Platte area observations

SDJIM

SDJIM

New member
Have spent the last several days hunting in the Platte area and here are some
observations.
1. The bird numbers are indeed way down
2. The brids are sitting really really tight to the point where today several solid points required the bird be encouraged to fly at the point of a boot
3. The weather has been so nice I thought maybe they were in the fields feeding--correct guess as I sat and watched well over a hundred birds WALK back into a 35 ac CRP patch AFTER SHOOTING HOURS==they came out of a havested corn field. We hunted this field about an hour before sunset with 6 hunters and 5 GOOD dogs and only flushed 3 hens and 1 rooster.
4. It snowed today--kinda of wet stuff and another thought I had proved true in that the dogs had a MUCH easier time finding the birds--its been so warm and dry that I was sure we and the dogs were walking right over birds--RIGHT AGAIN
5. If getting limits is your goal it's not the year to hunt around here--but if you enjoy good dog work and just being in the field then last several days and I hope tomorrow have been a joy.
6. Next year I hope to be more tuned in to whats going on around here and since I now live on my land instead of 300 miles away it could be easier to do just that.:D:D
 
Jim, good report. Overall we have had a higher rebook rate than last year at my lodge SE of you. Guys still had to work for their birds and averaged short of their limits most of the time but saw birds and got birds.

I felt that the mortality rate was lower than I had thought but who knows if the hatch was really good and 50% died off. I never saw more than a dozen birds at any one time all year but the opening weekend group said they saw several hundred throughout their 3 days hunt.

We have 3 hunts planned between now and season end. West River, Faulkton and my lodge to close it up at year end.

Will let you know what I see at our place for the last hunt of year. I like to get the locals together and firefighters that help with prescribed burns and do a year end rooster roundup.

In summary if we have severe moisture or severe drought to chose from (2011 vs. 2012) I would choose severe drought in a heartbeat. Pheasants deal better with drought and heat than cold and wet.
 
Out again today hunting in a snow storm--man is this fun or what.:D We hunted private land north of New Holland --it's a really good habatit project by a friend of mine from the Twin Cities. We saw LOTS of hens but not many roosters--saw about 75 or so hens and 8 rossters on a quarter section. If we could just get a somewhat normal year I think that there would be a really nice hunting season around here in 2013.:thumbsup:
 
I think most roosters that are left,(and even every rooster at the beginning of the season) have a doctorate in escapism. They are seasoned veterans to this thing we call pheasant hunting. Plus, I think somebody is breeding a new, higher road gear into them. You just dont know if they are going to run, or stick, which isnt all that unusal, but its even more noticeable when there arent as many candidtates..


Im not saying Im done for the season, but with the walleye bite in full swing and a new boat, if it wasnt for the dogs, the walleyes would really be in trouble..

Nice to know theyre still around, and there is a seed crop for next year! Thanks for the report Jim..
 
IN talking with one of our hunters the other day we both observed some interesting trends this year. Namely:

1. Lower lost bird count
2. Higher "escapism" ability as reddog pointed out
3. This years hatch birds seemed to get extremely wild extremely early in the season.

We both concluded this was due to drier growing conditions and thus unseasonably sparse growing conditions of habitat.

Hence, dogs can find easier on cripples, they run more and quicker and would appear to be wilder and better at escaping.
 
my experience was there were damn few young birds taken early (poor hatch).......so by now, you can imagine how wild the older ones would be.......survival instincts are strong.
 
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Another Platte area hunting observation

I'm an amateur at pheasant hunting, I freely admit; we fly out from NC, so no dog; but we are energetic, and have had good success in the Platte area for the past several years, and before that for several years in Nebraska. I have never seen the like of what we found two weeks ago: Four of us hunted four days and bagged a total of 5 birds; we shot half a box of shells, between us. Public land, private land, ditches, it didn't matter; mostly we found no birds; if we did, they were 90 to 95% hens.

The weather may have been a contributing factor--I hunted Dec. 1 in my shirtsleeves, an unsettling feeling in South Dakota. But everyone I talked to, in restaurants, bars, motels and pheasant cleaning shops said much the same; one Minn. veteran said it was the worst in 31 years. A friend who goes to a pay to shoot (but wild birds) place nearby says the owner is canceling the rest of the season and refunding deposits, the shooting is so poor.

I would be interested in seeing what the Game folks in SD say about this; if they continue to say, "plenty of birds," they will have no future credibility with me. I'd be more impressed if they refunded a portion of my license fee, based on the wretched results I and so many others experienced this year. I'll be watching carefully before I commit to return in 2013.
 
beach004 said:
I'm an amateur at pheasant hunting, I freely admit; we fly out from NC, so no dog; but we are energetic, and have had good success in the Platte area for the past several years, and before that for several years in Nebraska. I have never seen the like of what we found two weeks ago: Four of us hunted four days and bagged a total of 5 birds; we shot half a box of shells, between us. Public land, private land, ditches, it didn't matter; mostly we found no birds; if we did, they were 90 to 95% hens.

The weather may have been a contributing factor--I hunted Dec. 1 in my shirtsleeves, an unsettling feeling in South Dakota. But everyone I talked to, in restaurants, bars, motels and pheasant cleaning shops said much the same; one Minn. veteran said it was the worst in 31 years. A friend who goes to a pay to shoot (but wild birds) place nearby says the owner is canceling the rest of the season and refunding deposits, the shooting is so poor.

I would be interested in seeing what the Game folks in SD say about this; if they continue to say, "plenty of birds," they will have no future credibility with me. I'd be more impressed if they refunded a portion of my license fee, based on the wretched results I and so many others experienced this year. I'll be watching carefully before I commit to return in 2013.
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Beach, who told you there were plenty of birds in Platte?
 
more from Platte

We hunted public south east of platte on Dec 4th bird numbers were way down for sure and the birds we got the dogs had to put up for us because they sat tight. The two year old lab we had with us worked the best in the cattails we hunted. My 10 year old setter and the 10 year old short hair we had with us were just about beat from the three days of hunting in Parkston and Aroura Center before we tried public. We hunt from 10am until sunset everyday with not much drive time between fields and I could see a big differance from last year to this year with my dog. We finnished up our last day of hunting back at Aroura Center and I would say that this year the numbers were way down from last but it was still worth the drive out and if the numbers are down again next year I will still be out.

Five guys and three dogs we killed 23 birds in 5 days and bet we missed at least 23 more. The one day we hunted public we only got three birds all day and missed 5. It was too warm and I know we were stepping over birds even with three dogs it was just too dry.
 
UGUIDE said:
Beach, who told you there were plenty of birds in Platte?
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Well, that's a point. I had read optimistic forecasts for the state--more birds than last year--from which I inferred, perhaps wrongly, that the Platte area would either share in that general increase, or at least not be heavily reduced. The drought was at its worst south of I-90 I've been told--certainly it looked like it. But we were committed to that area--we have friends who let us hunt good land, especially since we are willing to wait till after Thanksgiving when the rush is mostly over.
 
beach004 said:
Well, that's a point. I had read optimistic forecasts for the state--more birds than last year--from which I inferred, perhaps wrongly, that the Platte area would either share in that general increase, or at least not be heavily reduced. The drought was at its worst south of I-90 I've been told--certainly it looked like it. But we were committed to that area--we have friends who let us hunt good land, especially since we are willing to wait till after Thanksgiving when the rush is mostly over.
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The data was there to dig into. The brood counts for the Yankton route and Chamberlain routes were down over last year AND the 10 year average. These were the only 2 routes in the state that were down over last year.

What GFP said was up 18% statewide is not a lot (18%). But it never means that the birds are up 18% all over the place.;)
 
Platte Pheasant numbers

Uguide, I'm at what I laughingly call work, and my SD GFP data is at home; can you tell me, how much they said the count was down in the Chamberlain area? Because what I was seeing was "down a great deal"; and not just in Platte, but also over at Presho, bracketing Chamberlain. If you consider "up 18%" to not be much of an increase, how much of a decrease would qualify as a great deal?

If I were reporting only my own experience, I could call it random, the luck of the hunt; but when so many folks I spoke to in that area said the same, it really feels like a severe drop in the number of birds.
 
beach004 said:
Uguide, I'm at what I laughingly call work, and my SD GFP data is at home; can you tell me, how much they said the count was down in the Chamberlain area? Because what I was seeing was "down a great deal"; and not just in Platte, but also over at Presho, bracketing Chamberlain. If you consider "up 18%" to not be much of an increase, how much of a decrease would qualify as a great deal?

If I were reporting only my own experience, I could call it random, the luck of the hunt; but when so many folks I spoke to in that area said the same, it really feels like a severe drop in the number of birds.
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Beach, see if this helps. All data is online. Hover your mouse pointer over the cities on the map and it will show the 10 year data. Also pay close attention to birds per mile on left hand side of charts that display. Big diff between Chamberlain chart/routes and yankton chart/routes. Regardless, both show down over last year and lowest in 10 years on the chart.

http://gfp.sd.gov/hunting/small-game/pheasant-brood-trends.aspx

Its easy to paint a bleak picture this year but a bleaker picture existed between 1970-1985. Look at the land retirement vs. PPM (Pheasants Per Mile) during that period. This chart is all the way at bottom of complete brood report. Looks like there was no land retired at all during those years. Looks like there were far worse times in SD'd pheasant history to me. Additional poor back in early 50's.

http://gfp.sd.gov/hunting/docs/pheasant-broodcount-report.pdf

I find it extremely interesting that after all is said an done, the state of South Dakota produces an average harvest per hunter of about 10 birds/person for the last 20 years.
 
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UGUIDE said:
Beach, see if this helps. All data is online. Hover your mouse pointer over the cities on the map and it will show the 10 year data. Also pay close attention to birds per mile on left hand side of charts that display. Big diff between Chamberlain chart/routes and yankton chart/routes. Regardless, both show down over last year and lowest in 10 years on the chart.

http://gfp.sd.gov/hunting/small-game/pheasant-brood-trends.aspx

Its easy to paint a bleak picture this year but a bleaker picture existed between 1970-1985. Look at the land retirement vs. PPM (Pheasants Per Mile) during that period. This chart is all the way at bottom of complete brood report. Looks like there was no land retired at all during those years. Looks like there were far worse times in SD'd pheasant history to me. Additional poor back in early 50's.

http://gfp.sd.gov/hunting/docs/pheasant-broodcount-report.pdf

I find it extremely interesting that after all is said an done, the state of South Dakota produces an average harvest per hunter of about 10 birds/person for the last 20 years.
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Depending on when all the grass was mowed, the roadside counts could be inflated in drought years because less birds are hidden. You basically are seeing more of what is there.

How many of those birds are released birds shot on high end operations ?
 
BRITTMAN said:
Depending on when all the grass was mowed, the roadside counts could be inflated in drought years because less birds are hidden. You basically are seeing more of what is there.

How many of those birds are released birds shot on high end operations ?
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Survey numbers are not from preserves.

Road survey counter said numbers would show lower due to fact that birds don't hang in ditches that are mowed as there is no escape cover.

Dew points were extremely low skewing road counts to the neg.
 
From what I saw around Yankton, numbers were definitely down. That being said, I still thought most cover looked like it normally does. Being from the south, it always looks dry when I come up to hunt.
What effect will the partial haying done this year have on roads and CRP lands next year if there is normal rain fall and no emergency haying? I saw many roads where the side closest to the road was cut but the fence side was in grass. Also some of the walk ins and CREPs were hayed in half. It seems like that this could create some edge with different levels of cover for next year. It would help around here for quail hunting. Could this help the pheasant hunting?
 
Good point treedaddy,

One potential benefit of the intense haying and grazing pressure this year is a natural cover rebound and regeneration that would not have been possible without the drought.

And fingers crossed we would not see the haying pressure in 2013 that we saw this year.
 
UGUIDE said:
Survey numbers are not from preserves.

Road survey counter said numbers would show lower due to fact that birds don't hang in ditches that are mowed as there is no escape cover. Maybe they are wrong on this theory ?

Dew points were extremely low skewing road counts to the neg.
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I get the brood surveys are not influenced by preserves, kill reports can be swayed by hunters using pay-to-play operations. High end operations do restock roosters. Last year they ran MN based suppliers out of birds and the local preserves went hungry.

Looks like SoDak needs to reevaluate their count protocol.
 
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