Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

GREGORY, S.D. – Rows of milo and corn seem somehow out of place in the foothills below the Butte Mountains.

But try to tell that to the thousands of ring-necked pheasants that call this mixture of native grasslands and farm crops home.

Several were taking to the air right now and, with camera in one hand and gun in the other, I was at a loss for what to do.

As usual, I didn’t get the best effort from either.

“Who cares,” I thought. I’m just going to soak up the beauty of this land on an October afternoon on the Diamond A Ranch 14 miles north of Gregory.

A 2,000-acre hunting preserve owned by Jim and Andrea Olson, the Diamond A is not a diamond in the rough. It is a splendid, well-appointed preserve awash in wild pheasants, turkeys and deer.

Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., and I met Gary Kubicek and Bill McPherson, both with Country Vet pet foods out of Sioux City, Gary’s brother-in-law Tom Jansen and his friend Kenneth Bird, both of Omaha, for a couple days of bird shooting.

We never did get more than a half mile from the lodge. We walked milo strips mostly and the birds were there.

It was the second visit to the Diamond A by Howey and me. We had hunted here last year, the first year of operation for Jim and Andrea, who farm near Homer, Neb.… 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

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

Pheasants were boiling out of the milo field in unbelievable numbers.

Hunters cut loose, and the sound of 12-gauge shotguns reverberated across the landscape.

My shotgun hung over my shoulder on a sling, and I was performing rapid fire maneuvers with my Nikon in motor drive.

I had photographs of birds falling, birds getting up, dogs running across the field, hunters in the foreground, hunters in the background.

You don’t run into many moments such as this so a photographer has to “make hay when the sun shines” to quote an old farmer’s saying.

But enough is enough.

A big rooster was flying hard and fast right in my direction.

The camera dropped on its lanyard to my chest, and I unhinged the shotgun swinging it to my shoulder and passing the muzzle through the bird’s flight. I fired, and he folded.

I pumped another load into the Benneli and swung on another rooster and repeated.

Two down.… Continue reading

For those of us that have been waiting all year for pheasant season, well, it’s here!

Reports indicate that the pheasant outlook is good with those states that have a lot of habitat really crowing about their pheasant numbers.

Over the years, I’ve hunted with hundreds of hunter and was surprised how some of them hunted and amazed by others at how well they would look over the situation, hash things over, approaching each field differently.

Here are a few tips that I’ve learned that have helped me to become a more consistent early season pheasant hunter.

• Once you arrive at the field that you plan on hunting, keep the noise down to a minimum as all wild game has a very acute sense of hearing.  This means, don’t slam your car door, keep the noise to a minimum.

• If you use a whistle to control your dog, don’t keep blowing the whistle, as this will surely put the birds on alert, the last of a loud whistle is a foreign sound. If you use a whistle, try using a hawk call as this is a familiar sound and many times when the birds hear it will cause them hunker down, allowing you to get closer before the bust from the cover.

• Let your dog do the hunting and follow him wherever he leads you, as his sense of smell is the key to locating the birds.