Is South Dakota just hype?

[Hutcho]

At least every year on here about this time of year…. Somebody’s brother-in-law or sister uncle witnessed the state truck tossing them out of the back… in the middle of the night. Millions of them… looked like mosquitoes

No wonder the ditch hunting is so good!

 

[Woollybob]

I keep hearing that term. Is that just a fancy way of saying pen raised birds?

Glad I was not the only one wondering that. I even googled it and the only hit was to A5's Youtube video so it went full circle... I get the reference though.

I have only run across one 'flare nare' on public ground in SD and it was last year. It had a numbered band on the leg as well and I got a $25 gift card out of it - They were released with a few other birds across the area as part of a local promotion. Other than that single bird, never have seen another pen raised bird taken on public land in our group.

 

[Golden Hour]

The last time I hunted SD was probably 10 years ago, But I hunted it over a span of about 30 years with a 10 year gap in there somewhere. I first hunted there in the early 80s. To say it was incredible would be an understatement. I hunted only private land around Huron on a friend's property. We would limit every day and have to call it before sundown to clean massive quantities of birds for our large group.

Untfortunately, the bird numbers declined steadily over the years, until I just quit going about 10 years ago. The numbers had gotten down to the point I didn't want to hunt them. Just one person's experience on a particular area.

That's really too bad. One of the things I find particularly enjoyable is working hard to hunt fewer birds. The hot barrels and big flushes are great, but at the end of the day, my dog and I chasing the handful of pheasants on a piece of public ground, working the lay of the land to pin that bird in a chokepoint where the ravine ends, flushing him within gun range and making a quick shot is what makes pheasant hunting such a fulfilling endeavor.

 

[dakotasj]

That's really too bad. One of the things I find particularly enjoyable is working hard to hunt fewer birds. The hot barrels and big flushes are great, but at the end of the day, my dog and I chasing the handful of pheasants on a piece of public ground, working the lay of the land to pin that bird in a chokepoint where the ravine ends, flushing him within gun range and making a quick shot is what makes pheasant hunting such a fulfilling endeavor.

Amen. IMO a limit by noon is not as great a day as a limit in the golden hour with a picture worthy SD sunset in the background.

 

[david0311]

At least every year on here about this time of year…. Somebody’s brother-in-law or sister uncle witnessed the state truck tossing them out of the back… in the middle of the night. Millions of them… looked like mosquitoes

Tom..h
I’m going to have to correct you on what you stated!!
I have it that they stock those tens of thousands of bird..in the dark of the moon from black helicopters flown by abdominal snow men wearing tin foil hats!
I heard this for a fact from a guy who knows another guy that got it from another guy’s second cousins twice removed

 

[Bob Peters]

I hunt more often than anyone I know & honestly haven't seen big peaks & valleys. Nor have I seen drastic changes in quantity or quality of public & public-access ground or the amount of time I spend to shoot a couple pheasants. Some years are a little tougher. Some a bit easier. About the same though.

This was my favorite part of your post because it really stuck a tone with me and here's why: I've been lucky enough to have a guy I know take me pheasant hunting just a few times a year. He has hunted all over, but for the mainstay of his upland career it's been MN and IA. He hunts a lot, just him and his lab 95% of the time. I've learned a lot from him, and on the long rides to and from is a great time to ask questions. I'm guessing he's early 50s and has been going to Iowa/southern MN for 30 years. I asked him driving home one evening, "what was it like hunting all these spots back 25 years ago? 10 years ago?" His reply, "About the same."

 

[Golden Hour]

Tom..h
I’m going to have to correct you on what you stated!!
I have it that they stock those tens of thousands of bird..in the dark of the moon from black helicopters flown by abdominal snow men wearing tin foil hats!
I heard this for a fact from a guy who knows another guy that got it from another guy’s second cousins twice removed

I heard Hyresmack hooked up with that guys sister.

 

[A5 Sweet 16]

I heard Hyresmack hooked up with that guys sister.

Don't you have better things to do, GS, than pollute this place with nonsense??

 

[A5 Sweet 16]

I asked him driving home one evening, "what was it like hunting all these spots back 25 years ago? 10 years ago?" His reply, "About the same."

I'm definitely lucky. The vast majority of my hunting spots fall within a weird shaped polygon covering about 550 square miles. They're all about 40-60 miles from my house as the crow flies, so 45-80 minutes away. My polygon contains about 100-125 small to medium sized "public" hunting areas - WPA, GPA, WIA, & CREP. I'm quite familiar with most of them, and any given year I might hunt 40 of them at least once. But I get to hunt 30-35 times a season, spread out evenly over 16 weeks. I get a lot better view of things than somebody who's only able to hunt over 2, 3, or even 6 weeks. Those are pretty small snapshots of the season. Even though my polygon encompasses only 1.8% of the 31,000 sq. mi. between I-29 & "The River", I end up doing quite a lot of driving within that 550 sq. miles. It's interesting, year to year, which spots I end up hunting multiple times in a season (4-5 short hunts would be about max for any spot), which spots I try once or twice & don't go back, & which spots I ignore completely. It varies quite a bit, largely as a result of what's happening on surrounding private land that year - e.g.: crops & other useful habitat. But even though tiny pieces of my polygon experience individual ups & downs, in general it's stayed "about the same" for 30 years. I could pretty easily hunt an area of the state with more pheasants & learn it fairly quickly. But for the type of hunting I do, my available time, and my level of success, what I do suits me pretty well. Plus I'm getting old, set in my ways, & my wife says I don't handle change well.

 

[hyresmack]

I heard Hyresmack hooked up with that guys sister.

I dont' see why the hell you would say that but whatever. Frickin joker.
You got your secret honey hole all picked out fro the big resident opener, sure hope to see a video of it. Sage and my lab Benny would get along good I bet. I think I asked before is she spayd?

 

[Golden Hour]

I dont' see why the hell you would say that but whatever. Frickin joker.
You got your secret honey hole all picked out fro the big resident opener, sure hope to see a video of it. Sage and my lab Benny would get along good I bet. I think I asked before is she spayd?

I say that because I ran into your buddy from Henry with the Brittany. He had some entertaining things to share!! haha. Nothing bad, just glory stories from your rodeo days.

I usually go to the same handful of spots on resident opener. Each is looking nice and lush with all the rain we've had. If the new GoPro works, you'll see a video.

Sage is spayed. Thanks for asking first, though.

 

[hyresmack]

I say that because I ran into your buddy from Henry with the Brittany. He had some entertaining things to share!! haha. Nothing bad, just glory stories from your rodeo days.

I usually go to the same handful of spots on resident opener. Each is looking nice and lush with all the rain we've had. If the new GoPro works, you'll see a video.

Sage is spayed. Thanks for asking first, though.

Oh great, that can only be 1 guy. He said he ran into you by accident pretty much & were talkin phez hunting. He failed to say he was telling rodeo stories tho, man them were the days. I gotta have a copule words with him now though. lol small world.

 

[Bob Peters]

. If the new GoPro works, you'll see a video.

what gopro did you go with?

 

[Golden Hour]

what gopro did you go with?

Hero10

 

[Goosemaster]

Great point about getting your dog “action”
Since we go multiple times each year, the first trip helps narrow the spots to hunt for subsequent trips - our dogs play a huge role in sorting that out - & our pup will be a year old/first hunt - can’t wait - for us, dogs make the hunting experience complete

I don't think I would hunt without my dog. I've even turkey hunted with my dog.

 

[Goosemaster]

Per GF&P data, preserves have released around 500,000 birds a year recently, of which 250,000-300,000 are shot. My guess is that other private landowners release less than 100,000 and also shoot roughly half of them. I presume the vast majority of released birds that don't get shot die relatively quickly of other causes. SD hunters have shot roughly 1,000,000 WILD roosters a year for the last 9 years. No other state has come close to that recently. (No....preserve birds are not included in harvest estimates.) If my thinking is right, released birds account for about 20% of all pheasants shot in SD. The State of SD releases zero pheasants.

Many of you have heard me say this before. I've hunted SD public land almost exclusively for 41 seasons, very avidly. I shoot what some people would consider quite a few pheasants. I've shot a total of 4 pen raised birds on public land. 3 were about 6 years ago in 2 consecutive days after a Pro Pheasants group had released a few in the area for a youth hunt. The 4th was last season near a piece of private ground where a guy releases some birds.

There's plenty of hype surrounding SD pheasant hunting, but it's far from JUST hype. The birds are there. Plenty of them. Wild ones. My educated guess is right now we're in the 7-9 million range. No other state comes close to that either. I really haven't noticed any severe population changes on public land. Hunting them can be extremely challenging sometimes. And I think the average hunter is becoming less & less experienced, simply because he/she lives (on average) further from the places pheasants live. They're not able to hunt as often & are generally a little more disconnected from the outdoors. Plus, some people are introduced to hunting via pen reared birds. They master those , then decide they'd rather hunt wild ones & are surprised (discouraged) by how difficult they can be. The difference is simply night & day.

Here's a video of a disgusting flare nare pseudo rooster.

I think it should be illegal to release pheasants.

 

[Goosemaster]

I don't think that anyone who has hunted SD would disagree that is has more wild pheasants than any other state. That's not really refutable, even with the loss in habitat. However, there are items to be weighed, which others have already mentioned. One, the season is now open through January. I don't know any other state with a season that long. I prefer winter-type hunting in colder temps as opposed to summer-type hunting when its 75 degrees out.
On the negative side, there are definitely more hunters. More pheasants are inevitably going to attract more hunters, and SD is all about marketing it. They've purposely stopped doing road side counts to avoid showing how much bird numbers have dropped. This funding is now spent almost solely on marketing.
The thing that really peeves me is the limitation of hunting days as a non-resident. You can only hunt 5 consecutive days or 10 consecutive days. Other states aren't like that. If you buy a hunting license in Iowa, you can hunt as many days as you want to, when you want to. Same in Minnesota. I don't like hunting for days on end; I prefer to hunt about once or twice a week instead and spread out my days with days of rest in between.
If you've never been there, its probably worth trying at least once.

I agree, it's a fun state to hunt. It isn't a mecca.

 

[Goosemaster]

That is when I started pheasant hunting (MN) and the peak of that spike occurred from 2005-2008, which closely follows the peak amount of land enrolled in CRP. 2006 and 2007 were seasons that I will never experience in my lifetime again.

If you also look at Iowa's historical data, you can see that they also had a rooster harvest of a million birds during this era. And then at one point, only 15 years later, their harvest was just over 150,000 birds. The loss of habitat there is astonishing.

I've driven through Iowa several times. No cover.

 

[Goosemaster]

Question: are you alone? If you’ve got a buddy, or other hunters are in the same public spot, you’d know if birds are being contacted. If alone, and you’re in a ginormous sea of grass without obvious spots that should hold birds (cattails, food sources, water, tree belts), then I’d move on after 30-45-60 minutes. Hunting near those aforementioned bird-magnets is what I would do, and if you’re not seeing sign, like pheasant poop, and the dogs aren’t birdy, move on. I have a buddy that looks for poop, and let me tell you, I’ve started to…works great! If the spot you’re in is public and it appears hard hunted, move on if no contacts…the parking spots are a dead giveaway many times. Again, snow tells the whole story as well.

I agree.A lot of times, these public places get hit really hard by groups of hunters.

 

[A5 Sweet 16]

I think it should be illegal to release pheasants.

What I find strange in SD (a pretty conservative state) is that we mandate it on preserves....private land! The preserve owners would be forced to do it anyway, simply to provide shooting for clients. If the reason for the mandate is to protect wild populations, I find it ridiculous. The wild ones there when the preserve's season starts would only need about 2 weeks to figure out how to successfully protect themselves. They'd basically act like public land birds, only using the preserve when absolutely necessary, which in many cases (with exceptions) would be outside of shooting hours.