Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

Late season pheasant hunting is a great sport; sometimes, one requiring a real love for the sport.

During the late season, the weather can be down right nasty as I found out last week on a hunt we filmed near Watertown, S.D.

Over the last several years, a group of us back home in Watertown, S.D.  try to get together to do a pheasant hunt and this year; we just happened to pick a day where the weatherman predicted a temperature of -12 with a wind chill, a brisk  –21 degrees.

Well needless to say, because of the many things going on during this time of the year and the colder weather, we ended up with just 3 hunters on the first day of the hunt and four on the second.

Chuck Stone & John Wilson joined us on the first day with Chuck Stone, my cousin Joe Jipp and Larry Munger joining us on the second day.

With the cold temperatures, we didn’t get too excited about going out, hoping that it would warm up a bit, waiting until one o’clock before hunting our first field.

With the smaller group we were hunting with, we’d have to change our hunting tactics, hunting smaller patches then we had the year before when we hunted with a larger group.

We’d be hunting smaller grass strips, sloughs along with a few rows of unpicked corn.

On the first drive, since Chuck and I had dogs, we’d push through a slough towards a stock dam where John would be strategically waiting for those birds that ran ahead of us or flushed out the end.

As it often happens this time of the year, several birds blew out of the cover well out of range as we worked our way through the slough.… Continue reading

Anyone who’s traveled through South Dakota during the fall can tell you that the colors are beautiful this time of the year.  The breath taking yellows and reds of the trees and bushes will jump out at you as they begin to appear when temperatures begin cool down.

Another color that can be seen everywhere this time of the year can be found on caps, shirts, dog collars, vests and even sport jackets. Its hunter’s orange, no matter where you’re at, you’re going to see it on just about everyone, everywhere, in convenience stores, restaurants, motels and of course in the fields.

Making our way north towards Pierre, hunter’s orange became much more “visible”, becoming the prominent color as we headed into some of the finest habitat to be found in the nation.

As we came closer to Pierre, the plantings for pheasants became more evident as numerous food plots, CRP plantings and tree plantings dotted the landscape.

The South Dakota Governor’s Invitational Pheasant Hunt is an annual event drawing people from throughout the U.S as well as over seas to the state.

This event brings business leaders, entrepreneurs, and state officials together to not only highlight the great pheasant hunting in the state but also to feature the many advantages of developing, moving or expanding a business in South Dakota.… Continue reading

Well it’s that time of the year again, the time between summer heat and cool fall weather when many of the hunting seasons are opening up.

Last weekend, which was uncomfortably warm, we were out on the Grasslands south of Pierre hunting grouse.

It was down right hot as we covered a lot of ground trying to film a show and get a shot at a grouse or prairie chicken.

Half way through the walk, I had warmed up way beyond being comfortable and my dog Mo Jo had to be a whole lot warmer as he covered twice the ground that I had and did it while wearing a fur coat.

This time of the year, when hunters really need to be aware of how quickly a hunting dog can overheat.

Since dogs don’t sweat, the only way they can cool off is by panting, which isn’t a real effective way to disperse excess body heat.

Most hunting dogs love to hunt and will run until their wheels fall off, literally running until they drop from heat exhaustion.

A few years ago near Winner, S.D. hunters lost over dozen dogs from heat exhaustion.

I know what you’re thinking, how can anyone run a dog that hard, well it’s really not that simple as hunting dogs are trained to hunt and they’ll do it until the bitter end.

You can put water in front of one and if there’s something to hunt, he’ll hunt instead of drinking water.

This is why it’s vitally important to make sure your dog is hydrated, getting plenty of water and resting on a regular basis.

When I’m hunting during periods of hot weather, I always carry a squirt bottle of water in my hunting vest.… Continue reading

To many, the final day of the regular pheasant season means that there’s a long time before they and their dog will have the opportunity to hit the field in pursuit of the Ringneck.

But to me and many others, it’s an indicator of what we’ll see nine months down the road.

If we see very few birds, especially hens, we know that it may very well be in for a tough opener next season.

On the other hand, if you see thousands of birds, a vast majority of those hens, baring any unforeseen tragedy, it means that the opener will be fantastic.

Well that’s exactly what Team Outdoorsmen Adventures member Larry Myhre, Sioux CityIowaTom Mitchell KELO-FM Radio, Sioux Falls and I ran into when we hunted with our good friend Cody Warne, Warne Ranches, Pierre, SD.

When we met Cody just outside of Pierrehe was optimistic, as he always is, telling us he had a good bunch of pheasants on the ranch and that we might even get a shot at a few ducks and geese.

As we followed Cody out, I and my cameraman Kyle Nickolite, Yankton, SD talked about how we wanted to hunt these birds as we knew they would be bunched, spooky and airborne at the slightest sound. We thought we had a pretty good plan until we headed out into the field!

When we made our way into the filed, it was obvious, that the habitat on Warne Ranch was established for wildlife, it was ideal, with lots of shelterbelts, food plots and wetlands areas.… Continue reading

Gary Howey, left, chats with Stan Krause and Jim Finnell
as we walk into the hunting area with Buck the beagle.
(Photo by Larry Myhre)

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

LINCOLN — Nothing puts a smile on the face of Stan Krause quicker than the howl of one of his beagles on a hot rabbit track.
He and his friend Jim Finnell are both retired and spend most days somewhere in the fields around their Lincoln, Neb., homes searching for rabbits.
Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., and I joined Krause and Finnell and their friends John Cariotto and Dick Turpin, both of Lincoln, for a day of chasing rabbits with hounds.

This was a first for me. I have done a lot of rabbit hunting, but have only dreamed of the opportunity of hunting them with beagles.
Now, I was standing near a brushpile on the 412-acre Stagecoach Lake State Recreation Area about 22 miles south of Lincoln.

The beagles were working the brush hard, but the rabbits were reluctant to leave the briars. Occasionally I’d get a glance at a bunny hotfooting it across the clearing only to enter another tangle of brush so thick even the beagles had trouble penetrating it. … Continue reading

PIERRE, S.D. — Just when you think you have seen more pheasants in one place than you will ever see, you show up at Cody Warne’s ranch and see what real pheasant numbers are all about.

Just take a gander at the photo at the top of this page.

Consider that this is just one small field among 2,400 acres of chest high prairie grasses, and endless food plots of milo, millet, corn, sunflowers and alfalfa.

Throw in a bunch of shelter belts and and something like 26 artesian wells for water and you are beginning to talk about real pheasant habitat.

In fact, the duck hunting can be just as good as the pheasant hunting.

That’s what Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., Tom Mitchell of KELO-FM radio of Sioux Falls and I learned recently. With us was Kyle Nickolite, Vermillion,who filmed all the action for Gary’s television show “Outdoorsmen Adventures.”

We met in the old barn which Cody has remodeled inside to serve as a hunt headquarters. First thing I noticed was the several mounts of big buck deer hanging on the walls. Next was a long counter on which hundreds of sheds about two feet deep rested.

I looked out back and saw about a dozen pheasants roosting on big bales in the corral.

It was starting to look like my kind of place.… Continue reading

As the pheasant season starts to wind down, there are still plenty of birds out there for those dedicated pheasant hunters to pursue.

Because of all the CRP acres coming out there’s less habitat and with the amount of snow on the ground, there’s no doubt that hunting will be a lot more work than it was during the early season.

Since the birds have been hunted hard and educated, this is the time of the year that you might want to think about changing the choke in your shotgun as there’s a pretty good chance that the majority of the shots you’ll get won’t be the close ones you had early season when you were using a modified or improved choke.

During the late season, your shots will be a lot farther put and by using a full choke you’ll have a tighter pattern to help you bring birds down at greater distances.

It’s also a good idea to go to a little heavier load during the late season in order to have enough knock down power on those long shots.

This is the time of the year when I switch to heavy 4 or 5 shot.  The majority of the time, I’ll use 5 shot, but if the birds are really wild, my first shell in the gun will be a 5 and I’ll back it up with 4 shot for the follow up shot.

One big mistake that many hunters make is to make noise when they get out of their vehicles.

I’m sure every hunter knows not to slam his door, but you’d be surprised how many times experienced hunters will let not think about it and let a door slam.

So it’s not a bad idea, before you exit the vehicle to remind everyone that they need to leave the vehicle quietly and not to let the door slam.

Since everything is either covered with ice or snow, getting into a field with out alarming the birds is almost impossible because there’s really no way that you can walk across snow or ice or frozen ground and not make some sort of racket.… Continue reading

Often as a kid growing up in N.E. South Dakota, my buddies and I would pursue what we thought was big game that inhabited the thickets and woodlot along the river, the Wily Wabbit.

With BB guns in hand, off we’d go, heading down the Sioux River out towards Lake Pelican.

Didn’t matter much what type of rabbit it was, we were just after rabbits, it could have been a black-tailed or white-tailed jack rabbit or a cottontail, we just wanted to say that we’d bagged a rabbit.

We knew there were a lot of rabbits around as we’d seen their tracks in the snow, so it was only a matter of time before we came across one.

Well, after numerous trips we had yet to see anything but tracks, pure frustration brought our Great Rabbit Hunt Expedition to an abrupt end.

Like many things that one tries that doesn’t work out, rabbit hunting became something that I was willing to forget about, to bury deep in my subconscious hoping to forget.

Several years later Shorty, a friend of my Dad, Cal who worked with him at Sanders/Sharpe Chevrolet asked if I and my brother A.J. would like to go along and do some rabbit hunting with him.

My first thoughts were, nope, been there, tried that, didn’t need it until he mentioned that we’d be hunting them with beagles.… Continue reading

Coming from South Dakota, pheasant hunting has always been a big part of my fall season.

When I was a youngster growing up in N.E. South Dakota, my main job on opening day was to be a beater and retriever.

We’d walk with the adults, filling up the space in between the hunters, similar to the way they do it on the African hunts; we basically beat the bush, driving the birds either into the air or flushing out the end of the field where our blockers waited.

Once a bird dropped it was our job to run them down and retrieve them.

I’ve hunted pheasants all over the country, but live for the day that I can get back to South Dakota to do a traditional pheasant hunt.

The hunt that I truly look forward to is the South Dakota Governor’s Invitational hunt, an annual event that’s headquartered out of the Pierre area.

It’s not only a great hunting experience, it’s also a chance to meet with old friends as well as make new ones.

This year was another great event as the weather once again was a beautiful autumn day with the vivid fall colors being seen everywhere.

A bit breezy, but nothing that would deter this group of hunters from all over the U.S. from enjoying a great day in South Dakota’s outdoors.… Continue reading

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

Sam Mozak, Elk Point, left, Woody Skuodas, Hinton, and Bill Curry, Elk Point, pose with our group’s limit of pheasants. (Staff photo by Larry Myhre)

KENNEBEC, S.D. — If you’ve never hunted in the land of 11 million birds, you owe it to yourself to make the trip.

Right now, pheasant hunting in South Dakota is the best it has been since the Soil Bank years.

And that, dear readers is saying a lot.

Last week, Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., and I made a day trip to a hunting lodge near Kennebec that we had been hearing a lot of good things about.

Dakota Hot Spots didn’t disappoint.

In terms of numbers of birds seen, I counted it among a handful of the top  hunts I’ve experienced.

And that, dear readers, is saying a lot.

I’ve carried a gun in the field for pheasants every year since 1955, most of that in South Dakota and most of that in the most pheasant rich parts of the state.

When you see 200 to 300 birds take to the air in one field, it’s a memory that tends to stick in your mind. And that’s what we saw here.… Continue reading