Dakota Pheasants in the Boondocks
It was cold. We were hot. So were our dogs because the icy Dakota wind was blowing smoking hot pheasant scent up their pipes.
“Get ready. Dotty’s looking really birdy,” our host Dave Bean called out.
“Yeah, Covey’s on point inside those bulrushes Steve.”
“Echo’s tail’s showing…” The brrrr of wings interrupted my partner. No more words required.
“Rooster, rooster, rooster!” Dave needn’t have wasted his breath. The air over the slough was exploding with pheasants, our only remaining challenge picking out the roosters. I had done that and was about to send him an invitation to dinner when another flushed at my feet and discombobulated my plans, my brain, my swing, and my trigger finger. Blam! Air ball.
Steve was apparently sorting out a bit of confusion of his own because I heard no shots from his 20 gauge. Fortunately, the old pheasant hunter in me took over and with my second barrel I knocked my first South Dakota rooster of 2025 into a burst of feathers. Covey and Echo raced for the retrieve.
All of this unfolded roughly 10 minutes after we’d left Dave’s truck. Like the proper guide he is, he’d driven us down a picked cornfield edge, parked well short of the heavy wetland cover, and reminded us to keep quiet and tiptoe in. After 16 days of open season, the surviving birds were alert, primed, and ready for escape.
“Look at all those!” Steve gasped as he took my bird from Echo. “Pouring out of the east side.”
“Hurry around and cut ‘em off if you can!” Dave suggested. At our age, we couldn’t. Besides, I learned long ago that racing through or around good cover to reach a far corner from which birds were already fleeing merely bypassed the few that hunkered and stayed, trusting that the two and four-legged bird glutton would rush off and overlook them.
We didn’t.
“Slow and steady” Steve said. “Let the dogs work.” And they did. As did we. By mid-day we’d put enough ruddy roosters to fill our bag limits, three fat birds each. The dogs were tired. Steve and I were beat, but glowing red from not just the cold, but the excitement and satisfaction of another invigorating, successful wild pheasant hunt in the undisputed Pheasant Capital of the World.
Dakotans revel in their wealth of pheasants because they not only provide the traditional hunting adventure upland gunners dream of, but also because they fuel the economy. Farmers pick up trespass fees. Some manage preserves. Hotel and restaurant owners cater to thousands of non-resident hunters during what would otherwise be a dead season. Pheasant hunting is a tourism goldmine, and Steve and I were throwing coins into it.
Veteran pheasant hunters with good dogs can do well hunting South Dakota’s thousands of public hunting grounds solo, but those with less rooster savvy would be better off hiring the likes of Boondocks Pheasant Hunts, a one-man guiding operation that reserves pheasant rich private fields for clients. Long time pheasant hunting veteran Dave Bean will lead you to the best coverts, recommend tactics, or direct you and your dogs personally. Or, if you prefer, he’ll work his experienced dogs and walk with you. Either way, you’ll get more than enough chances. As I did the penultimate morning of our hunt.
Dave’s dogs and ours were working a mix of prairie grasses, tall and short, plus some native wetland rushes and cattails, when a nervous rooster lost his courage and flushed in front of Steve, helped in no small measure by Echo. At his shot, there were three bursts of feathers. One from the rooster he knocked down, the second and third from two new birds that broke out wild and sailed 200 yards east to settle on a hilltop of tall grass. Figuring the bird might be winded and willing to settle, Steve and I and the dogs hustled over.
Both dogs were making scent, tracking and trailing until Echo went back toward Dave and his dogs near the creek and Covery went overland. I went with Covey. She, too, eventually moved down toward the lowlands where a rooster flushed. At my shot, a second leaped and flew the same route, falling in nearly the same spot. When Covey and I went down for the retrieve, we started a chain reaction of flushing roosters, several or which went over Dave and Steve. Two hours into our hunt, we were flush with the most famous upland game bird that even adopted South Dakota as its home.
If you’re ready for a true, traditional, wild South Dakota pheasant hunt, I suggest you contact Dave Bean at 605-215-8302.
