July 1 2015 South Dakota Pheasant Nesting Report

July 02, 2015 by UGUIDE South Dakota Pheasant Hunting

Fellas, I am happy to see June go at the farm.  I call it “hell month”.  I say you better get done what you are going to get done by the end of June or it ain’t getting done this year.  This is the month when all the pheasants do the majority of their nesting and hatching.  You want to see all the food plots coming out of the ground.  This is when you know you have a big weed issue or not.

Before I get into the bad news/good news report, I will do a recap on last month's issues:

• We were able to get the drill all fixed up and get the sunflowers planted.  Bad news is they never came up (see more bad news)
• Firebreaks look good and seeing many new broods utilize this new cover as planned for (brood cover plot )
• Noxious weeds – one of the worst years on record according to the county weed board lead.  See picture attached.  (see more bad news)
• Rotator Cuff – still nursing and sore but coming around.
• Rooster Fighting Sightings – This might be the story of the year.  Noticed some critter had been trying to scratch his way into the lodge via the patio doors.  Turns out to be a rooster seeing his reflection and of course not being able to tolerate any intruders on his territory was determined to kick his own ass.  See photos.  Permanent etched scratches in the doors (I have seen a lot of dogs scratch these doors and not leave a mark) and blood from the fight.  See pic.  You will see the scratches for yourself come fall.  I witnessed him running away from the door when I would come back and fill the sprayer tank in the yard.  Should be some trophy birds around this fall.  See a pic of the pair I just got back from the Taxidermy shop in Armour.  Harvested during our week 9 hunt.

July Bad News Good News Report (see corresponding good news for bad news item)

Bad News

1. None of the 25 acres of sunflower food plots came up.  Cause could be:  planted too deep, bad seed, too much chemical
2. Some corn food plots are spotty.  Confirmed that the rate you would normally use for a corn planter will not work for the drill I have.
3. Used new rate of 20lbs/acre for milo plots.  Lot of seed.
4. Almost every acre of non-crop ground I have has some level of Canada or musk thistle in it. 600 acres.
5. Pheasants keep getting in my way and slowing me down

Good News

1. Got work from the PF rep that these sunflowers may have been older than 2 years making the germination of the seed very low (bad seed).  I got fresh new seed from Millborn and it is very cheap ($185 for 25 acres at 10lbs an acre).  Finished planting June 27^th.
2. The fields where I had corn on corn look very good as there is a good amount of volunteer corn coming in.  The field south of the big shelterbelt on the east farm was planted to corn.  Some parts came in good but were sparse and the south side had almost nothing coming due to pheasants picking the corn out of ground.  I overseeded that whole field at the new rate and used the 5 bags of seed I had leftover.  Should be very good if it starts coming thru.  I planted some other spots that were too wet earlier in year at new rate and it looks very good.  I had 5 bags of milo seed leftover and used that to overseed some of the sparse corn plots. 
3. Milo plots all look excellent
4. This is a killer in a number of ways. But…pheasants don’t mind thistle at all.  The wife and I spot sprayed hundreds of acres of thistle on two 4 wheelers. The issue of incidental herbicide contact from this method is a concern.   I boom sprayed other whole fields and patches with the big sprayer.  See photo and you can also see the neat flushing bar we had built.  This thistle issue is huge because eventually the only way to deal with it is spray a herbicide on it that ultimately takes out all your good forbs and legumes that makes the pheasant nesting better.  There is a new CRP initiative to deal with this issue and we are looking into it.  Needless to say, the chemicals and the time and effort to deal with controlling these noxious weeds is quite expensive and time consuming.
5. Tongue in cheek here but this is a nice problem to have. Been seeing new broods hatch all the way from week before memorial day till the end of June.  Lots of new flyers in the mix too.  Great reports of bird sightings from around the local area too.

So that’s about it.  What’s done is done and what we get, we get.  The effort started back in June and continues until the end of June which is when all the weeds go to seed.