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PRO MEMBER UPDATE s the sun rises in the eastern skies, the daily ritual begins in South Dakota and its surrounding states. Wild pheasants, both roosters and hens, emerge from their resting places in search of food sources. Many head to roadsides to peck at some pea gravel for their gullets. Others to cultivated grain fields to pick up the remnants of the harvest. Corn fields as far as the eye can see are also a seemingly safe haven for wily ringnecks and their mates. Always on the lookout for predators, quick cover, in most cases, is only a short distance away. When fall approaches, they seem to sense that another predator will soon start to show up in droves. Yes, hunters from all parts of the world converge on the mid-west to give chase to one of the most popular upland game birds, first introduced in the U.S. back in 1733, when the Old English blackneck pheasant was dropped in New York and New Hampshire by each states’ governors. These first birds received a real culture shock and they died off quickly before ever really taking root. Other pheasant varieties also had their place in American history, including what many historians suspect was a pair of golden pheasants. You know who kept them? None other than the young country’s first president, General George Washington, at his Mount Vernon home in Fairfax County, Va. But the first real introduction of the ringneck pheasant you should pay attention to was on March 13, 1881. At the suggestion of his wife, Owen Nickerson Denny, an Oregon native and the former United States Consul General to Shanghai, China, shipped 60 Chinese ringneck pheasants from China to Port Townsend, Washington, along with a number of other Chinese birds and plants. Why pheasants? Well, he liked the taste. The trip across the ocean was a success, with the majority of birds surviving, but the next trip, from Washington to his home state of Oregon, was over the terrible roads of the time. Most of the pheasants died in transport and the few survivors were released on the lower Columbia River, where historians still argue whether they survived and reproduced or just went the way of the Old English blackneck. However, Denny released more birds in 1882 and 1884 and that helped the ring-necked pheasants flourish in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and then Oregon as a whole and into Washington. Today, birds have been introduced in 40 of the 50 states, with self-sustaining populations in Oklahoma, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, California, Utah, Montana, Wyoming and many others. South Dakota even named the ring-necked pheasant as its official state bird, one of only three introduced species to be chosen across the U.S. In my youth, growing up in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, the first Saturday in November was one of the most highly anticipated days of the year. The opening of pheasant season almost rivaled Christmas Day itself, as thousands of sports-
Pro Membership Sweepstakes winner, Trevor Luna (right) and his hunting buddy, Brandon Schroer take aim as roosters start to flush at the end of a push.
28 February 2019 | SPORTSMAN’S NEWS
Cacklin’ Roosters in South Dakota By Kent Danjanovich men, both young and old, headed to their favorite hunting locations, in hopes of experiencing the hair-raising flush and cacklin’ eruption of one of the most colorful birds in the world. Some fifty years later, the opportunities in Utah have subsided, but it hasn’t diminished my love for the sport. Now, fast forward to 2006. As I walked down the isles at the Dallas Safari Club Show in Dallas, Texas, I stopped in to visit the Tumbleweed Lodge booth. I had always heard so much about pheasant hunting in South Dakota, but I had never made the trek. After introducing myself and giving my sales pitch to Michael and Donny Bollweg, owners of the lodge, our first visit was planned for that fall and of course, as they say, the rest is history! Nearly every year since that first visit, the Sportsman’s News team has had the pleasure of visiting our friends at the Tumbleweed Lodge, just outside of the state capitol of Pierre, in the farming town of Harrold, South Dakota to partake of everything that they have to offer. First class accommodations, exquisite food and exceptional customer service are always the norm and serve as the backdrop to their bird hunting paradise. It’s no wonder that many highly recognized hunting publications have rated them in the ‘Top 20 Wingshooting Destinations’ in the world. Our visit in December of 2018 would include myself, cameraman Sam Staudt, Pro
