South Dakota It’s all about the pheasant By Gary Howey
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.
My partner Larry Myhre of Sioux City, IA and I have been attending this event since the 80’s and have enjoyed not only the hunting, but also the many people we’ve met and we now consider good friends.
This year, I hunted with Team 29 on land owned by the Lyle & Mary Stewart family, located, just a short drive northeast of the state capital. Our group would be hunting tree plantings, CRP and milo fields giving us ample opportunities to bag our limit.
Like much of the northern Great Plains states, most of the crops in South Dakota were still in the field, giving the birds thousands of acres of corn, beans and milo in which to hide.
On our first drive, we’d push through a CRP field bordered by tree plantings west towards our blockers, south and then east through milo fields.
Since we were hunting a pretty big field, we put plenty of dogs on the ground helping to push the birds up out of the grass as well as helping us to locate our downed birds.
A short distance into the trees, two birds made the fatal mistake, bursting from the heavier cover, both made it but not very far before plummeting to the ground.
One was retrieved quickly, while the other eluded the hunters and dogs in the tree line.
My lab, Mo, made a beeline in the direction where the bird had dropped to help look for it. Since there were several dogs already in that area I called him off.
As he came from the trees into the CRP field, he became “birdie”, hung a hard right, locking up on the wounded bird that had run out of the trees and buried itself in the grass waiting for our hunters to walk by, so it could make it’s escape.
As far as I’m concerned, hunting with a dog is a big part of the hunt as it’s a pleasure to watch them work and at times, they’ll retrieve others birds to you and by the time you get to the end of the field you could end up with a vest full of birds without firing a shot.
We divided the walking and blocking up evenly, taking turns at both giving everyone the opportunity to get into the birds. After one drive, several others and I loaded into a pickup along with our dogs as we headed to block the end of a Milo field.
Mo wasn’t about to quit hunting and as we headed down the road to block the end of the field, bailed out of the truck, heading back into the field to hunt with the hunters rather than ride. Once he starts to hunt, he doesn’t want to quit and after the “spill” continued to hunt all day, showing no worse for wear.
Like much of the habitat found in South Dakota, the Stewart family farm contained excellent cover holding large numbers of birds, indicating that Lyle and his family had done an excellent job of providing habitat for wildlife. In the short period of time that we hunted our team was able to bag 35 of the 1,000 plus birds that were bagged on this years hunt.
This is just one of the many events held in the state, highlighting all that South Dakota has to offer not only for vacationers, but for hunters and businessmen alike.
Once you’ve spent time in the state, it won’t take you long to realize why South Dakota is the state of Great Faces, Great Places!”