If someone offered me a week's vacation right now in one of the two spots above -- Waikiki Beach, Hawaii or beautiful Kennebec, South Dakota, I'd take South Dakota.
I'm not kidding. This is the depth of my insanity. I'd go to snow covered South Dakota in January. And why? Because South Dakota is Mecca for pheasant hunting... and I love hunting pheasants.
Kennebec is home to about 260 people... and a gazillion pheasants.
Even at the end of the 79-day hunting season it is not uncommon to step into a field and see 500 pheasants flush over the course of a minute or two. It's incredible, but not unbelievable because people take care to provide lots of cover and food, especially during the hard winters.
This is a food plot (a narrow strip of milo grain) that has been planted in a section of CRP land. The grain is left unharvested and feeds the pheasants all winter long.
Note: The CRP program encourages farmers to convert highly erodible cropland or other environmentally sensitive acreage to vegetative cover, such as tame or native grasses, wildlife plantings, trees, filter strips, or riparian buffers.
Here's a day's limit of pheasants from my last trip between Christmas and New Years. The weather was biting cold and the wind blew constantly. It was no day at the beach... for me it was better... because I love pheasant hunting.
ps. I had one of these for dinner last night--tasty!
