Last Sunday I grabbed both dogs and my shotguns and headed out to my house in South Dakota for some bird hunting. This will be the final year Lucy is able to hunt, she is almost 13 and has mobility issues, Tucker is 5 and in his prime. Monday morning I had a hard time reaching my rancher friend to verify access, it was cold, damp, foggy and really windy. All three of us wanted to hunt so we went to a field I knew I could access, it had not been picked yet and we found it full of short milo and birds but not luck in getting close enough to shoot at any of them. Afternoon brought access to the ranchers family farm and it had not been picked either but we gave it a go. Several nice long pushes for Tucker and I turned up nothing but the old lady worked this nice mature bird like the pro she has always been.

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Day two was a repeat weather wise with some morning drizzle added in as a bonus, we scouted a few public places and found almost everything grazed or baled due to the drought this summer. Since early October they have had lots of rain and things are greening up again. Afternoon the weather improved and we headed over to my friends ranch. Lucy had several nice flushes on hens and Tucker and I took two roosters out of the cattails.

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Wednesday I met up with board member Ken, his friend Jay and we hunted public land for Pheasant and Chickens. Jay lives in South Dakota and had scouted the area pre-season. Tucker worked a nice old rooster up out of the cattails and I missed but Jay managed a nice shot on it and the first bird was in the bag. We tried to hunt another spot but a group of guys was just ahead of us, we relocated to a field Jay said he had seen lots of Chickens in and Ken managed to kill his first PC. I missed a chicken in that field, and did not kill a bird that day. Still a great day with the dogs and good company.

Thursday I hunted the ranchers other place that had been picked. It was a warm and sunny day but extremely windy. Tucker and I started out along some old farm machinery with a wheat field bordering it, the field had some fairly tall grass due to the recent rain and Tucker flushed a single sharptail in the tall grass which we put in the bag. We worked the tumbleweed choked fence line back toward the trucker and took a nice rooster before working out into a small shelter belt where we moved a half dozen roosters but did not get a shot at any of them. I hunted both dogs a few more areas around the ranch but the wind was a serious challenge. At the end up the day I took Lucy out to the shelter belt where I found the group of roosters earlier and we managed to put another rooster in the bag.


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Friday came and it was warm, breezy and beautiful. We took a rooster off of each ranch, Tucker found his in the cattails and Lucy and I went back to the shelter belt.




[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

We had a great trip! Looking forward to returning.