South Dakota 2022
 

Sorry; no pics with birds, guns etc., just a quick pic with a cell phone before a couple of guys had to hit the road home. We got 17 birds the first day; I got a limit of 3 with 5 shells and was feeling pretty good; the next day the wind came up and if you were lucky enough to hit one it was probably in the next county before it knew it was dead. I knocked down 2 but the dogs couldn't find either. Got a couple more over the next couple days, then freezing rain and ice chased us home a day earlier than planned. A good trip with my nephews and some good guys...

https://i.imgur.com/AtstE8O.jpg

Hey, Phil, glad to see you were able to make this happen this year. And it sounds like you had some good ol' prairie weather for your stay.

I assume a nice 16 Fox was in the mix of guns?

Garry, my A grade 16 for 3 days, and my 16ga Sterly for the last one.

Phil,

Glad to see you had a great time in SD. I was up there the first of November and a lot of fields had been cut. This made for great hunting! The Kansas opener was a lot better than I expected this year. So far bird hunting is great.

Ken

Ken I’ve been wondering how Kansas is with the drought. Where did you hunt? I’m not sure I’ll make it out there for a variety of reason.

Phil,

I sent you a PM.

Ken

Been hunting SD for 15 plus years and thought our November hunt last year was the worst weather. Not so. This year hunted from 11/7 to 16 up near Eureka. Snowed or flurried everyday. Winds howled and normally with crops down this makes for good hunting but we had an ice storm day 3 that covered every blade of prairie grass, cattail and cottonwood with 1/4'-1/2" of ice that remained until we left as the temp never rose above low 20's. Dogs and hunters persevered and we had good luck but happy to be home in South Carolina...until I awoke to a sunrise temp of 24 this morning!

Chris,

What a difference a week makes. I hunted 10/31 - 11/4 and the weather was nice. In fact, Wednesday was too warm with a high of 76. We stayed around the house that day and drove into town.

Ken

Too hot is definitely worse than too cold. We've always picked the second and third weeks of November as that was a balance between crops hopefully being down, less hunter traffic and weather not being too outrageous. Although for us the worse the weather the better the hunting usually is. But the ice was another story. Tough on the dogs. Mushers Wax weather.