The hunt was spotty for me - but still a lot of fun. I have gone for a number of years with some friends that I used to work with to a semi-guided hunt around Gregory South Dakota. Those guys all hunt labs - so I knew it was going to be an issue (have a Griff now), but I decided to hunt with them on Thursday anyway. I drove out Wednesday to meet them in Gregory had a good time that night at the local taverns and got to sleep in and enjoy that great late start time in SD
. Tough to be the only guy with a pointer when hunting with the closer labs so I had to really real him in so he didn't range out 100yds on point and have all of the labs see him and take off busting birds. The birds was acting weird in my mind. It's been 3 years since i was hunting with this group and guide and have had great success in the past. I felt something was just off. I was able to sneak away after a drive and get my birds in a draw adjacent to where we had a just hunted through a large field of CRP/set aside grass. I went and worked the dog with one other hunter. I didn't shoot any birds out of the big drive field because I wanted good clean dog work and staunch points. Took maybe 30minutes in that draw and I had my birds and walked back to the truck where the guys were displaying the other 15 birds that were taken out of the first driven area. I checked the birds - at least 12 out of the 15 had holes in the beaks - they had been pen raised birds and had been released to supplement the natural bird population. I stopped at a gas station that afternoon when I left to go to Mitchell to get fuel and talked with some locals - seems that the bird population is way down from 3 hard winters and a very hard cold/wet spring. The guides, it seems, have been buying and releasing birds on their leased land to supplement the natural birds so everyone thinks it is how is was 3-5 years ago - they don't want to loose business from the return guys - the locals really didn't want to admit this. So that's why those birds were acting weird on that big hunt through the field - raised birds. We didn't kick a single hen out of that area. In previous years that same hunt through that field would kick 50 hens out - another hint the population is down and it used to be more natural. When I went and shot mine in that small draw , I had 5 hens and 4 roosters out of that on area - and the roosters that I took appear to be pen raised - I checked the beaks for blinder/holes. So, that was disappointing in my mind. I go to hunt, not shoot birds. I had to pay $200 for that day to hunt with that group - I don't think I will ever do that again. It really was such a let down. The company was good - but it just doesn't do it for me know that I have spent so much time with my new dog.I drove that afternoon (Thursday) to Mitchell, SD. I picked my wife's brother in law and his English Pointer up at the regional airport that afternoon and we hunted public lands for an hour. Birds were tough to find - nice weather, all the crops were down, and the fields were full of corn and beans missed by the combine. Had nice dog work with the hens so all was not lost - but the hunting was tough. I just wanted to go out and work the dog some more on wild birds so I walked while he hunted. We got on to our land that we had arranged to hunt on Friday morning and hunted all day Friday, Saturday and half a day Sunday. Great cover, a few hens, and fewer roosters. Good company and dog work make up for it. The landowner apologized for the lack of birds, but it is what it is. We shot 6 birds over the 3 days we were there (drove home sunday afternoon after hunting until 2pm). Not great by any means but was fun. It's called hunting for a reason.
I will tell you this, I would take getting a bird a day on those natural birds that I hunted hard and worked for over those birds that the guide released in Gregory any day. I had always heard the stories of all the birds that are shipped to SD for the season, I guess I just didn't want to believe it. I don't remember it being like that the last time I was there....
