All morning we had heard the calling of geese—both honkers and specks. Then a line of geese would appear working over a nearby field. We tried calling to try to lure them in. The specks started our way once but turned back to the stubble corn field where they had been feeding all week. Six floating goose decoys and plaintive calling wasn’t enough to lure them away from the spot they knew. We headed back to the lodge for breakfast, again just shy of a full limit of five birds each.

Pothole hunting requires little investment in waterfowling gear. Natural vegetation and good camouflage provides all the cover you need to hide from incoming birds.

That afternoon, an offer was proffered by Prairie Sky Ranch owner Bruce Prins. “Do you want to photograph ducks swarming into a field that hasn’t been hunted?” he asked. Four of our group decided to haul cameras and go. The corn had been harvested but kernels and stalks littered the ground, and it seemed like half the birds in Roberts County had found the spilled corn. An hour before sunset we were in the shade of a rock pile and sitting by two spinning-wing decoys. One if the veteran waterfowlers in our group said it would be forty-five minutes before the first birds would come, after looking at the set-up. Almost to the minute, a little flight of six mallards swung over our decoys, circled twice and landed 100 feet away. I told Monte I’d believe any prediction he’d care to make after that bit of divining.

For the next fifteen minutes, we had small flights of mallards circle us, land, then flush off again when we’d laugh or they’d hear the whirring of our motor-drive cameras. The corn stubble was golden in the evening light, and the birds seemed radiant in the setting sun. At sunset, there were at least 20,000 ducks and geese in the sky around us in all directions.

“When I was younger, it would have been almost unbearable to be here without a gun,” said Prins, as a mallard practically landed on his feet. “But it’s different now.”

Prins bought Prairie Sky in 1999 when he was fifty-three and turned it into a first-class ranch for waterfowl and pheasant hunters, but he’s one of the first people to tell you that his part of South Dakota has a lot of opportunities for public-land hunters—especially waterfowl hunters. Waterfowl management areas and Indian lands, public hunting areas, are sprinkled throughout the region. Good maps are available to hunters who want to hunt on their own in both North and South Dakota.

On the way to the airport in Fargo the next day with hunting chum Paul Thompson, we drove by a stubble corn field on the east side of the I-29 that had 500 Canada geese on it. On the west side of the interstate was a big pothole with another 500 geese. A small flock of birds was flying across the road in front of us. This is waterfowl heaven, I thought. Maybe one trip in a lifetime isn’t enough.

Contact
Prairie Sky Guest & Game Ranch, Dept. HM, 44370 109th St., Veblen, SD 57270; (605) 738-2411; www.prairieskyranch.com.