Pay to Hunt Pheasants? Yes for sure in South Dakota!
One question that comes up at this time of year is “why pay to hunt pheasants?” It’s a great question that deserves a response.
For years, pheasant hunting in MN where I grew up was enough for me. I lived in west central Minnesota where abundant habitat and farmland made the perfect breeding ground for hearty and healthy pheasant populations. By the early 90’s tough winters, loss of habitat and rainy springs had taken their toll on the pheasant populations all over MN. No longer could I go out and get a limit, not even close. It got to the point I didn’t want to take another rooster because I honestly believed that could be the last one in the county.
Not about to give up my days in the field, my search for pheasants went beyond the MN borders. I had always heard about the unbelievable hunting in South Dakota. It was something I had wanted to do, it seemed like the time had come to give it a try.
Late November of 2000, my wife and I packed up the dogs and headed west, with no particular destination in mind. On this first trip we had decided we were going to hunt Walk On land. There are many walk on pieces available all over SD which is available to all hunters with valid hunting licenses. We picked up a map book, which marks all the walk on pieces, our licenses and we were ready to go. Our first day out, we spent a lot of driving time looking for the walk on pieces we chose to hunt that day. Some we found, others we did not. Some of the pieces we did find, were a disappointment. Mostly pasture or surrounded by pasture, no food sources in the vicinity, or poor cover or too much cover made for a lot of work without good results. We did end up with getting a bird or two, but it seemed that spending that kind of money on gas, time and licenses the birds were worth more than gold. The tales of flocks of pheasants seemed like tall tales by our second day.
On the third day our luck changed. Coming out onto the road after battling cat tails, empty of birds, a tractor stops and a farmer jumps out. Our first reaction is we were on the wrong piece, and we were about to be reprimanded. Lucky for us, that wasn’t the case at all. This guy probably felt sorry for us, trudging through 2 feet of snow/howling winds/tall cat tails and no birds. He invited us to “help him thin out his birds”. He ran a paid hunt operation but since it was near the end of the season, most of his groups were done and there were still plenty of birds left. How could we say no?
The section he took us to was about a mile away. Acres of tall grasses, periodically interrupted by a food plot, along with patches of cat tails it looked like the perfect hunting habitat. As we drove down the section road, we could see hundreds of birds feeding in the food plots. Our hearts were really pumping now! Our first decision was to push the birds into the grass. We love hunting on our own with just the dogs out in front, but in times like this, we could have used a whole group to hunt this right but hey, we were willing to do what we could. My wife drove the truck to the end of the corn to post, I was holding back to take my dog down the middle. About half way down the corn plot the air exploded with birds, roosters and hens flying in all directions, the adrenaline pushing my heartbeat beyond healthy! I could hear my wife yelling; there are too many birds I don’t know which one to shoot! But shooting nevertheless! By the time I got to the end we had spotted at least 500 birds in that one small plot! We were giddy! And we had our limit! We had never seen anything like it!
We were hooked! If we were going to come all this way to hunt, we wanted to get into where the birds were going to be. It was obvious that a lot of thought and time were spent creating the perfect habitat that attracted the abundance of wild birds in the area.
Whereas much of the public land was marginal, these paid hunting operation lands were prime locations. We returned the next day. The birds were there, they were everywhere! Our job was trying to get close enough to get a shot. Those end of the year birds are far from relaxed thus any noise we made would send hundreds jumping out ahead of us. We had a ball working those fields, our dogs and seeing all the birds. We did limit out the next day as well but worked every bit of ground to get it.
We were fortunate enough to return for the following 5 years as pheasant hunting guides. Every hunter we guided, had every opportunity to get their limit many times during the day. Every day in the field, hunters were provided a thrill and an adrenaline rush as they watched hundreds of wild birds attempting escape to safer places. During the course of the season, hunting groups would stop, groups just like my wife and I who thought they would hunt only on public lands. They had traveled a long ways only to come up with few if any opportunities to get a rooster. These folks were throwing in the towel. They had spent too much money and time, and they wanted to get into birds. When they signed on, they were never sorry.
Paid hunts will cost some money but the benefits of paying for a great hunt far outweigh the disappointment of an unsuccessful hunting trip. People who run paid hunt businesses focus on making every bit of your hunt successful. They know where the birds are, they know the birds patterns, they know how to work a field to get the best results. If you aren’t having luck in one place, they keep moving you around until you are into the birds. Their lands are set up to attract pheasants…. Good nesting and roosting cover, water holes/cat tails and food plots. Their primary focus is to make sure each group has a successful hunt.
Public Walk On is great if you have the time, unfortunately good hunting land is next to impossible to find let alone get on and hunt. But, if you don’t care if you see many birds or if you don’t mind sharing the ground with others then this certainly is a viable option.
But if you want the best bang for your buck, don’t shy away from a paid hunt!
By John Jensen – www.MapleRiverPheasantHunts.com