Tex and I took advantage of an invite to the opening weekend in South Dakota. We had the pleasure of joining a terrific group of guys from Michigan on their annual pheasant hunt. Some of these fellows have been hunting together for 30 plus years and a number of these guys have grown up making the annual pilgrimage to Pierre for the big hunt. We enjoyed a classic wild bird hunt of the best sort.
A great old truck with great old hunters!
The reports are that the number of birds are way down this year. Maybe so, but the much larger issue seemed to be that the crops were still standing. There were miles of sunflower and milo for the birds to hide in; to wet to harvest and to wet to hunt in. We marched through food plots and CRP grass and though the odds were against us we still saw quite a few birds. The hunts lasted from the noon starting whistle until dusk to get close to a limit.
Sunflowers still standing and green . . .
. . . and plenty of milo to hide in.
Entering a food plot.
Wing men under a dramatic sky.
Birds spill out the end of a food plot.
Happiness is a tongue covered with feathers!
Tag team retrieve.
Big Tex.
The post hunt Fat Tire.
Birdhunter 
LIke it! Thanks for the pics Ben, great hunt.
Thanks Sean, it was a terrific hunt!
Sublime photo essay, Ben. I won’t make it to SD this year but this gets me pretty damn close.
Thanks – I will have some more pictures from this hunt posted soon.
Looks like a great time. Good stuff, great photos.
Thanks Uncle Larry.
Those are some awesome photos. Looks like a very good time.
Ben
Thanks Ben! I love doing this – hunting and photography. I intend to post some more from this hunt but my hard drive crashed. I am waiting to hear what I lost. I hope to get down to AZ for some quail this year. How are the bird counts looking?