Produced 63 birds in SD the birds were pretty weary and the shooting was pretty spotty. We were in southern part of the state close to the river, well 40 miles or so. We went and hunted Wed, thurs. and Fri. We never really had a good wind to use for an advantage. Wed. was the first day and took us for a real “wild goose chase” we finally found a flock of about 250K in a corn/bean field and got permission. These birds had been there for a while, as we were told, but there had been hunters “in the general area” we couldn’t see them but we knew they were around, we could barely hear shots from time to time. Anyway, we setup on that field and during the setup we had birds work, with 2 guys the first day our mission was to get 800 decoys set and then worry about the hunt. We started hunting around noon and by the end of the day we had 25 in the bag, for 2 guys and another hooking up at about 4:00 that wasn’t too bad. Thursday was a decent day but absolutely WINDLESS. There was no consistant wind and that is VITAL when targeting these whites in the spring. They had us turning every which way when they approached, never sure where they would come in from. We ended up with 27 and three of us all day, basically there were 2 gunners and one camera man. Thursday was a major migrating day as TONS of birds flew over and never even circled. Friday was our last day and we hunted until noon and took home 11, we had 5 guys and 3 stayed no report for the rest of the day.
The trip consisted of around 800+ decoys, different rags and shells. Three to five callers (only one auto switcher) and we all had blinds which is pretty important IMO. Another reason we didn’t shoot much was we were trying to get that “perfect shot” we were filming for a show and we wanted to shoot at birds around the 40 yard range. We did have some bids committ entirely, almost landing, but if we had taken 60-80 yarders we probally could have come out of there with numbers around the century mark. We had some really, really big tornados which may be the best site in waterfowling, but the majority hang up around the 100 yard mark.
We also managed one leg band from a Ross and sailed and never recovered 
a Green neck band from a Ross in the same flock. We probally saw a total of 8 neck bands during the trip, while they were circling, another reason why we waited to shoot at alot of birds. All in all another great spring trip.
LARS
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