In shooting and harvesting her own dinner, writer Heide Brandes finds community—and reverence—among the sorghum fields of South Dakota.

Travel South Dakota

This article is part of a series of stories about hunting, fishing , and foraging experiences across North America .

The sorghum hissed when the wind came through it—two years of drought had left the South Dakota ground hard and the dry grass loud. I walked forwards with my 20-gauge Beretta half-raised and my eyes narrowed; the sound of every grasshopper that clattered up out of the stubble made me twitch like a woman with a bad nerve.

Pheasant shooting with Hunt Like a Girl in South Dakota

Travel South Dakota

Then the pheasant rooster came up, multicolored and shining in the sun, trailing a tail of feathers like a kite. I aimed, let loose the shot, and it stopped dead in the air in an iridescent burst.

The pride went through me before anything else did.…