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Chaos & Mayhem in South Dakota. Lots of grouse, huns, pheasants and hunters too! Several day hunts from five weeks spent in South Dakota last season. 

"One morning I left the truck at 11:00 with Mayhem and was back before noon with the three bird limit. A clean triple of sharptails. A couple hunters stopped to chat as I was stowing birds. They said their pointers had moved about 80 birds that morning and they got one. I didn’t tell them that Mayhem flushed one covey of 7 and I shot three." 

A few days having fun with my buddy Russ. A 3 species day with Chaos and a combo limit of sharps and pheasants. More South Dakota hunts in the next episode.  

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Spent 8 days chasing chukar, huns and valley quail in Oregon and Nevada. Lots of birds but not so great dog work. Still had a good time and can't wait to return next year. The quail saved the trip. Lots and lots of quail. No dual limits in this episode, but still a lot of fun. 

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This was in the "good ol' days" of ruffed grouse hunting in southeast Minnesota. Back when the daily bag limit for woodcock was 5 birds. Hunting with a buddy Russ and his lab Char, we shot 19 ruffs and 14 woodcock in two days of hunting. 
     I had tried for several years for this combination limit. It was tough because it was a lucky day for me to even see five woodcock in a long day of hunting. I've been told that was because the majority of migraters funneled down the Mississippi River bottomlands, rather than dispersed across the landscape as they are further north. Another case of me trying to shoot birds where they weren't. 
     I've had good luck, sometimes underserved, that's allowed me to take a few of my dual limits, but this was exceptional luck.  

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Several 2023 pheasant hunts in Iowa. Chaos and Maybe both got limits. Lots of birds! We even shot a few sharptails in Montana. 

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Seven days hunting pheasants and sharptails in South Dakota with Maybe and Chaos. The dogs were too clownish to compliment, but with my expectations, they did just fine. We even took a couple of combo limits of grouse and pheasants. 

I threw in a short story about a ruffed grouse hunting mishap that I hope won't cause you to question my sanity. 

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Chaos & Maybe Exploring Idaho for next trip from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  Took a couple of newbies on sharp tail hunts (lots of birds!) and looked for better partridge hills than I've hunted in the past.

Both dogs earned Story Bands for 1st Idaho Sharptail and 1st Daily Bag Limit of Idaho Sharptails. 

Spent most of this fall in South Dakota for pheasants and sharptails (Maybe earned 4 new Story Bands) and Iowa for pheasants (Maybe earned two more new Story Bands). South Dakota was very good and Iowa continues to be very good. I'm sure South Dakota will be very good again, if I can make it back. 

These stories will be in upcoming episodes. 
 

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I can't say too much good about "Critter". She hunted the tail end of the southern Minnesota/Iowa ruffed grouse years, the best Kansas and Nebraska pheasant years, and a half dozen Dakota years. 

This hunt was a seat of my pants exploration into northern South Dakota. I was looking for a new area for pheasants and sharptails, and we found it. The strange thing is, in the following days, I found an even better area that I've spoken of in several other episodes. If you like pheasants and sharptails, you'll enjoy this talk. If you like springer spaniels, you'll love this hunt. 

  

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Miss Bodet, took 3-roosters in Iowa & 2 in Minnesota in the same day on public land. Then on another trip I knocked on doors in South Dakota and shot limits of pheasants for 6 days, without paying a fee. 

Bo was only a couple years old on these hunts.  

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Yeah, I was a whole lot younger back then, and those two pups were pretty special dogs. 

Critter & Woogs as pups, hunting ruffed grouse in southeast Minnesota and pheasants in southcentral Minnesota. This was the first time that I tried to take this combination limit, instead of just hoping it would happen.  There were several days over those years, that I took the 5-bird limit of ruffs, but only got one pheasant, while grouse hunting.  I finally accepted that if I was ever going to take this combination limit, I would have to drive to pheasants. 

Just a few days after this hunt, I tried to duplicate the same combination limit in Iowa, with the pups. We took the 3-bird limit of ruffed grouse in Iowa in less than an hour. Shot a Hun in the first pheasant field. Had two pheasants an hour later, then chased a partial albino pheasant the rest of the day. We flushed that albino three times within 40 yards, but I never could be certain it was a rooster.  I should have just shot one of the several normal roosters the pups flushed. But that's me,  always trying to make a normal hunting day into a special one and a special day into a never before heard of day. 

Well if that wasn't my nature, I wouldn't have had the special days that I talk about, and wouldn't feel like I had anything to offer on podcasts, that all the other guys aren't doing. 

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I was fortunate to have hunted Kansas and Nebraska when both states had a lot of pheasants. At that time, and for decades to come, I believed this hunt was the epitome of pheasant hunting. I only surpassed this day one time, on a hunt most of you have listened to in an earlier episode. 

Back in 1981, with two young dogs, Critter, a female, liver & white springer, and Woogie a female yellow lab, we took the four rooster limit in Kansas and the three rooster limit in Nebraska, seven roosters, in the same day! The three of us were fortunate to be together at a time when all species of birds in the mid-west, and private access, were plentiful. Back then, a guy could hunt anywhere from Iowa to Minnesota, and North Dakota to Kansas and find a lot, of any of the upland birds, those states allowed. 

You still can in certain years, and for short periods of time, find hunting like I experienced. If you're smart, you'll make the sacrifices I made to enjoy it to the fullest. As many of you already realize, the very best, goes away, very fast.