not to over work your dog, especially if it is hot. We have hunted in temps from zero to eighty degrees. Those warmer days really take a toll on your dog. On warm days we only let the dogs make one run a day. More than that when its hot and by day three your dog is spent. More than one hunter has lost their dog from over working them in the heat. Carry water in the field for your dogs, keep them hydrated!!! Ultimately we moved away from Winner and SD all together. The price of everything kept going up and up and they priced us to move. The last year we hunted in SD the daily trespass fee was $90 per hunter a day and they were going to $125 the next year. We told them we would not come back at that price and they stated that was the price everyone in the area agreed to go to and that is what is was going to be. We tried to reason with the rancher explaining to him that 12 guys at $90 was more cash than 6 at $125 but he wouldn't move, so we did. Also all the birds you think are wild wiley Dakota Pheasant may not be. We also learned that Tripp County was bringing in 60,000 Pheasant a night for the first weeks of the season. It was paid for by the tax payers and it was right on their tax bill. Pheasnt Hunters spend huge amounts of cash and if they had to import birds to make things look better, so be it. Some of our original guys has also been going to North Dakota for several years after we were done in Winner. We now all go to North Dakota and I must say it has been a great decision. The area we go to doesn't have near the hunting pressure that there was in Winner. The result is that we have WAY MORE birds and it is a better hunt. We have no problems limiting out daily and can ofter limit on our first walk of the day. We have to drive farther than we did but I can say that the cost of my trip this year was less than 1/2 of my last trip to Winner in 2008 and I'm talking total cost of trip including fuel in truck and all. Two of us share a room and I can tell you that the last year in Winner my half of the motel was $481, this year in North Dakota the room total was $475 for the two of us and the motel was way nicer with a much bigger room. Used to budget $2,000.00 for the trip to Winner, this year the trip to North Dakota cost me just over $950.00. Of coarse in Winner we paid to have our birds cleaned and eating out was more frequent and expensive. Good luck on your quest!!
 
Lots of good tips and info there.
We may or may not take my brothers Lab. Rick would like to, but we understand that several back to back days would be tough on her. She was pretty tuckered after 2 days of pheasant hunting followed by a moring of dick hunting about a month ago. That and trying to get everyone and there gear and a pooch into one vehicle would be pretty cramped. We may just need to find a place with dogs and handlers.

The comment on the loss of habitat is one of the things brought up in our discussion. We would like to get out there before everything is plowed under for "green" ethanol.;)

The Winner/Gregory area would be just about perfect, about an 8hr drive.
Are there a better value than SD, but closer than ND? We wold like to keep the driving under 10hrs.
Western Iowa perhaps?

Thanks
Keep the advise coming, I need all the help I can get.
 
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