South Dakota Pheasant Trip

I am considering making a trip to SD in late November or early December for pheasants. I have ordered my atlas and plan on hunting only public land with just myself and a couple of black dogs. I have been to Kansas a few times but never further north. Anyone with more experience got any tips or suggestions that might be useful? I have a general idea of where I want to hunt and I am planning on taking a week,hunting weekdays and traveling on the weekends.Any advice?

Pack warm clothes and manage your expectations. Late season ditch parrots are pretty difficult to hunt even in SD. I'm going up in Sept and back in Oct. Night and day differnce from one month to the next.

I figured things would be tougher the later I go but really don't want to deal with the crowds early. Are the early crowds that bad? My thinking is that it will settle down after thanksgiving. Thanx for the advice.

Crowds are bad the 1st weekend. Maybe the 2nd if bird numbers are up. Thanksgiving weekend is usually crowded too. Anything else is pretty wide open. Plenty of room to yourself.

We have some friends who live in Kimball and they begged us for the last 6 years to come up and this past October we finally went. The bird numbers were horrible. They said that 6 years ago there was 10 CRP fields for every 1 corn field and now it is the opposite. No where for the birds to nest. We killed more road hunting than we did walking. Also most of the birds we killed road hunting were pen birds from the preserves around there.

We went opening week last year. It was bad. There were people everywhere. Every pull off on public land had someone parked in it. Hunting opened at noon and people would camp out in a parking spot for several hours, but at shooting time herds of hunters just flocked in. We hunted/drove about 20% of the state that week and it was all overcrowded.

Private land is totally different, so when someone gives you advice ask if it was private or public. We saw a hunting preserve tossing out roosters into a ditch on a public road and the hunters walking just out of sight and shooting them the day before the season opened and if you ask them, it was incredible. They had piles of birds and no pressure.

I have hunted SD 4 times. Each time we went was early or mid Nov. 2 times up around Gettysburg and 2 times Presho (last 2 years and going back this year). We hunted both private and public land. We limited out all 4 years. When public land I would work the roads a lot. Good luck

Does anyone hunt there way into North Dakota if needed

I've hunter the 83 corridor last time I was up there; North and South. A buddy and I plan to be in ND mid Sept north of Bismarck. Work our way down to the grasslands. It's been a few years since I was up there. We hunt private land mostly. Hoping for decent numbers. I've shot Huns, sharpies, pheasants and dove before.

Thanks for the replies. When the atlas arrives I will be better able to make a decision. I just really want to have a better chance to get these two on some birds than doing Kansas again right now. The 16-18 hr drive doesn't look to pleasant but we can handle it.

I plan on spending the nite in bismarck on sept 13 on my way to montana. Bismarck is a nice place in september.

Whiteowl......... I live in north central South Dakota. Ipswich too be exact bird numbers are looking better then last year and still good. We got spoiled a few years back with crazy numbers of birds so everybody thinks it's bad. I hunt a fair amount of public land just for a challenge and to get away for awhile. After the second weekend it's a lot safer to find land that isn't full of people. The bad news is the weather can change quick but there's nothing better then hunting in the snow. I'll try to point you in all the right ways if you make it up this far.

Jeremiah.

Thanks Dead Head I will let you know when I get the atlas and get a better idea of where and when I want to go.

tag

We hunt in Kimball every year, but this is the first year I will be driving instead of flying because I want to bring the dog. I was thinking about doing some pheasant or duck hunts on the drive back down in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma. I have a place to hunt in OK, but does anyone have any suggestions on Ne and KS? Best to find a guide for ducks? CRP for pheasant?

You should have put in for an out of state waterfowl permit for SD. We hunted 4 times within 15 minutes of Kimball and had some pretty decent shoots. They could have been much better but we had some circumstances that were out of my control. Everything I heard before going up there was about how the duck hunting around Kimball was not very good but I was surprised at the amount of ducks around the area.

I hunted a private reserve in Gregory last year and we had limits in 2 hours. It was awesome. Can't go back this year due to a couple of surgeries and my son's wedding causing me to burn all my vacation time, but definitely hunting with Shattuck Hunting in Gregory again next year. We went the 11-13th of November last year and the weather was perfect.

If you can hook me up with a good place to hunt Pheasants in Kimball or Nebraska, I can hook you up with some outstanding public duck hunting west of North Platte, Nebraska. I limited every time but once last year on public duck hunting in the panhandle of Nebraska. Best time is before Thanksgiving because after that, the geese start coming down and the locals go nutz over goose hunting.

Public or private for pheasant?

I don't care as long as there is a good population.

I have been in TX for the last 16 years but I was born and raised in Kimball, SD. I didn't expect to read about a couple of folks hunting in my home town on a TX hunting forum! Everyone I have talked to says the bird population is way up from last year which was a pretty bad year. My brother and extended family will be blasting them opening day on the family farm without me this year!

Good luck with the hunt!