Ytd thoughts...

[A5 Sweet 16]

sounds good A5; are the potholes froze over enough atleast if I come across some?

See above from 12-10. It almost seems like actual ponds w/ open water are frozen better than the sloughs. I think probably because the snow had a tendency to blow off & they were able to freeze better. Please err on the side of caution.

[jackrabbit]

sounds good A5; are the potholes froze over enough atleast if I come across some?

From my hunting last week, most of them are. If there is snow cover or a few inches of snow drifted up, then it was questionable ice beneath it, if it was bare ice it was more than solid. After walking one cattail slough for awhile and being pretty confident on it, the next thing I knew I was in water to my waist. And it was a bit of a struggle to get out of it as each time I tried bringing my knees up onto the ice sheet it kept breaking off. The good news is it was 20 degrees, sunny, and no wind, so once you start walking again, you stay pretty warm. But I had to dump water out of my boots and my pants froze.

[Vammy]

I'm going to vouch for @Asweet16 and @jackrabbit; most sloughs were frozen when I was up there Dec 3-6; but Sophie and I ran into one that was not. 70lb Lab, she broke through first, then I went ankle deep. Weather had been well below freezing for 10 days, so I suspect this was a warm water slough, but it no matter what it wasn't froze solid

And yeah; we busted 4 roosters and 8 hens in this same slough, very close, but nothing is worth a bird. Just be careful out there

[Birddog23]

I just got back from SD this past weekend. Hunted for 2 1/2 days and had absolute beautiful weather. Fresh snow that sparkled in the sun, was powdery, probably 6-7 inches or so. Some knee high drifts. We walked one public land area that's located right across from the private property that we hunt. We walked through sloughs and cattails. I can tell you that most of it you can walk on just fine, but, and I say but, a couple of us fell through the ice up to our butt cheeks. We continued to walk and stayed warm but then went back to the farmhouse to dump the water out of our boots and change clothes. We fell through 3 or 4 different times. This is the wettest I've ever seen it back there. Unreal.

As for the birds, with 3 guys and 3 dogs, we limited out one day, got 7 another day, and only hunted a 1/2 day and got 2 then. Birds were holding very tight. I was shocked, with it being late season and their normally very wild. Our dogs caught 2 young roosters before they could fly, they had dug themselves in so deep in cover.

We had a blast, as I always do back home.......... Now live in Minnesota.... We hunted with my 4 year old black lab, a 7 year old yellow lab, and a 1 year old wirehair pointer. We covered some ground!

All in All a wonderful hunt!!!!!!!!

[hunter94]

a willingness and understanding to move has been really important to success this year.....through the entire pheasant range. hard to do when you make an early reservation and expect to be in a 25 mile radius of decent hunting...canceling and finding new lodging can be a pain in the ass and costly....seems to be the new norm now, like fishing, keep the damn boat moving until you get into 'em!

and it sounds as though the ice in sloughs is dangerous as hell!

[jmnhunter]

just got back from a trip to sd; started off near madison on friday afternoon, found a small cattail piece and my pup put up 2 rootys; saturday hunted private ground with my dad, and that turned out to be pretty dang good. sunday tried a new piece and only a handful of hens, went back to the piece we did on saturday and the birds were spread out, still a few in there. tried a WIA sunday afternoon and the cover was nice and thick vs mowed off last year, but I noticed some fresh boot tracks in there, so I turned around and went back to the private stuff to hunt the golden hour. I did notice a few more hunters this year, nice weather probably helped. Plan to go back new years and hunt more public ground. I did like the hen to rooster ratio. some peices that were hayed last year were pretty thin this year where historically they were the thickest chunks in the county, so hopefully next year, they are more like that

[UplandHntr]

those boot trax were mine

[Chestle]

My thoughts on the year to date are that 10 days wasn't enough. Plan to remedy that next year and get back to the three ten day licenses I used to do.

[hunter94]

My thoughts on the year to date are that 10 days wasn't enough. Plan to remedy that next year and get back to the three ten day licenses I used to do.

careful everyone.......forecast now for 4-8 inches of snow and wind gusts over 50 mph......thru the 27th.
birds are going to be hard hit as well, feedlots and shelter belts will be their only viable cover, the cats will drift over and bury most birds.

[Chestle]

T'was probably back around '08 or so when my group had hunted 20 days straight. Had such a great time we couldn't believe it. Our hosts said we should come back before Christmas and get in on some slough hunts after the birds had flocked up.

Sounded great. We all reconvened back in SD about mid-December. Got all set to hunt, hit the hay ready to get after it the next day. Blizzard was forecast but heck, that wasn't going to stop US!

Lol.

We spent three days snowed in as guests of our hosts watching TV mostly. You couldn't see 15 feet outside with the wind blowing and the snow obscuring everything. Colder than a well diggers rear end too.

So much for a three day return hunt! Still had a good time with the folks we knew up there but you couldn't walk or drive under those conditions.

Just the breaks of the game.