Wednesday Pheasants

Since we decided to skip ducks today, we left the house around nine and drove to some public hunting areas near the Ft. Pierre National Grasslands. We hunted two separate pieces of cover, totaling two hours, that were very similar. Both were intermittent, waist-high grasses that were adjacent to cornfields - some cut some not. We expected them to be dynamite for roosters. The third spot contained tree rows planted for shelterbelts, small food plots of Milo, knee-high grass, and a small amount of cattails. We hunted in this area for around 45 minutes. The weather today was a change from previous days. It was cooler (40–45°) with fog and intermittent misty precipitation all morning.

We fired as many shots at pheasants as we did at ducks the last three days. Despite this surprising and perplexing fact, we had a thoroughly enjoyable morning. We hunted all three dogs, in pairs, through these spots and couldn't ask anymore from any of them then what they gave us. This was one of the factors that contributed to our high level of satisfaction.

We then drove eastward, stopping at the Pizza Hut in Chamberlain for lunch. Below is the view out the window from our booth at Pizza Hut. A couple things of note here: The landscape in the background is the Missouri River and the interstate 90 bridge across it. In the foreground of the picture is the South Dakota Hall of Fame. You may ask yourself, who's in the South Dakota Hall of Fame? A couple answers to that question would be: Mr. Bull, Chief Sitting - Mr. Horse, Chief Crazy - & Mr. Barker, Bob.

At the Hoover GPA this afternoon, Maggie and Winnie continued to provide us with excellent dog work. Both hunted essentially without correction (or direction) for the entire 90 minutes. We put up five hens and two roosters. Dan killed both roosters, only requiring three shots to do so. Mag found & retrieved the first rooster on a 'hunt dead' command in very tall, thick grass and Winnie retrieved the second bird in a cut cornfield. Good job by both dogs in both instances.

We hope that the change in weather will change our luck for duck hunting tomorrow morning. Our plan is to return to the White Lake WPA and cross our fingers.