Ok guys, this is confidential information so keep it under your hat please. The South Dakota Game Fish & Parks pheasant forecast and harvest data is normally provided by a realtor that lives by the twin cities up north dar in Minnesota. He is a true city slicker. This year they screwed up and instead of using the realtors forecast they used the actual roadside count numbers. (the realtor will make heads roll over this).
Make no mistake, the realtor will make sure his harvest numbers are used this year. This guy knows everything about South Dakota pheasant hunting. You could even say he is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of South Dakota pheasant hunting. He even knows what birds were released, and what birds were wild in the harvest numbers. Expect the harvest numbers to be down slightly, only because they screwed up an used the actual forecast numbers instead of the realtors forecast numbers. As much as it bothers the realtor not to pump up the harvest numbers, he knows it would look fishy if the harvest actually went up.