The first leg of my recent bender was a pheasant hunt with American Wingshooting Lodge near Platte, South Dakota. I’ve made the trip north many times over the years, but this is the second year for this specific place. Last year’s results are here.

Like last year, we had an absolutely wonderful time. Accommodations were first rate, food was fantastic and occasionally overwhelming, and the people were some of the nicest you could meet. Of course none of that matters a bit if the hunting sucks. It doesn’t. The first and third days we had our limit by lunch, despite the 10:00 start. The second day was actually nice because a howling wind made the shooting more difficult, thus the hunt lasted into the early afternoon.

Bill and crew have the operation figured out. Every logistic is covered, every option available, and everyone knows what they are doing.

If I have a criticism, it’s the nature of South Dakota hunting in general. Honestly, it can be too easy. Pheasants are numerous, and killing 3 can take 15 minutes in a good field. After you have a limit you are left with little to do. In some ways I enjoy the DIY hunts we do in Western Kansas more because the skill of you and your dogs will make the difference between a full or empty vest. In South Dakota the slowest, most inaccurate shooter, hunting over a poodle, can expect to kill his birds. I would like to at least see them move the limit to 4 roosters.

Obviously this isn’t the fault of American Wingshooting Lodge. They offer a top-notch hunt for those seeking a great experience. If you are considering a hunt with them I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. Drop me a line at dukkillr@hotmail.com

* I am in no way compensated or given a benefit by anyone for writing this.

I’m pheasant hunting near Platte, South Dakota today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. More details when I have time. Today:

A good breeding population plus a mild winter and good ground cover has created a great forecast for the 2009-2010 Kansas Upland season. Most of the state had good pheasant hatches, good quail hatches, and good left over populations. I’ll be out there chasing them this fall, and you should be too.

Read the official report here.

I keep getting Google hits on this topic because of this post. Unfortunately that link doesn’t really help you handle a dove with the feathers still attached. No worries, it’s an absolute no brainer to clean a dove once you’ve done a few.

1) Get some doves and a pair of game shears:

Read the rest of this entry »

A particularly nasty muni court docket had me booked until around 3:00 today. After making sure we avoided jail and other nasty possibilities I changed clothes and headed out south to check food plots, move some stands around, and chase some doves if I could find any.

First, check this out:

All the plots look great but I think this one is the best. Everything is shin high and extremely dense. Once again, it appears we used plenty of turnip seed but if you look closely you can see all sorts of things are growing up:

A couple of the food plots have a different seed mix that includes this mystery plant:

Maybe somebody who paid better attention in Field Botany than I did could offer an idea? My partner was an attractive red head who drove us in her convertible to our site visits…

Finally after checking things out I wandered around chasing a few doves as they traveled between a corn field and their roost.

Now for a shower and bed…

The highlight of the early fall for me is usually the dove opener on the family farm south of town. As long as I can remember The Old Man has been planting sunflowers or wheat, inviting a bunch of friends and then having a bar-b-que afterwards. In a good year most everyone will kill a limit and we’ll total somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-250.

Not so much this year though. With an extremely wet spring the sunflowers weren’t in even close to early enough. As a result the numbers were way down. Fortunately it was still a beautiful evening and I’m in a BBQ coma…

In the Kansas City area one place is synonymous with dove hunting. James A. Reed Memorial Wildlife Area will host several hundred hunters on opening day. They have some hunter-to-acre ratio that allows them to pack in a bunch of guys over quality habitat. The result is that on opening day alone they will often kill several thousand doves.

I’ve tried it twice, once each of the last two years. Once I had one of the best shoots of my life, once I felt like the area had been shot out. Both years it was the second day of the season. Like most public areas, if you don’t get to them in the first few days you’re wasting your time. To get a prime spot for noon on opening day people start arriving at 2:30 am!

Anyway, the Kansas City Star had an article in today’s paper saying that the kill was way down because of the weather. 620 hunters and only 1900 doves is not the type of kill they are used to. I sure didn’t notice lower numbers 100 miles to the west on my opening day… The article can be found here.

Friday I cut work a bit early to start a two day dove bender. The Old Man and I killed about a dozen Friday night in an area between food and water. I’d scouted this area and expected about what we got, not much but better than working! Then we hooked up with wives and friends for a steak dinner, red wine, and a bonfire. I’d been in bed about 4 hours when the alarm went off and we headed east for another hunt in a different area.

This spot had cut wheat strips and standing sunflowers. The habitat looked absolutely fantastic but we were greeted with cool, rainy, foggy, wet weather. That would be the opposite of good dove weather.

A handful of us managed to kill about 30 but that was a bit of a disappointment. The Old Man had scouted it a few days before and expected a better shoot.

Since The Old Man and I still need 16 doves for a daily limit we gave it another run yesterday afternoon. I brought my increasingly pregnant wife because it was a beautiful afternoon and she wanted to see the dog work, she wasn’t up to shooting however. We picked up another 11 and enjoyed a nice sunset.

Private land hunts can wait for the next several days. Opening day is the only time to hit the public ground around here. Usually that means I find myself watching the sunrise with a guy 20 yards to my left, another 20 yards to my right, and some idiot sitting in the middle of the field oblivious to the problems he’s causing. They all have 3 1/2″ Mossbergs and more than one of them will be shooting high brass 4s. It’s an experience not to be missed!

But not this year. I drew my first choice “Special Hunt” for a limited entry spot about 45 minutes west of here along the Kansas River. I’d never been in the area so I scouted a bit yesterday after work. Just watching for a few minutes from the edge of the field I knew I was in for a treat this morning. It did not disappoint.

I figured the hunting section of the ground was 30-40 acres and they only drew 12 hunters so we were able to spread out. That actually proved to hurt production though because the doves had no one to stir them up. I passed countless shots because they were too low, not something that usually happens on a public land shoot.

Despite stalling, shooting only one at a time, taking pictures, and shooting video, it was still over too fast. I was back at the truck before 8:00. Anyway, it was a great time, and I hope I live long enough to draw this hunt again.