I just got back from 3 days of pheasant hunting in SD. The bird numbers are nothing short of amazing this year. We hunted 3 days between Mitchell and Chamberlain and it has to be the best pheasant hunting I have ever had.
Opening morning we had excellent weather, mid 60’s sunny and a slight breeze to keep you cool. The birds were everywhere and it took our group of 12 roughly 45 minutes of actual hunting to get our 36 birds.
On day two it was very windy and I was expecting to have to work pretty hard to get our birds. As it turns out, we made two pushes and had our 24 birds for 8 guys and the dogs flushed MANY more that we either did not get or chose not to take with the high wind.
On day 3 we were down to just 4 guys so we opted to re-hunt some of the same ground we did on day one, instead of educating birds on new ground. In the end it took us about an hour of actual hunting to get our 12 birds on day 3.
Pretty much everyone we talked to was getting limits of birds….they were litterally everywhere. Honestly, I can not remember better bird hunting.
For those still heading out to SD. There is a lot of corn to come out yet and as you head West the fields get wetter and wetter. Harvest was going pretty well last night on the East side of the state but as you got closer to Chamberlain the fields/lowlands were flooded. If you are planning on hunting low land, bring your knee high boots, there is a lot of water sitting around. The good news however, is there are so many birds it won’t matter where you go