We hunted NW of Aberdeen, SD on Wed. through Fri. last week. All I can say is WOW!!! 
This was the best population of birds that we’ve seen in 10+ years. Here’s the stats…
9 guys, no dogs
Wed — 27 bird limit by 11:45 a.m.
Thurs — 27 bird limit by Noon
Fri — 27 bird limit by 1:00 p.m.
Grand total of 81 birds in approx. 5 hrs and 45 mins. of hunting. 
Thats a whole lotta of birds…Congrats…Its tough hunting without a dog but looks like you did great. I have to say though if you like bird hunting, youll love it with a dog…nothing like watchin a dog do what they love…but eithert way congrats on the birds 
..Jay
RR — We were hunting some private land with corn strips, CRP, and cattail sloughs. In all situations without dogs, we are very methodical on our walks – lots of zig-zag and never just a straight line. All of our crew were good shots also, so that helps, and I’d say we only lost 2 or 3 birds per day (if that). As for birds in the ditches, some are huntable. It depends on nearest location of buildings, etc. Over the last few years, SD has had several court cases that dealt with road/ditch hunting. As far as I know, it is still legal, but you should read the SD regs just to be sure.
Jay — I totally agree with you that hunting with dogs is so much fun. We usually have 1 or 2 dogs, but it just happened this year that no dogs were ready (i.e., too old/young). About 2 weeks ago, I went to ND with some buddies that had 2 dogs (Springer & Vichsla) and we did AWESOME there also! 
Man, I should really make another trip to use up that 2nd session… 
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