dahogan

How is the bird count in your area this year?

Little Red Corvette1

North Dakota is up 10%, around Regent.
Not sure about South Dakota, which is where most people hunt.

dahogan

I usually go to ND. Thanks for the info

dahogan

Had a great day, the numbers are up in ND this year, but so are the hunters.

Little Red Corvette1

Don't shoot all of them. Leave some for us!

dahogan

Hunters everywhere

dahogan

Little Red Corvette1

Nice birds!

I have been going up there eight years straight.
We usually hunt at Cannonball @ Regent, ND.
We go the first week of December. We would hunt when it is warmer,
except that makes too much sense.

dahogan

If there was anything I could change on an otherwise great trip, it would be the temp. With dogs, it was just too warm to hunt in the afternoons. We left a lot of birds for you

Little Red Corvette1

Six Roosters - One Gun

I like your style.
Throw in a few hens, and you
could hunt with our group.

Montana Ranches

I sell Montana ranches for sale for my day job. If you want less crowds than SD or ND try Eastern Montana. It is a well kept secret. Lots of birds and significant public land to hunt. You can also ask with a pretty good success rate if you smile!

02BlownZ06

That not a bad plan! I have been going back to my old stomping grounds in NE South Dakota for about 10 years in a row. All my buddies are farmers there so I have lots of land to hunt but the counts are way down so haven't gone for a couple years. That would be fun to try Montana!

Fatbob

The pheasants are taking an *** whipping by mother nature in ND this winter. the snow cover is pretty deep, and the birds keep hanging on the roadside to get some gravel and a lot of them are getting hit. We have had a little bit of a thaw,so it's a little better now but all the wildlife is having a tough time. We have a lot of deer in town this winter looking for something to eat.

02BlownZ06

Oh, man when they are bunching up like that and coming into town it is an indicator the winter pretty rough. We had our share of those in northern South Dakota also. Makes the area I hunt kind of fickle as some years it is the best in the state but if we have a winter kill it takes a while to come back. I have literally seen pheasants froze to death standing up in the ditch.

Montana Ranches

Wow now that is something I have yet to see. I have been hunting in South Dakota several times and had good hunts when bird numbers were down. I have never experienced the true South Dakota high bird count hunt where you are done before the breakfast is done being served in the cafe.

02BlownZ06

I am extremely fortunate to say I have experienced it on a number of occasions both in my youth and for about a 5 year run starting 10 or 12 years ago. The CRP is all coming out now so the additional lack of cover is really hurting my area. Now, I have not experienced limiting before breakfast because we can't hunt until noon in South Dakota and then it changes to 10 am sometime in November, I believe, so it's kind of like a gentlemen's hunt. You can party down the night before, sleep in, grab a late breakfast or early lunch and then head out. With parties of 6 or so and dogs we have surrounded some sloughs, walked in, and limited after all of us walked a hundred feet. I stood in one spot one day and dropped 8 roosters in a span of 30 or 40 seconds empyting and reloading my semi auto once. One year, I took Newb up with me and he was going on about his sweet over/under Citori and how he was going to tear 'em up with it. I said, dude, when we get done, you gonna wish you had a semi auto. Sure enough, we got back home and he went directly to the gun store and bought a new Beretta, LOL! I have seen pheasants get up late season when they are bunched up where it literally darkened the sky, hundreds of birds, and usually too far out ahead of you as they get real spooky and real smart late season. Lots of cool pheasant hunt stories to tell. If you have not ever experienced South Dakota pheasant hunting it is worth it to do, a bucket list item, if you will. You still have to be in the right area to experience a really sick, filthy count hunt. It's something I miss being in Kansas, even though, there are good areas here. What I explain to everyone regarding birds is....in Kansas there are 3 million people and about 600,000 pheasants. In South Dakota, there are 3 million birds and about 600,000 people!! You do the math!

Little Red Corvette1

I have been hunting in Regent, ND for eight years straight.
The numbers go up and down. One year, the most we hunted was an hour and 40 minutes to get our limit (3). We shoot our limit 95% of the time.

We prefer hunting during December as there is less people.
We shoot #4's in ND. We are guaranteed a free hunt if we find a pen-raised pheasant (holes in beak).

02BlownZ06

I am with you 100% with shooting 4's late season, brother! When I was a young buck and you could still buy lead deuces, I put a couple of those in the back end of my Browning for that occasional super long shot. Like you, I go up late November, early December and we see very few other hunters. You just have to deal with colder weather and smart, extremely wild birds. My kinda hunting! Paid hunt pen raised birds, although fun for plinking purposes are a joke compared to a seasoned, mature South Dakota/North Dakota rooster. You can give a pen raised bird a cross look and it's going down, where a good wild bird you may have shoot it again as it's coming down to keep it from running. They are some tough suckers which makes it so much fun.