doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com South Dakota Birds???

Just returned from north-eastern SD. Hunted between Watertown & Webster for ducks and pheasants. Lots of ducks came in during the week.
We shot all our pheasants in the cattail marshes, lots of crops still standing. Also on a sad note, LOTS of CRP ground has been taken out since last year. Much less "walk-in" land had good cover as compared to previous years. Two of us shot a dozen roosters in 3 days of hunting with several missed birds. All in all a good time was had by both men and dogs.

tunes

Darryl (and others)....

With all due respect, if some fool shoots a dog, I don't think it will make much difference if the shot size is #6 or #4. We all need to exercise maximum caution to prevent our dogs from ever getting shot.

Several years ago, I was accidentally "sprayed" by another hunter in our hunting party at a distance of about 150 yards. Fortunately none of the pellets penetrated.

JERRY

I can hardly stand the thought of my dog getting shot. I'm not sure how much difference it would make on the size of the shot. Location of the wound and all sorts of factors would probably dictate whether shot size made a difference.

I've had at least one guy (friend of a friend) hold his gun dang near pointed at my dog when she gets birdy. If he shows up at a hunt with me again, I'm going to have a chat with him about either changing his ways or hunting with someone else.

This will be a STUPID question but here goes anyway.

I gather from the posts here about shooting dogs that some of you are actually using dogs that will point pheasants? How in the world...........?

We've been only twice, a total of 6 days. Seen a ton of birds and shot plenty but the thing that has stood out so far is that the darn things just plain do not sit still.

The folks we hunted with used labs that were trained to work close in, which they sometimes managed to do, and we simply used them as part of a small drive through the fields.

But then the fields were all still standing and you almost never could have seen a dog on point if it went on one.

We're leaving on Sunday for Vivian, SD. Might be different this year. New place to hunt and I gather that the snow may have knocked a lot of the vegitation down which could make thing different.

All I can say is that if I lived where there was the kind of bir hunting you guys in the northern part of the country have I'd spend less time chasing deer............. You guys are blessed!

I hunt them with a Lab that hunts close. But in the standing corn, it's hard to keep track of her or for her to keep track of me. I took to talking to her while walking with the others thru the corn so she could hear me and stay close. It seemed to work well as she never got separated from me and kept returning to me. Frankly, hunting with a dog in the corn really isn't much good for the dog, IMO. Hunting in the standing corn with a pointer seems like a excercise in futility or how to untrain a pointer. But, I don't know much about pointers except the two Hickox classes I've taken and a few released birdfarm hunts over a shorthair.

The dog lore is that the Springer Spaniel is the dog breed of choice for dedicated pheasant hunting. I can see that after seeing some in action. They make my highly active little young Lab seem like slow motion.

The cover will dictate the kind of dogs to use. Flushers in the corn,cane and milo...... pointers in the grass and fencerows.
On our third day, we hunted some long narrow fencerows/shelterbelts and had a blast with the GSPs and Weims.
The birds were holding fast and we had over 20 points/backing/honoring down one 1/4 mile stretch ! Four or five birds would flush (mixed hens/roosters/third hatch cocks)at once, when we tapped the dogs heads to rush in.
If only I'd had a video camera ! I'd have gladly been the videographer instead of the gunner for that stretch!
best regards,
JBP

I hunt BobWhite with my Brittanys 95% of the time and pheasant hunt with them a few days per year. If we hunt harvested milo circles they inevitably start running down the row and get out too far ahead and then flush the pheasants. CRP grass on the other hand is a doable hunt. Although they do flush some pheasant it is worthwhile and enjoyable. I had a chubby female that would pick up the trail of a pheasant. She would creep along, almost on her belly, moving fast enough to maintain "scent contact" and slow enough that she didn't flush the bird. Eventually she would pen it up against the county road or farm road and hold until we got there. Of course after all that time and work there was a good chance it was a hen she had been stalking.


Best,

Mike

Lots of pheasants together, or pheasants in crops = tough situation for pointing dogs. That being said, I had a Gordon--pretty close working anyhow--that was absolutely paranoid about losing track of me. She's the only pointing dog I've ever seen that would work standing corn well. Very much like a close working Lab, except she'd stick the ones that'd try to hide under clumps of weeds and stalks.

Scattered birds in grass, on the other hand . . . pointing dogs have a definite advantage in such places, especially if you're talking large fields. I got my first gsp just as the pheasant population in Iowa was really taking off (thanks to CRP). We hunted together for 11 seasons, during which she pointed nearly 2,000 wild pheasants.

We hunted near Winner last week. Lots of birds, but most crops are still standing and roads and fields are muddy, making hunting tough.

Just returned from a successful pheasant hunt near Draper, S.D. Our group limited each of four days.

Since a large part of the corn crop isn't yet harvested, the birds are scattered and more work is involved. We hunted standing corn more often than in previous years. Also blowdown can and milo, which was tough walking. Nevertheless, there are plenty of birds this year; but you will have to work harder to get them.

Take your rubber boots -- the fields are very muddy.

Jerry