South Dakota Hunt

 Dad and I went out to South Dakota for a little pheasant hunting.

We flew the Piper Arrow to Aberdeen, and got picked up by John.

 Nearing the end of the first day of hunting in Millette, everyone was checking cell phones!

 Limited out at 3pm.

I rushed off to the airport to shuttle the plane from Aberdeen to Highmore.  Highmore was named for it's high elevation not for it's short runway, but I didn't need much at 1800' elevation.  The airport is used for crop-dusting operations with several big hangers and no FBO.  They did have tie down hooks, but no ropes.

I went banging around on the hangers and met Dillon who said the airport doesn't provide those, but he offered some ratchet straps from his pickup, I said I'll drop them here by the door on Saturday when I leave.

 While I was in Highmore I went to the nearest restaurant.  Maybe the only one in town 790 population.  The rest of the hunters finished packing up their stuff, (minus the ham) and had the birds from the day cleaned and ate dinner before heading the 75 miles down to pick me up.  I hadn't intended on sitting by the clock, but I was watching it...  "Time to spare go by air" -- Bill Brown

 After ~3 hours they picked me up, and off to the new hunting ground.

 The wind picked up for the next couple days, 20-30 sustained and gusts to 60 in the forecast which I believe since we did have trouble standing at times.  I'm glad I had the plane tied down with ratchet straps, we checked on it after the first day and the plane had moved enough to loosen one strap.

 They have very pretty sun rises and sunsets.  Click for the full size image.

 Plenty of dogs to help us out, and one cat that helped with the bird cleaning after the hunts.

There was a lot of big ground to hunt, probably too big for our group of 10.  We didn't limit at the new place, but there were a lot more birds in this area.