S. Dakota pheasant hunts

Been a life dream to pheasant hunt S. Dakota. I’m looking at lodges and wondered if you guys had any suggestions for a 5-6 guy trip. Appreciate any suggestions that you’ve hunted with.

Rooster Tales - Brad Hutchison in Burke South Dakota...been there several times. Awesome.

My suggestion is go to North Dakota instead, from what I have been reading more birds.

Have dogs in Lemmon S.D. (on S.D. N.D. boarder) now and seem to be having quite a few contacts with ditch parrots as well as chickens.

I hunted/stayed at Jim River Ranch with several friends and we loved it. Great place, we had so much fun.

http://www.jimriverranch.com/

Dakotahotspots.com in Kennebec,SD

Scattergun. I think they were outside of Pierre. A couple of us ran into them a couple of years ago while they were hunting ditches the day before the season opened. They had a 100 birds on the trailer. It probably was a fun shoot for the shooters as long as they didn't see guy dropping the birds in the ditch just over the hill in front of them.

My advice is to go to an outfitter that has lots of good land. There is no reason to go up there and hunt caged birds. The good private land is covered in birds.

You guys are going all the way to South Dakota to hunt pen raised birds?

I hunted S.D. for about 6 years but we only hunted wild birds. We hunted out of Redfield. Email me if you want the contact information.

Many do but don't know it.

Beats staying home, you guys have no sense of adventure

If I hunted pen raised birds while up there then they did a hell of a job putting birds all over different fields, I guess having us doing a push to get zero birds was to just throw us off the scent.

www.shattuckhunting.com
Roxie and Darrel Shattuck run a reasonable, first class operation. In Gregory SD. Hunt preserve land and get your money’s worth.

I think the limit is 3 birds. If you are told to shoot all you want, then some will be pen raised birds.

I'm not knocking you guys. It's just not my up of tea.

Tell the birds they are pen raised. Never seen one act different than a wild bird.

Bill,
Please explain how pen raised birds, act, fly, run or do anything else different than so called “wild” birds. My experience is that they are just as hard to kill as “wild” birds.

In my experience, pen raised birds hold much tighter than wild birds. Depending on the operation's flight pens, some also don't fly quite as hard/fast. Doesn't mean they are any less fun to shoot though.



So Dak Pheasant Numbers

I never hunted pin raised birds in S. D. but I have seen wild birds start getting the heck out of a field because someone slammed the truck door.

I'm there for the dog work. I've hunted both. I really like NSTRA. It not the birds but the distance. You can hunt any pen raised bird you want to hunt at Top Flight which is an hour from me.

LOL at pen raised birds being just as hard to kill as wild birds. Wild birds run more, further, and faster. They flush wilder, fly faster, and act more erratically. Also, cripples won't give up like pen birds. Anyone that thinks it is even close has not hunted true wild birds much.

You are kidding, right? Please tell me you are kidding. The comparison really is not even close. I would take just two wild bird finds with my dogs as opposed to shooting 30 pen raised birds. Wow!

+1

Agreed...110%.

Agree not even close.

One of my dogs is really classy pointed. High head, high tail, on his tiptoes kinda dog. I used him to help guide at a preserve few years ago. After a couple of days he looked like a wet rag pointed. Even he knew the difference.

Early season pre release can improve the birds, but if I'm driving 8 hours it's for wild birds.

Ever considered NSTRA?

I ran 2 dogs in couple of trials a long time ago and was really impressed with the quality of dogs running. Didn't get nothin done, but we had a good time. Super nice people.

That article makes a good case for using pen raise pheasant as a way to protect the wild birds from too much hunting pressure.

The other interesting aspect of this is pheasants are the same as hogs... an invasive exotic species not native to the US yet we treat them as a native game bird.

Looking at the history of the 'American' pheasant you would be hard pressed to say pen raised birds dont know how to survive in the wild since they were a majority of the original breeding stock here which eventually led to 'wild' populations.



Pheasant history

Greg Biggins in SD. Been years ago but great hunt wild birds in all type of land conditions. He also has the ability to do preserve bird hunting. Food was great and plenty of it. Large accomodations, great dogs, shooting. Wish I could get back

http://www.bigginshuntingservice.com/

'Sent an inquiry for 2019. Thanks!

Why not just do a tower shoot if you are just there for the birds and shooting?