The Return of the Hippie Bus

One of the side benefits of South Dakota pheasant hunting is that you get to sleep-in.

Legal hunting is 10 AM to sunset. So unlike turkey hunting, duck hunting and deer hunting there is none of that nonsense of getting-up in the wee morning hours and stumbling about in the dark trying to feel your way to a blind. Which might possibly be a contributing factor to the persistent rumor of snoozing in hunting blinds.

Because of the later start - pheasant hunting allows for poker games and late night bull sessions to ensue with little risk of sleep deprivation.














Unlike sleeping in your deer stand – pheasant hunting actually requires that you tramp about.

The birds hunker down in whatever cover affords them the best form of concealment – be it grassland, agricultural crops or swampy sloughs.

And as of last weekend South Dakota has harvested only half of its beans and 12 percent of its corn. And things were rather wet.

We pushed a lot of corn, grass and soggy bottomland in an attempt to get those birds up in the air.

Ordinarily we’d move about from place to place throughout the day with our trucks. But this year we resurrected what we affectionately refer to as the Hippie Bus.

This clunker – with its paratrooper-style seating arrangement - can easily haul eight dogs, twelve hunters and our gear. At the end of the day – clean-up is easy – you simply kick open the back exit door and hose it out.

This year uncle Glenn got the bus stuck in a bean field.