Pheasant report!

[bswiv]

Spent the last week in Gregory, S. D. They call the place "pheasant central" based on a quote from Fortune Magezene a few years ago. In fact it's inscribed on the front of the stone under the pheasant in the picture.

Even though it rained for 4 of the 5 days we were there we still had a great time. Plenty of birds. The outfitter and the guide were great folks. I even spent the last afternoon, when it was blowing 30+ with gusts to 40 and a bit of rain, walking the tree rows and field edges with the guide. No dogs we just worked along on foot. Covered a couple of miles of area. The outfitter let us just go, both of us with guns. I enjoyed that a pile.The weather was so bad that there was not another shot heard the whole time we were out.

And let me tell you about the airport. As you exit your plane at the Sioux Falls airport there is a BIG sign that says "Welcome Hunters". As you walk through the terminal with your gun case people don't pay you any attention.....imagine that in New York or Miami or L. A.!!

More than that, on Friday afternoon as we were leaving, the airport was packed with hunters arriving for the weekend. I mean hundreds of them. And in the terminal there are set up about a dozen manned booths giving out coffee and snacks and all sorts of information about hunting in S.D.

And this is really something..........they were selling, a hundred feet from where you pick up your bags, shotgun shells!!! I'm not making that up. There INSIDE the terminal you could buy shotgun shells!!!

Tell me that is not God's Country. The whole thing made it clear how wonderful a place America can be when we are FREE and the people are trusted and treated like adults.









That last picture is from inside Pete's Taxidermy. The place is amazing! He has 10,000 feet of showroom. They do the big displays for the likes of Cabelas. To get to the display you go right through the workshop. He and his wife and his wifes sister do the critical work and they have more family and a number of employees finishing stuff up. It was so good that we had to go back for a second look.

[Zombie Steve]

I go every year in Eastern Colorado, but I really want to take a trip to SD...

The airport does sound great! Reminds me of some tshirt I saw that said Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms - sounds like my kind of store!

I only hunted without dogs once, and it was pretty tough.

Nice lookin birds - we want a dinner report with recipie!

[Fat White Boy]

Oh my! Where's my blood pressure medicine? What is the daily bag and posession limit?

[bswiv]

Bag is 3 a day unless you are on a "preserve" in which case I think the rules are up to the landowner. But I also gather that if you are on a "preserve" there is a high probability that you will be shooting pen raised birds.

We looked hard to find a place to do wild birds.

Never done this sort of thing before. I'd say we got darn lucky in that we found a guy who is a 3rd generation S.D. farmer, in fact his sons are the 4th generation farming the land and he now spends most of his time managing the hunting on it.

From what we saw while we were there it might have worked out very different becasue I gather that a lot of the "pheasant hunting" ends up being more of a trip with the boys to do a bunch of drinking. As you can tell by the pictures that is not what we were after. I'd of been very aggrivated if we had ended up in a group like that. Wanted to go hunting and to learn and see a new thing, and it worked out real well.

[Countertop]

And let me tell you about the airport. As you exit your plane at the Sioux Falls airport there is a BIG sign that says "Welcome Hunters". As you walk through the terminal with your gun case people don't pay you any attention.....imagine that in New York or Miami or L. A.!!

Flew into Sioux Falls for the first time last fall. How right you are . . . but you forgot to mention (or perhaps it wasn't up yep, when is statewide opening weekend?? I suspect its still a week or so off) the huge flea market of gun dealers and taxidermists, and guides that set up in the terminal to welcome all the hunters. The thing that floored me the most was the closest table to the security checkpoint (and there were like 40 of them) was a gun shop that was selling ammo, cases, cammo and GUNS!!!!!!!!!! In the fricken airport. It was gorgeous.

Hello Heaven!!!

Hunting was pretty good too! Heading back first week of December.

[Pahoo]

Just like I said on the previous post; "Knew you would have fun and have more hits than misses". Noticed in the second picture that you had some wet weather that day and birds may have flushed early. Did they hold or were they jumpy? Tell me your reaction to this hunt. What did the pheasants teach you? How did the dogs work? Were most of your brids wild ones? What shot worked best for you and know that may be hard to answer. So glad you had a great hunt and can now spend many hours of conversation with this experience!!!!

[longboard]

I want to go back there where the USA is, insted of California.
I may not have any in-state hunting due to the damn fires............
South Dakota is the land of the free for sure, thanks for the hope in our Country.
Longboard