Honest question!!!!

Bob Peters said:
I agree. Iowa doesn't hold a candle, especially in terms of numers... of incubators, coops, pens, blinders, lodges with guaranteed success, and birds with large nostrils.
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Don't forget the pictures with the line of 6 guys with 18 birds lined up for every day of the hunt with surprisingly sparse cover in the background. SD definitely has Iowa beat on that too 😂
 
So I recall maybe 5 years ago very little crp was available for new enrollment in S
D. as most of the feds money was going to Iowa as erosion was a real problem due to farming ground that should have never been tilled. Think rolling ground , exposed hill sides.
 
gimruis said:
I don't think there's any doubt that Iowa has some great upland hunting. Obviously it used to be a lot better but loss of habitat and modern agriculture has had a big say in that. If they instituted mandatory buffer strips, their numbers would explode.

The selling point for nonresident hunters over maybe a SD is that you can hunt as many days as you want. Buy a license, and hunt the entire season. Whereas in SD you can only hunt for a total of 10 days. I think SD has better hunting, but Iowa is a good alternative if you don't want to hunt for days on end. There's a fair amount of MN hunters who live in the southern half of the state that can drive to Iowa for a day long hunt and then be back home the same day without having to worry about staying somewhere. I would personally rather hunt about once a week during the entire season than bunch all my hunting into one or two trips. That's just me though.

Just like anywhere else, habitat and weather are the two primary factors. Beyond that, hunting pressure will also limit your chances, especially if you are on public land later in the season.
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When did south Dakota go to this 10 day thing?
 
nastymcnarf said:
I lived in Iowa for over 20 years fresh out of college. Every year I waited for those 'roadside counts' to come out. They can paint a picture but only part of it. I killed a lot of birds in areas that the 'counts' pretty much proclaimed the ringneck to be extinct. That was fine with me. If I got my three birds having only seen 5-6 for the day...I'm still eating pheasant. I found it best to make it numbers game. Hit the best looking pockets and strips and hit as many as you can. I had very little competition for a lot of years. Truth be told I miss that about Iowa.

I moved back home to South Dakota in 2016...about the time birds were starting to come back in Iowa. This year the pressure from OOS'ers in SD was ENORMOUS. The weather stayed too nice for too long and I saw more large groups than I've ever seen. The fair weather guys were still there for weeks past their normal historical endurance.
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Yeah that's the way montana was.Lots of these Minnesota and Wisconsin guys with these bogus dog trailers flailing away with insolvency.
 
Munster927 said:
Don't forget the pictures with the line of 6 guys with 18 birds lined up for every day of the hunt with surprisingly sparse cover in the background. SD definitely has Iowa beat on that too 😂
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And the guy in the camouflage pick up unloading chickens in conspicuously.
 
benelli-banger said:
Over 30 years ago….
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Longer ago than that actually...Before I was old enough to hunt in the 70's and early 80's...I remember my uncles coming back home to SD complaining that they only got 10 days for their very expensive licenses. Aaaaaand that was all in one shot. Then sometime in the 90's you could break it up into two-5 day periods. Don't know what it is now.
 
nastymcnarf said:
Then sometime in the 90's you could break it up into two-5 day periods. Don't know what it is now.
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That's still what it is. Max 10 days per season (per license), 10 days straight or two 5-day periods.

If you're travelling in from a longer distance away and making a multi-day trip out of it, then its beneficial. I simply prefer to hunt about once or twice a week and spread my hunting out over the course of the season, rather than put all my eggs in one or two baskets.
 
My dad hunted SD in the ‘60’s, and the 4 of them could possess 25 each, which was 5 days worth…so for at least 60 years they’ve done the 5 day thing, I assume it was 2 5 day periods?
 
benelli-banger said:
My dad hunted SD in the ‘60’s, and the 4 of them could possess 25 each, which was 5 days worth…so for at least 60 years they’ve done the 5 day thing, I assume it was 2 5 day periods?
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Montana used to have a 1 hen.Nobody told my cousin...
 
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