How much would you pay to turn back the clock to those Soil Bank days of post-WWII when pheasants were as thick as blackbirds?
That’s how it was in South Dakota. Today, to experience it and then some, reserve a spot at Paul Nelson Farm, an hour’s drive north of Pierre, for some of the world’s best pheasant hunting.
Having heard for years about what devotees call PNF, I rode out from Michigan with friends to see if the hoopla was more than hype. It’s much more. Imagine yourself flanking a multi-gun drive through grain sorghum with ringnecks along the line bursting aloft. Catching the wind, they streak overhead in a technicolor jet stream, tailfeathers curled over painted heads like stingers on scorpions—five, six, seven roosters in the air at once! Upon shooting a double, I knew I should have brought my Benelli autoloader and left the side-by-side home.
Such is the scaled-up experience one expects from a premier commercial pheasant hunting operation, and no one does it better than PNF. Nelson himself, who passed away in 2020, was a man who believed that bigger is better. After coming home from college to help run the family farm, Nelson finished beef cattle for market, turned to row-crop production, and then in 1992 gambled on commercial pheasant hunting and never looked back. Today PNF operations, managed by Nelson’s son, Eric, encompass 7,000 acres, about half of which are reserved for pheasant hunting.
Guests—98 percent of whom are repeats—come for three-day guided hunts limited to eight people per party. Beginning September 1 and ending January 1, precisely at 10 am and 2:15 pm, a fleet of buses and dog trailers pirouettes before the lodge amidst a cacophony of barking bird dogs and amplified country rock to usher in a wild three-hour hunt. The walk-up hunting is easy, thanks to level terrain and pathways through food plots and weed fields. Blockers are positioned behind round hay bales as guides organize leisurely drives, each of which is a few hundred yards long. If you’re a walker like me, plan on logging about four miles each day.
My friend Jim brought his father-son team of trained springer spaniels, which complemented our guides’ bevy of veteran flushers—black Labs, yellow Labs and springers. The pheasants, nearly all roosters (hens are illegal), were hard-flying, long-tailed birds that looked and acted like their wild brethren (some of which we probably shot as well).
At PNF accommodations include 35 rooms in the Main Lodge (I stayed in the Dick Cheney room), the King Lodge (check out the Presidential Suite) and eight Buffalo Suites. Guests write one check, which in addition to the phenomenal hunting covers lodging, great food and drink, guide fees (tipping is optional) and bird cleaning. Those lucky enough will hear Cheryl Nelson (Paul’s widow) play the harp after dinner.
For more information, visit paulnelsonfarm.com.
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