South Dakota 2025

[Fallbeard]

I’m hunting in the Gettysburg area right now. High today was 64. Still lots of standing corn but it’s being harvested every day. Bird numbers seem great though. Killed my first ever pheasant today.

 

[Bopper0219]

We're headed to the Huron area this weekend for the Ringneck Festival competition. 6 man teams, everybody has 4 shells to get their 3 birds. If you go 3-3 you can pass the extra shell to a teammate. 30+ teams and some great prizes to the winners!

 

[jags]

We're headed to the Huron area this weekend for the Ringneck Festival competition. 6 man teams, everybody has 4 shells to get their 3 birds. If you go 3-3 you can pass the extra shell to a teammate. 30+ teams and some great prizes to the winners!

Dang, that is this weekend?

We are headed there also, not for the festival but just hunting the area.

 

[KurtR]

Going to get to enjoy some great Sodak weather rain and snow on saturday with 15-25 mph winds and lows in the teens. I will be chasing greenheads just north of there weather will be great for duck hunting

 

[spur60]

Going to get to enjoy some great Sodak weather rain and snow on saturday with 15-25 mph winds and lows in the teens. I will be chasing greenheads just north of there weather will be great for duck hunting

Friday ahead of the front and Sunday after the front is when I'll be hunting ducks. No desire to sit in the rain/snow on saturday.

 

[Bopper0219]

Dang, that is this weekend?

We are headed there also, not for the festival but just hunting the area.

It sure is! I’m sure the area is always busy this time of year but I’d imagine this event draws a “few” extras to the community. Half our team is local so thankfully we get to dodge the hotel game.

 

[KurtR]

Friday ahead of the front and Sunday after the front is when I'll be hunting ducks. No desire to sit in the rain/snow on saturday.

Hoping it’s cold enough it’s snow. Friend that got me into running hunt tests is coming back from Tennessee so we will be hunting regardless of weather.

 

[CHSD]

We're headed to the Huron area this weekend for the Ringneck Festival competition. 6 man teams, everybody has 4 shells to get their 3 birds. If you go 3-3 you can pass the extra shell to a teammate. 30+ teams and some great prizes to the winners!

How did you do?

 

[Woolley Bugger]

I was there for my annual trip the week after opening day. I hunt about 20 minutes outside of Mitchell. It was the toughest hunting I've experienced in about 15 years. Birds were much harder to come by, and when we saw them, they were often flushing out of range. It didn't help that we're all pretty mediocre shots. Every year we resolve to spend more time at the range, and then one year later, we've only done a few sessions of sporting clays.

3 big differences this year:
1) On 2 of the 3 days, we had wind gusts to 30mph. That made for birds getting up much faster.
2) We were told that with the higher prices of corn and soy, farmers have altered their planting to completely cover acreage, rather than planting distinct plots. That meant that there weren't cleared rows for the wingmen to walk to keep the birds contained. Instead, they could just spill out the side of our line into the sea of crops.
3) We have a couple of coyote hunters in our group. In all the time I've been going, no one has shot a coyote in daylight. This year, they shot 2. I learned that our guide and his son kill 100s of coyotes a year. As my guide gets older, and his son busier, there was less coyote hunting this year, so more predation.

Even though the hunting was disappointing, shooting birds is just one part of the experience. What keeps me going back is the companionship, both with my local friends and with the community there, who we've gotten to know very well over the years.

 

[KurtR]

Its not the glory years of 05-10 but its been better up here than i have seen in alot of years and we havent even hit the good time of year to hunt yet lots of crops still in

 

[TagPrincess]

Keep some black velvet in the truck for permissions last year was so good. Hard to imagine topping it.

 

[chinboys]

Just got back from my first ever pheasant hunting trip in SD Gettysburg.
First, the cold and wind will make your dogs and you want to quit.
95% of the rooster birds are flushing way before you can get out of your vehicle... it seems all the young and dumb ones have been shot already.
When walking into a private or public area... you need blockers at all sides as they will run to the side to fly away upon you coming in... need more hunters to help.
No such thing as ditch hunting in late season hunting as the volume of the ditch has been filled up with crushed vegetation, ice and snow... you and dog will sink.
Cattails, grasslands, water sources (lakes, ponds, creeks), and harvested corn, soy and sunflower edges or transition areas plus the bottoms of wind protection trees are where the birds are.
And dusk hunting at the above at the gravel roads yielded many birds as they need grit to help digest the seeds they have eaten.
Lastly, I have been given some many rooster spur fingers... the birds are 30-50 yards away in a filed or within animal or human safety zones. Next year, when I return in the late season, I plan on shooting turkey TSS loads at 40-50 yards.