South Dakota’s opening day
Hunting friends gather for action
on the Diamond A
By Larry Myhrelfentfish@msn.com | Posted: Monday, October 27, 2008
John Roost, North Sioux City, swings on a hard flying rooster pheasant and drops him seconds after this photo was taken. It was part of the action last week when a group of Sioux City and area hunters met at the Circle A Ranch north of Gregory, S.D. (Staff photo by Larry Myhre)
GREGORY, S.D. — There’s nothing quite like the end of a pheasant drive anywhere in the pheasant-rich lands of South Dakota.
There’s something symbolically electric, something incredibly exciting, something irresistibly compelling about watching pheasants take to the air at the end of the field.
There are shots fired, pheasants falling, pheasants escaping, and in a few moments it is over.
It is what brings us back day after day, year after year to the pheasant fields.
And I was thinking that once again as I waited for the hunters to reach the end of the sorghum rows on the Diamond A Ranch north of Gregory on the opening day of South Dakota’s pheasant season.
The drive exceeded my expectations. Shots had been fired earlier by the walkers but I knew most of the birds would run down the rows and stack up at the end.
And so it was. Birds filled the air, many escaped. Many didn’t.
The Diamond A Ranch is 2,000 acre hunting preserve recently purchased by Jim and Andrea Olson who farm in the Homer area of Nebraska.
“When I saw the ad on Cabela’s internet site, I had to take a look,” Jim says.
And once he saw it first hand, he had to buy it.
The ranch lies in the shadow of the Butte Mountains, a large landform thrusting up through otherwise level farm and ranch land. A creek runs at the base of the buttes and a dam has created a six acre lake (stocked with trout, bass and bluegill) around which the lodge, dinning area and other preserve buildings are found.
Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb.., and I were there at the invitation of George Hirschbach, Hartington, retired law professor at USD, trucker and currently in his first term as Cedar County Attorney.
Gary and I met at George’s country home and then followed him to Freeman, S. D., where we met Duane Stahl, owner of Southpaw Kennel. Duane specializes in German Wirehaired Pointers and was boarding George’s dog Patton.
Patton had just earned first place in Natural Ability and first Place in Versatility trials, under Stahl’s training. Now he would put that training to use in the pheasant fields at Diamond A.
Stahl hooked up a kennel trailer to Hirschbach’s truck and we followed them to the ranch. Here we met the other hunters.
Among them were John Roost, North Sioux City; Dennis Moore, South Sioux City; Brian Claussen, Sioux City; Mick Verzani, Sioux City; Stu Huff, Dakota Dunes, and Mike Meyers, Vermillion, S.D.
We had lunch in the separate kitchen/dining lodge and then headed to the fields.
We made two drives and collected some pheasants and then decided to return to some crop and tree strips near the lodge.
There were lots of pheasants in that cover but we also pushed out nearly a dozen whitetails and probably three dozen wild turkeys.
It was mid-afternoon when we concluded our hunt and photographed the group with the birds. Gary and I had other commitments and headed home but the rest stayed to enjoy another hunt the next day.
There’s something symbolically electric, something incredibly exciting, something irresistibly compelling about watching pheasants take to the air at the end of the field.
There are shots fired, pheasants falling, pheasants escaping, and in a few moments it is over.
It is what brings us back day after day, year after year to the pheasant fields.
And I was thinking that once again as I waited for the hunters to reach the end of the sorghum rows on the Diamond A Ranch north of Gregory on the opening day of South Dakota’s pheasant season.
The drive exceeded my expectations. Shots had been fired earlier by the walkers but I knew most of the birds would run down the rows and stack up at the end.
And so it was. Birds filled the air, many escaped. Many didn’t.
The Diamond A Ranch is 2,000 acre hunting preserve recently purchased by Jim and Andrea Olson who farm in the Homer area of Nebraska.
“When I saw the ad on Cabela’s internet site, I had to take a look,” Jim says.
And once he saw it first hand, he had to buy it.
The ranch lies in the shadow of the Butte Mountains, a large landform thrusting up through otherwise level farm and ranch land. A creek runs at the base of the buttes and a dam has created a six acre lake (stocked with trout, bass and bluegill) around which the lodge, dinning area and other preserve buildings are found.
Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb.., and I were there at the invitation of George Hirschbach, Hartington, retired law professor at USD, trucker and currently in his first term as Cedar County Attorney.
Gary and I met at George’s country home and then followed him to Freeman, S. D., where we met Duane Stahl, owner of Southpaw Kennel. Duane specializes in German Wirehaired Pointers and was boarding George’s dog Patton.
Patton had just earned first place in Natural Ability and first Place in Versatility trials, under Stahl’s training. Now he would put that training to use in the pheasant fields at Diamond A.
Stahl hooked up a kennel trailer to Hirschbach’s truck and we followed them to the ranch. Here we met the other hunters.
Among them were John Roost, North Sioux City; Dennis Moore, South Sioux City; Brian Claussen, Sioux City; Mick Verzani, Sioux City; Stu Huff, Dakota Dunes, and Mike Meyers, Vermillion, S.D.
We had lunch in the separate kitchen/dining lodge and then headed to the fields.
We made two drives and collected some pheasants and then decided to return to some crop and tree strips near the lodge.
There were lots of pheasants in that cover but we also pushed out nearly a dozen whitetails and probably three dozen wild turkeys.
It was mid-afternoon when we concluded our hunt and photographed the group with the birds. Gary and I had other commitments and headed home but the rest stayed to enjoy another hunt the next day.
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