I will be going on my first pheasant hunting trip outside of Mitchell tomorrow through Saturday.  This will be my first attempt at pheasant hunting and it looks like it is going to be a pretty cold next couple of days.  I've got some good thermals, some blaze orange, good boots and warm socks, and will pick up a pair of Filson double tin chaps from Cabelas once I get there.  I'm planning on layering the clothing and wearing regular jeans under my Filsons.  Anything else I should know or get before I head out?  I will be using my 12g over and under. This will be a different experience from hunting in Texas!

Nick

Bring clay pigeons if you want to shoot at anything.  Birds are way way down this year.  Worst year that I can ever remember.  Don't let it sour your experience.  It's atypical.

Oh no, that is not what I was wanting to hear...

Well, catch my flight in the morning, guess we better get a few boxes of clays from Cabelas while we are there.

Any idea why the birds are down this year?

Nick

They have about a 3 year lifespan and the last 3 years we've had late winter cold rains and heavy snows.  Seems to have killed off the hatch.  I road in a combine on Sunday of opening weekend knocking out a a whole cornfield.  Typically when you get to the end you'll see them erupt from the last strip.  I think I saw 8.  The few young ones I saw were very late hatch not even having color yet and probably won't make the winter.  On Saturday when we hunted I saw 7 birds (both roosters and hens) in gun range.  We got 2.  If you're only hunting wild birds you won't see much.  If you're hunting a game ranch and they release some raised birds it might be a lot more fun.

Well day 1 of hunting out of Plankinton and we limited out. Plenty of birds. These are not raised and released birds, all wild, the owners of the farm seem to do a really good job of maintaining a good habitat for them. My first pheasant hunt and it has been a great experience so far.

Come back next year!

I knew I should have went this year.

"not pen raised"
You'd be surprised how many land owners are releasing birds this year.  My cousin works for a pheasant farm in MN and they sold 30,000 roosters to accounts in SD.  All were to have long tails per the contract, so it would be harder to tell if they were wild or pen raised.  

All the birds must have congregated around Plankinton then because I haven't heard any good reports from around the rest of the state.