I ended my formal hunting season today by discharging my muzzleloader at a fence post (didn’t even look to see if I hit it). It was a frustrating way to end the season. I had high hopes this season for a little venison in the freezer but it didn’t happen. I had some close calls but for the most part this year the deer were pretty hard to find. As for excuses, I do think the strange weather (very warm and snow free) had something to do with it. Because it was so mild the deer could wait until well after dark to come out and eat, and the lack of snow meant plenty of food was available. In years past we have had TONS of snow for the muzzleloader season in January. Today for my last hunt of the year, I hunted without a coat for most of the day and had only a dusting of snow on the ground.

I also learned a lot about the challenges of hunting solo! Several times I tried to “walk” to locate deer. In the past I have hunted almost exclusively from a stand. I think I got the walking idea because I see so many deer while pheasant hunting (likewise when I was trying to quietly, sneakily deer hunt I had pheasants scaring the crap out of my every five minutes!). Unfortunately, after walking several of my best deer/pheasant spots and not seeing a thing, I finally saw a pack of deer on a farm today, they were of course sprinting away from me and gave me no chance. I need a hunting buddy for next year… a simple one man drive and one man block could have been very effective on a lot of spots!

The pheasant hunting season was OK. I had pretty good luck (including a limit) early in the year. But the bird numbers were down and it definitely showed! The birds were tough to find and you had to maximize your opportunities. I did get my first hungarian partridge which was pretty cool! I was also pretty excited about having a duck stamp this year as I always see a ton of ducks when pheasant hunting. I shot at plenty of high flying ducks but never connected, I had a golden opportunity to take a snow goose, but it was flying over very thin ice and I passed to keep my dog from retrieving it off the lake. Speaking of the dog, Dakota seems to get better every year and this year was no exception. She works hard, had some solid points, some great retrieves and was an excellent companion for me in the field.

All in all it was a good season. I am already thinking of next year and would like to do a little more planning to have a few more stands or blinds set up. I am also looking forward to potentially trying out some coyote hunting yet this winter and also turkey hunting this spring. While I love to hunt, fishing is my passion and I am hoping to explore some NE South Dakota lakes yet this ice fishing season.

While I didn’t connect on a deer for the freezer I did find a nice shed antler today for Elias.

As a weather guy people often ask what my favorite season is… I often reply that my favorite season is Hunting Season. I have now found a way to extend my hunting season from what was once just a week to several months.  Back about five years ago my hunting season consisted of about a weeks worth of rifle deer hunting in Wisconsin. These days my season starts with dove hunting on September 1st and ends with muzzleloader deer hunting at the end of January. In the middle is of course several weeks of pheasant hunting and rifle deer hunting.

Moving to South Dakota has greatly changed the way I hunt. Pheasant hunting is one of the most addictive things I have ever done. Especially when a dog is involved. Training my own dog, Dakota, to hunt pheasants has been an amazing experience and I can honestly say that watching her work and find bird trumps actually shooting them 100 percent. Hmmm… maybe that is why I am such a bad shot!  HA!

Hunting has also helped our bottom line. While there is some initial cost with buying licenses and gear the food I am able to put on the table greatly outweighs that cost.  In fact my wife and I can count on one hand how many times we have bought beef in our nearly 7 years of marriage. Venison has taken the place of beef. Though I must say that we have noticed a tremendous difference in how good corn feed South Dakota venison tastes compared to pine cone eating Wisconsin deer!

Now that I have a son, I am anxiously looking forward to getting him out hunting with me.  I hope that he finds passion in hunting like I do and that we can enjoy the outdoors and all it provides together.

So last year for the first time I tried my hand at dove hunting.  Really it was just an excuse to get the dog out and let her run around, while I tried to hit some doves.  Well, the season was a bit rocky as I never hit a single dove!  We had fun but it was frustrating as those fast flying birds evaded my pellets every time.

This year I was hoping for slightly better results, and so we went out last week for the first time.  To set the scene a bit we were hunting an area of public land near Sioux Falls.  This land gets hunted pretty hard during the pheasant season but I rarely see anyone out there otherwise so it is nice to have it to ourselves.  There is an old cornfield in the parcel of land that is about ten rows wide.  As we walked up to the old corn rows, literally 50 to 60 doves exploded out of it. I was EXTREMELY surprised, but was able to get my gun up and actually knock down a dove!  The better part of this scenario is that all those doves flew up about 30 yards and landed back in the corn.  So as I walked along I kept flushing huge flocks of doves and by the end of the strip of corn I was able to put 5 doves in my game bag.  It was a lot of fun and Dakota and I were able to work on fetching downed birds which still needs some work!

Once home I took the out the breasts and Ingrid and I enjoyed them dusted in flour and cooked in a little bit of melted butter.  They were very small but also very tasty.  I do think you would need about 20 of them to actually make a good meal.  It was an excellent little teaser for the upcoming pheasant season.