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GPowers

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Well, as usual the 1st week of Nov. was reserved for my annual 1st trip to South Dakota. I was so pumped to hear the reports of higher numbers and couldn't wait to get out and see the big numbers.
Now the reality, it was the worst I have seen it. I hunted areas that I had great success last year as well as areas that I had great success in the past. ALL of which were poor for numbers. I'm so disappointed that I'm thinking of not going back for the 3 more trips I was thinking of taking. I was pumped for this years hunts and now I'm thing of hitting Iowa and Kansas late season.

The good: I took my good lab and my new pup, was impressed with the pup and what she might be capable of. I was hoping she would have more chances to get her nose on birds but she seemed more than interested in just working to find any sort of scent. She had some great turns on birds, so I was happy to see that.

The bad: seems like the reported numbers have the hunter numbers up as well, I saw more hunters in the areas that I hunt than I have since 2012. More boots on the ground and less birds isn't a good combo.

I understand that's why they call this hunting but I'm disappointed and feel their number counts were more about drawing hunters and dollars after a few poor years.

Not sure I'm going back, unless I can find an area with some better numbers. I'm not interested in paying to play.... I put a bunch of money at a game farm and keep my girls on birds all season anyways. Research will help me figure out if I'm going back or not. I'm gonna put the call out to some of the guys from on here and see what they know and have heard, hope to hear something better than what I saw this last week!

Avg. was one bird per man a day, that's is as poor as it gets for 2 guys and 3 dogs on the ground, I can get those numbers closer to home and don't need to put 1000 miles on to do that.

I hunted ALL public as usual and feel the cover was fine, the available water was fine, the only thing missing was the bird number they said they had.

I hope guys had better hunts than mine!
 
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Birds are definitely down. I don't think anyone will argue with a number like down 40%. So if we add this 40% down to the 42% up, we are talking about an 82% difference from the report. I have been hunting pheasants in SD for 46years and I would generally say that the roadside counts are fairly close to accurate. I would say however, this year they are way off. There may be a legitimate reason, but I don't know what that would be. I don't buy the theory of false counts because once hunters start mistrusting these reports, it's really counter productive. I make 6 trips to SD. I cancelled my Halloween weekend trip due to poor bird counts on the opener. I am done pouting and headed back out on November 12. I am going to guess the birds are very spotty, so I am going to move around until I find birds. Like everyone, I want to shoot my limit every day, but I have come to the realization that those days might be over. Hopefully, its short term, but I think not. Lots of factors are working against us. I have no problem opening my wallet wider to PF so that more habitat can be purchased. Everyone needs to do the same. Do we really have another alternative?
 
I don't even care if I shoot my limit everyday, I just don't want to hunt dead ground and burn my dogs up from 10am to dark and move 10 birds when they claim how great it's going to be, an with me it's NOT about the money it's about wasted time. I love the people and the hunt........ but there are other States that have birds also and low numbers over the last 3 years haven't stopped me from making many trips each year!
I also "support" DU and Pheasants forever every year with sponsorship money. so yes I care about the future as well as the now. Hunting isn't about killing birds to me, that's secondary!

I'm OK with them saying numbers are down, they cant control Mother nature! I'm not ok with politics and that's what I think we have working this year!:thumbsup:
 
you guys are spot on with your posts, the lack of nesting cover is the big problem and production farming of beans and corn, the landscape has changed vastly and the pressure to maintain license revenue as well...I am staying closer to home for awhile now too, don't see any reason to drive 1100 miles each way for this......
 
I have friends that have been out to SD recently who were impressed with bird #'s in the Gettysburg and Mobridge areas....I don't know what is there for public land, I think they were on private. Seems like Chamberlain and further North, staying within 30 miles or so either side of the Missouri River, is a decent starting point for being near birds.
 
GD---what's your guess on the perchance of corn was still up in the areas you hunted?

Nick
 
GPowers,

I'm curious, what area of SD were you hunting? If you don't want to say I understand. My farmer friend said its the best he is seen in the last few years. We will see... I'm making my first trip of the year out there next week. I know there were certain parts of SD that had real heavy rainfalls during the primary nesting season (perhaps that explains what you were seeing). You said the cover looks good... WEre there any standing crops? You mentioned you were hunting state land, perhaps it was hunted heavy and the birds were pushed off of it?? You would still think you would see birds in the mornings or evening on the roads. Best of luck on your next hunt
 
We have hunted the same area in mid central SD for 6 years now and we thought bird #s were at most 50% what they have been in past years, and probably lower than that. 2 of us limited all 5 days on private but we hunted hard and long and shot decently. There has been more mowing of grass on this farm, so no doubt that has had some effect. Probably 60% of the roosters we shot were 2nd year birds. We were speculating that our localized area may have had some adverse weather event during nesting season. It is funny, because a couple years ago when a big drop was forecast we failed to notice it. Hunter numbers do seem to correlate with the forecast I believe.
 
We also hunt the first or second week of Nov. most years in the Miller area. We found warm weather and some standing corn this year, which is not the norm. We ended our 5 day hunt with 36 pheasants and 14 ducks. The ducks had not arrived on migration yet. We had 5 hunters and 4 dogs. The numbers for us were not what we have come to expect and certainly did not rise 40%. That was evident from the lack of birds getting grit along the roads in the evening and our farmer saying they were not seeing the numbers when they finished the fields. I know they suffered through two hail storms and they said they had adequate rain as the crops were good. Most dams were dry and everything was crunchy, making sneaking on birds impossible and dog scenting conditions horrible with humidity low as well. I will be back again next year as we do every year and see what the bird numbers are for our self.
I plow snow in the winter and it is kinda the same thing, the weatherman can predict what he wants but it all that matters is what's on the ground when I start plowing. Good luck to all
 
I just returned from a trip to the Central and South Central part of the state. Hunted with some older guys (out of shape, slow...., I'm just the young guy (son) who gets invited each year because I have a good dog) who have always gone on private land, but did not want to pay to hunt this year. So we went 3 days of all public land. The average per day over the 3 days was 3-4 birds with 5-6 guys. We didn't even see a ton of birds flushing wild a hundred yards out or hen flushes, just not much action in general. Everything was very dry, lots of sloughs that have always held water were completely dry and the cattails were walkable in them. Some of the most hunting pressure I have ever seen on public land as well, tons of hunters driving to/past all the public spots and a group was almost always hunting just about every public spot you'd go by.

That said, I am 90% confident that with a good dog and 1-2 guys you could reasonably expect 3-5 birds a day on public land. In just over a month I have a 3 day trip to private land in the SC part of the state and I fully expect that hunt to be outstanding.
 
Also just returned from our annual trip out to SD this time of the year, and agree with these posts. We pushed up less birds than the past two years, and saw many more hunters. we hunt around the Huron area, and have for 13-14 years now. I have never seen more hunters on the public spots.
I reported before that we hunted pheasants for a number of years in Iowa, and when most of the CRP land came out (for crops), it took 3 years for the bird numbers to fall to a point where it was time to move. I sense we are starting to see some of this play out in SD.

We fell 4 birds short of ur limit (2 of us) which to me is still great wild bird hunting. I would say 70% of the birds were older birds, which is not the norm for our "early" trip. That is more typical when we come out for late season hunting. We worked very hard for our birds, had a great time, and we love coming to SD, A-Z. One observation is that the weather has been so mild that none of the habitat has been knocked down, which by now is not usually the case (and provides the birds with a broader area to be in).
The past two years there was waterfowl everywhere; we just started seeing migrating geese and cranes Friday and Saturday. There was about 20% corn still standing, and even saw one bean field unharvested. Best of luck to everyone, and thanks for your reports.
 
I have hunted huron area last 4 years ,seen fewer and fewer phesants every year,but more and more hunters on public .Thanks for confirming its not worth the trip.Gotta pay to play.
 
Currently in SD. Their numbers were bogus to get more hunters into the state for more revenue. This is the least amount of birds we've seen on a SD trip. It's not over yet and we are hunting them hard. But their counts were way high. It's definitely tough so far this year.
 
Not sure what all you guys are complaining about. I've consistently gone out this year and gotten a limit within 45 minutes of starting. The longest it has taken me has been three hours. Also stopped early due to it being so warm on one day. Walking public land with just me and my dog. Could have easily shot more birds if I had another person with as well.
 
1-2 guys, takes 3-6 birds daily........"should" be able to do that anywhere.
5-6 guys, take 15-18 birds daily......not nearly such an easy task this year.

those numbers harvested on an average 5 day hunt would be damn tough to come by......:eek:

something has changed drastically for most of us......last season we commonly saw 100 or more birds sitting in trees, sunning in the early morning....saw nothing of the sort this year.....zero.
 
SD pheasants

I just returned home to IL from 8 days hunting in SD.....I hunt northeast area....and saw waaay more hunters and fewer birds than ever before...I got my share of birds but hunted hard for them.....also hunted around Onida again on private ground.....crops still in A LOT of areas....really hurting the hunting....farm I saw easily 1500 birds on last year....I saw marginal numbers on this year....birds all on the neighbors ground because of the crops.....was a great hunt all in all....just not the greatness the state made it out to be....I will be back again regardless...in the mean time I will be quail hunting in Kansas ....:cheers:
 
BigRand said:
Not sure what all you guys are complaining about. I've consistently gone out this year and gotten a limit within 45 minutes of starting. The longest it has taken me has been three hours. Also stopped early due to it being so warm on one day. Walking public land with just me and my dog. Could have easily shot more birds if I had another person with as well.
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feel like a hero then, you are in the minority, no reason for us to make shit up, the birds are way down.........too many folks see it the same way.
 
rascal said:
I just returned home to IL from 8 days hunting in SD.....I hunt northeast area....and saw waaay more hunters and fewer birds than ever before...I got my share of birds but hunted hard for them.....also hunted around Onida again on private ground.....crops still in A LOT of areas....really hurting the hunting....farm I saw easily 1500 birds on last year....I saw marginal numbers on this year....birds all on the neighbors ground because of the crops.....was a great hunt all in all....just not the greatness the state made it out to be....I will be back again regardless...in the mean time I will be quail hunting in Kansas ....:cheers:
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i am headed to Kansas in first week of December and i am sure the pheasant hunting won't be much worse than SD, plus the quail numbers should be up big time!
 
Bird numbers were down for us as well

This was my third year making the trip to SD for pheasant and it was somewhat disappointing. The first trip that I made was in 2013 when the road counts gave a grim report of birds being down 64%. After much discussion and almost cancelling, we decided to make the trip in 2013 and had a good year despite the estimated drop in bird numbers. In 2014 I returned and had another good year. This year I was very optimistic with the bird count being higher than 2014. We hunted the NE part of SD on a mix of private and public land. After our first day we struggled to find birds. After hunting for 5 days, we took 24 birds between 6 hunters. We typically hunt the first week of November, but this year we came one week earlier. I'm not sure that this made that big of a difference after reading all of the other comments. Although I enjoy the hunt and don't need to kill a limit every time I go, it sure is nice to at least have the opportunity to miss a bird. Either way I hope the hunting improves.
 
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