Hunter Pressure and Harvest by County

M

Mr_Tibbs

Member
Does North Dakota publish any sort of data showing estimated hunters and harvest by County like South Dakota does? South Dakota’s is just a survey, so accuracy is only somewhat reliable, but it’s really interesting and helpful to see the breakdown of pressure and harvest by county. I know each year ND puts out the top five counties for harvest and the total number of hunters, but that’s it.

To me, it’s really interesting when you are researching hunting in a new state and you hear about certain areas being good for birds, but certain areas receive a lot of pressure too. The problem is that’s all relative to the pressure and production in the local region.

For example, I know southwestern North Dakota is known as one of the popular areas for hunters, but how does it compare in numbers and harvest to, say, Brown or Hughes county in South Dakota? I always find it funny when South Dakotans (and I’m a SD resident) talk about how the eastern most counties in the state aren’t great bird hunting, but folks from MSP drive to western Minnesota for the birds because that’s a lot better than the MSP area for them. If I had the time and the money, I’d make a national database of relative pheasant hunting statistics just to better understand how the “prime places” in each state compare to each other.

Long, rambling, post summarized: Does ND have county by county harvest data, and if not, what is everyone’s opinion on how the Southwestern area of ND compares with some of the more famous areas of SD for harvest and pressure?
 
Mr_Tibbs said:
The problem is that’s all relative to the pressure and production in the local region.
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The more pressure and hunters you have in one specific area, the more harvest numbers are going to increase. I would focus on areas that aren't near the top of the harvest unless you want to deal with a lot of hunters. This is especially true for hunting public land.

People in MN have this notion in their heads that they have to head west to hunt pheasants. Its like they don't realize there's pheasants in other parts of the state outside of the southwest corner.

Another item that could easily affect this is crop harvest. Standing corn provides a mostly safe haven for pheasants until most of it is harvested and its difficult to hunt unless its small or you have an army of hunters (and permission to hunt it).
 
gimruis said:
The more pressure and hunters you have in one specific area, the more harvest numbers are going to increase. I would focus on areas that aren't near the top of the harvest unless you want to deal with a lot of hunters. This is especially true for hunting public land.

People in MN have this notion in their heads that they have to head west to hunt pheasants. Its like they don't realize there's pheasants in other parts of the state outside of the southwest corner.

Another item that could easily affect this is crop harvest. Standing corn provides a mostly safe haven for pheasants until most of it is harvested and its difficult to hunt unless its small or you have an army of hunters (and permission to hunt it).
Click to expand...
True…I hunted a part of mn last year that hardly had birds per the dnr bird density map…we had great hunting, got our limit hunting one afternoon then the next am…standing corn is good for a late hunt, hunt roost cover adjacent…but cut corn is better overall, obviously
 
gimruis said:
The more pressure and hunters you have in one specific area, the more harvest numbers are going to increase. I would focus on areas that aren't near the top of the harvest unless you want to deal with a lot of hunters. This is especially true for hunting public land.

People in MN have this notion in their heads that they have to head west to hunt pheasants. Its like they don't realize there's pheasants in other parts of the state outside of the southwest corner.

Another item that could easily affect this is crop harvest. Standing corn provides a mostly safe haven for pheasants until most of it is harvested and its difficult to hunt unless its small or you have an army of hunters (and permission to hunt it).
Click to expand...

I fully agree that the best thing to do is to start looking at lower harvest areas with a lot lower hunters. There are some gems out there that don’t get near the amount of pressure or press that certain areas do. All things being equal, like weather and hunting pressure, I’m sure Mitchell or Chamberlain area would produce the most birds in a given year. But you add in either limited public land or tons of hunters on public, and many of our “best areas” are really not ideal places to go unless you have land access.

That’s why I’m curious how the SW part of ND compares. Is it similar in pressure and numbers to parts of the Jim River Valley? Or is it the “hot spot” compared to the rest of North Dakota and would be just another area in South Dakota as far as pressure goes?

These may be questions that I can only answer when I head up there later this fall!😂
 
I think SW is hard to access…drought overhang seems to be over based on crowing count data…if u can get on land there, probably very good…NW SD is good as well, maybe easier to access land.
 
Mr_Tibbs said:
Does North Dakota publish any sort of data showing estimated hunters and harvest by County like South Dakota does? South Dakota’s is just a survey, so accuracy is only somewhat reliable, but it’s really interesting and helpful to see the breakdown of pressure and harvest by county. I know each year ND puts out the top five counties for harvest and the total number of hunters, but that’s it.

To me, it’s really interesting when you are researching hunting in a new state and you hear about certain areas being good for birds, but certain areas receive a lot of pressure too. The problem is that’s all relative to the pressure and production in the local region.

For example, I know southwestern North Dakota is known as one of the popular areas for hunters, but how does it compare in numbers and harvest to, say, Brown or Hughes county in South Dakota? I always find it funny when South Dakotans (and I’m a SD resident) talk about how the eastern most counties in the state aren’t great bird hunting, but folks from MSP drive to western Minnesota for the birds because that’s a lot better than the MSP area for them. If I had the time and the money, I’d make a national database of relative pheasant hunting statistics just to better understand how the “prime places” in each state compare to each other.

Long, rambling, post summarized: Does ND have county by county harvest data, and if not, what is everyone’s opinion on how the Southwestern area of ND compares with some of the more famous areas of SD for harvest and pressure?
Click to expand...
I don't believe they publish anything that specific, but you could probably get about what you're looking for by calling the upland biologist. It is sort of nice that not everything can be found on the Internet as it pertains to hunting.

I've not hunted much in the far SW of ND (nor have I SD); most of it is known for tough access and outfitters nowadays and mediocre public options. Probably similar to SD.
 
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