Overall season bird numbers

Bob Peters said:
So Mike, you're telling me you only hunt a10 square mile area in south Dakota?
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I misspoke if I said that…I hunt about 5 x 5 90% of the time.. 25 square miles encompasses the majority…at times I’ll run 15 miles this way or that way…not so much this year…most of the spots I hunt are within 3 miles of the house, a few are a bit further…4-5 families, plus my ground…
 
My earlier comment about 6 square miles was meant 6 x 6, which would be 36 square miles…could be 25, 36, maybe it’s 50? Most of my spots are within a few miles of the farmhouse.
 
Hunted about 25 days in SD this fall. Mainly NC part of the state within 100 miles and all public lands. Bird numbers were up slightly over last year for this area. Better to the west and south. Birds were definitely out feeding last weekend which was nice to see and with a good hatch this spring it should be another great fall in SD.....
 
I thought bird numbers were down quite a bit, Hunted north of Platte. Not sure why , the spring was decent…. Perhaps last years winter got them.
 
Drake1 said:
I thought bird numbers were down quite a bit, Hunted north of Platte. Not sure why , the spring was decent…. Perhaps last years winter got them.
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Looked at archived precip info
for SD last March-July; every month except July was very dry in that area, it appears…maybe chicks perished due to poor insect hatches? First two weeks that’s all
they eat. If a hen has even one chick hatch, she’s done and won’t renest, as I understand it. Could be all wrong, but a dry spring/early summer is tough on chicks. Despite snow, it was still very dry in my areas…we got rain from 6/9-7/10 or thereabouts, which may have been enough to fuel some insect hatches.
 
This year was up in my neck of the woods. There are numerous landowners doing incredible habitat development, as well as lots of large cattail sloughs that carried the pheasants through last winter. Undoubtedly, it was harder on them than a winter like this, but ultimately, we saw how resilient the South Dakota pheasant is. I'd say population was up 15%, give or take wildly.

The lack of snow this winter kept the land I manage from being inundated with every bird in a several mile radius, but that's a good thing. The food and shelter will be there when they need it.
 
Matt D said:
hunted some new areas but out of our 15 days of hunting probably 11-12 were on ground we have hunted the previous years. In a roughly 30 mile east to west and 100 miles north to south I would say numbers were up 20-30%. There was one area that the landowner said were down and our boots on the ground along with report from others would agree with that. From what we saw that ended up being relatively small exception though.
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Agree with Matt's 20-30% up assessment. It's tougher to judge bird numbers early season - all the cover still standing, along with some standing crop, plus hunting pressure pushing birds around (very high hunter #'s this season). Late season, with snow on the ground, paints a clearer picture. Birds are generally grouped, and it's easy to see birds out feeding (plus tracks;)). We haven't missed a late season hunt in +/- 25 years, with most of those snow covered. This was the most birds we've seen over the last handful of years. It was actually impressive - we were out there last year after that massive storm that had cattails, etc., buried. The birds then were very exposed, many picking grit along hard top roads in survival mode - it was devastating to see - That said, clearly many survived, and the hatch obviously strong (In our area). The takeaway for us was just how resilient these birds are, and the impact a good spring can have on bird numbers. Here's hoping for another spring like last!
 
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