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be a springer spaniel in a cattail marsh,” he wrote.“ Imagine the intoxicating aromas. And would I hunt close and be obedient? Hell no!”
On that same day more than 25,000 hunters passed through the Cabela’ s store in Mitchell, SD alone, a scene that was repeated, though on a smaller scale, at any outlet that sold shells, licenses, sunglasses and cold drinks. After all, the temperature pushed 90 degrees that day and more than 10 dogs perished in the heat. Yet, more than 150,000 hunters were in South Dakota uplands that day, over twice as many as would watch the World Series that night at Yankee Stadium.
A few days later I drove to my friend, Steve Halvorson’ s farm near Kennebec, SD. He’ d hosted two parties of 20 hunters each on opening weekend. One group bagged their limit in a single cornfield. Another took less than an hour.
“ We killed 240 pheasants on our farm on opening weekend,” Steve told me,“ and we didn’ t even get to some of our best cover.”
We were shooting a TV show and as the camera rolled, Steve and I walked up to a kochia-laden, dry stock pond. A bird flushed and Steve downed it. About 50 other birds flushed, then another 40 or 50, than about 75. They kept on flushing for a full 6 minutes. This, on a farm that already saw a 240-bird harvest.
“ Yeah, it’ s a lot like the soil bank days,” said Harlan Halvorson, Steve’ s dad,“ except that they were probably more scattered back then.”
On my first two hunts this fall, the bird count would have been in the thousands, and at Steve’ s farm, I easily saw the most birds I’ ve ever seen on a single day.
Opening days and early season hunts are fun, but I still prefer late season when you see as many birds but they’ re wilder than hell. These are the wise old survivors, roosters who’ ve run the gauntlet, some more than few times.
The Passions Admit it, old timer. There are
two of the biggest passions in your life-- deer and pheasant hunting. Some things we keep to ourselves. Among them, a few secret fishing holes, a special wetland or two and some sports we can partake in without the intrusion of a TV camera.
We’ ve succeeded completely when it comes to deer hunting and we only occasionally fall from the wagon on pheasants. Watch an old doe come through cover. She takes a step or two, cocks an ear this way, that way, sniffs the air and stands there as if her entire body is taking count of those things that should or shouldn’ t be there.
Contrast that with a buck, the kind with a rack that will make most hunters proud. It’ s November and it’ s either pre-rut, postrut or in-rut, and these periods all have the same result. The buck loses his hearing, sense of smell, vision and common sense, as he stumbles along, stiff-legged, with his nose to the ground.
Why is it, I wonder, we measure an animal in only one way? In the pheasant world, things
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Page 50, Dakota Country, September 2025 www. dakotacountrymagazine. com