Pay to Play rates in SD

[BKelly]

And yet you assume I’m not getting birds?

When you show your picture of six birds on the tailgate, I am to believe it is you and one other person hunting. Congrats, good job.

If you read my previous posts, my point is that the 8-9 man party hunts who are limiting out everyday on the same property are not hunting wild birds. Ask a wildlife biologist how much land you would need to sustain harvesting approx 27 birds a day/ 7 days a week.

Well…something ain’t right if you counted 6 birds on the tailgate in the picture I posted..

I also said “we got our last 2 of 18”…see if you can do the math to figure out how many guys it would take for 18 birds to be a limit.

I’m not really sure what your point is, but you incorrectly implied that anything but public land is not really hunting.

Paying a farmer a trespass fee is not the same as hunting at a fancy lodge. You said that if you pay a trespass fee you might as well not drive to South Dakota and stay home and hunt a game farm instead…which tells me you have no clue what you are talking about.

 

[BrownDogsCan2]

Wow this is getting old

 

[hunter94]

this topic, discussed every year, is nothing but a pissing match.

 

[carptom1]

Talk all you want, I’m in SD right now, real hunting, public land. If I wanted easy, guaranteed birds, I’d go hunt a club, but I’d do it when wild bird season is closed or take the kids for an easy hunt.
I’ve seen plenty of farmers supplement their land to keep customers coming back and many will pay extra to have birds raised without peepers so they “appear” wild. Ever wonder why you see more roosters than hens on your special farmland?

Making

And yet you assume I’m not getting birds?

When you show your picture of six birds on the tailgate, I am to believe it is you and one other person hunting. Congrats, good job.

If you read my previous posts, my point is that the 8-9 man party hunts who are limiting out everyday on the same property are not hunting wild birds. Ask a wildlife biologist how much land you would need to sustain harvesting approx 27 birds a day/ 7 days a week.

Who is saying they hunt seven days a week? You are just flat wrong. There are plenty of places in South Dakota where this can be done. Most I know of hunt three or four days then rest the ground for several days until hunting again. Because they have food plots and great cover, the birds always return. By December the hunting gets pretty tough on the ones I have frequented. The hens will outnumber the roosters and you have to switch up your plan to get any birds. You are referencing outfits that have a limited amount of acreages. The places I have been were anywhere from 5k to 15k. With good improvements it is easily sustainable. At 150 bucks a day nobody’s buying birds.

 

[cheesy]

Place I’ve luckily been invited to hunt the last 2 years is $100/day. Leaving Thursday to go again for 3 days. Are these tame birds? Why do they release so many hens? All the hens sure get my adrenaline pumping and I love the dogs pointing them, but why not just buy roosters to release? Also, could they release some tamer strains? Kind of gets old watching 100 birds flush out the end of a patch before we have a chance to get positioned to hunt it.

 

[Drake1]

As I said earlier in the thread, same debate year over year. Can we agree that you need habitat to have birds. How do you get that habitat in the ground? Farmers should be paid to leave habitat in the ground. If it is state land you prefer then your tax dollars and the money you spend on licenses pay for that land. Nothing is for free!

 

[Wind River]

Everything it seems has an access fee, concerts, baseball games, state parks, national parks, movie theaters, etc. I'd rather be entertained by flying pheasants. We all have different values. Please don't impose your values on me or my dog. Ain't America great, especially the Midwest this time of year.

 

[BKelly]

As I said earlier in the thread, same debate year over year. Can we agree that you need habitat to have birds. How do you get that habitat in the ground? Farmers should be paid to leave habitat in the ground. If it is state land you prefer then your tax dollars and the money you spend on licenses pay for that land. Nothing is for free!

As I said earlier in the thread, same debate year over year. Can we agree that you need habitat to have birds. How do you get that habitat in the ground? Farmers should be paid to leave habitat in the ground. If it is state land you prefer then your tax dollars and the money you spend on licenses pay for that land. Nothing is for fr

Everything it seems has an access fee, concerts, baseball games, state parks, national parks, movie theaters, etc. I'd rather be entertained by flying pheasants. We all have different values. Please don't impose your values on me or my dog. Ain't America great, especially the Midwest this time of year.

Well said.

 

[Sdbowhunter]

Currently I rent most my land out for farming to pay the bills and a small portion is for hunting which is why I bought it. I would love to have it all habitat and for hunting so I figure crp would be perfect. Farm rent is currently 160 a acre and will only keep going up and I just got the crp quote back, they told me a 15 year contract my payment would be 98 dollars an acre. That’s a huge hit over time that’s why there’s very little crp out there and the little there is gets pay hunters.

 

[Drake1]

Currently I rent most my land out for farming to pay the bills and a small portion is for hunting which is why I bought it. I would love to have it all habitat and for hunting so I figure crp would be perfect. Farm rent is currently 160 a acre and will only keep going up and I just got the crp quote back, they told me a 15 year contract my payment would be 98 dollars an acre. That’s a huge hit over time that’s why there’s very little crp out there and the little there is gets pay hunters.

So true, I am in a similar situation. I have some CRP but need the income from cash rent to pay for taxes and other bills. I also kind of use the analogy, if you own a body shop do you charge people to fix the cars? Of course, that’s your livelihood…. Seems pretty simple.

 

[Winchester30]

We asked one of the farmers about him releasing birds and he said he released a bunch of birds early in the year…but probably he released them that same morning.

One farm we hunted I’m 100% sure he didn’t release any birds, but we still shoot a good amount of pen raised birds on his farm because so many are released in the area.

While you try and make personal insults against me, your previous comments here back up my posts.
I was making a few general statements to those that “pay to play”, that you may not be hunting wild birds.
I didn’t realize this was such a sensitive subject,
I thought hunters had thicker skin.

 

[BKelly]

I see you are singing a different tune….”maybe not hunting wild birds” is different from “if you are going to pay to play, not much sense in driving to South Dakota as most states have private game farms.”

 

[gimruis]

If you read my previous posts, my point is that the 8-9 man party hunts who are limiting out everyday on the same property are not hunting wild birds.

LOL clearly those are not wild birds and anyone who thinks or portrays it to be such is delusional.

We've all shot pen raised birds and wild birds (well, I think most of us have). If you think that "hunting" pen raised birds at a lodge or outftter is comparable, you need to have your brain checked.

 

[BKelly]

LOL clearly those are not wild birds and anyone who thinks or portrays it to be such is delusional.

We've all shot pen raised birds and wild birds (well, I think most of us have). If you think that "hunting" pen raised birds at a lodge or outftter is comparable, you need to have your brain checked.

We are talking about 2 different things. Hunting pen raised birds on a preserve is one thing…paying a farmer a trespass fee to hunt in their land is another.

 

[gimruis]

paying a farmer a trespass fee to hunt in their land is another

The concept may be different, but if they're both pen raised birds, its the same result.

I don't know if all the birds on a these trespass-farmer spots are wild or pen raised. Have to imagine there's both. It would be pretty easy to tell the difference as soon as you started hunting them.

 

[BKelly]

The concept may be different, but if they're both pen raised birds, its the same result.

I don't know if all the birds on a these trespass-farmer spots are wild or pen raised. Have to imagine there's both. It would be pretty easy to tell the difference as soon as you started hunting them.

I agree that the concept is the same…if hunting pen raised birds.

I’ve been paying a trespass fee to hunt in South Dakota every year since about 1995. It’s not very difficult to tell if the birds are pen raised and on the farm I just got back from the birds are 100% wild…which is a farm I’ve hunted from 1995-2015 and again this year.

For a few years we hunted around the Winner area and hunted different farms and paid a trespass fee…and those birds around the Winner area are about 75% pen raised and at some farms were 100% pen raised.

It depends where your hunting and on who’s farm you are hunting, but it’s not the same everywhere and paying a trespass fee does not guarantee an experience similar to hunting a game farm in home state.

 

[birddude]

I may have posted this or similar before but back when I was a young goose master, I went to S.D. smack dab in the middle of all the hoopla to see if the hype was real. 1st place we stopped, a rancher gave use permission, second place, same thing. Thought we had it made but never got any more permission. Walked away from a few who asked 100 -200 a day to hunt. Finally found some public ground with some very wild birds but no shots. As far as habitat, I was shocked to see how little there was. Sometimes we would drive 30 miles on country roads before we would see any cover whatsoever. Then when you did it would be a commercial operation. After 3 days and maybe 4 roosters, we pulled out and drove 300 miles to a small town with a good reputation. Same results. Every town had banners or signs, welcoming pheasant hunters. Motels full of hunters and dogs. Headed home with two days left on a 6-day hunt. On the way home I realized that (at least where I was) There was no way a wild population of pheasants could survive that amount of pressure with so little habitat. Maybe I was just unlucky, maybe that's not at all what the rest of the state was like. It just left a bad taste in my mouth and never went back.

 

[Boomer-IN]

Thankfully I get to hunt private land in SD roughly 8 days every fall. Love every minute of it. Nothing like wild roosters.
Having grown up in SE SD I still have connections with farmers and therefore have places I can hunt. I have lived in Indiana for over 40 years now and I appreciate the "put and take" program that the state runs. For 8 days over Thanksgiving the state puts out 2 birds for every hunter that signs up. I believe the cost is $30 for 2 birds. These birds are released on public wildlife areas that have fantastic cover. After the 8 days are over they have "clean up" and the past few years I have taken advantage of the opportunity to go hunt the birds that are missed. These is no cost to hunt "clean up" other than a regular hunting license. Grant it...it is not like hunting wild birds in SD...but my dogs don't know the difference and they get to hunt in some really heavy cover. The birds that are left are the smarter ones and most of them fly relatively fast! Thankful for this program in our state!

 

[Chestle]

This thread....and the one's just like it every previous year...has gone on too long.

Hunt the way and what you like. Don't worry about the way and what the other guy likes to hunt.

The sand in your particular hourglass of life is running through faster than you think.

Just go do it the way you like to do it and quit worrying about the other guy.

 

[haymaker]

This thread....and the one's just like it every previous year...has gone on too long.

Hunt the way and what you like. Don't worry about the way and what the other guy likes to hunt.

The sand in your particular hourglass of life is running through faster than you think.

Just go do it the way you like to do it and quit worrying about the other guy.

If it has gone on too long why are you reading and posting on it? I agree with your point that people should not tell other people how to hunt, or post.