Road hunting

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landman

landman

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I hope this passes too. South Dakota has a wonderful resource of a strong pheasant population that brings money to the state and improved quality of life in the form of hunting opportunities for its residents. For the Game Fish and Parks Commission to fail to recognize the full value of this resource is a huge disservice. The Biologists have told them repeatedly that studies have shown that the harvesting of more rooster pheasants will not significantly impact the population in subsequent years and yet, the Commission fails to follow through.

The argument against extending the season is that landowners don't want to be bothered by hunters in January. My assessment is that farmers don't mind having visitors but they do mind seeing defenseless pheasants bothered repeatedly in shelterbelts or thick cover during the winter by roadhunters, of which they have no control. In response to landowner complaints the GF&P's Commission solves the problem by closing the season when they could solve the problem by ending late season roadhunting instead.

I hope that the Commission will some day see the light and allow the residents of SD to enjoy the full value of its pheasant resource.

LM
 
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Quote Landman

"Commission solves the problem by closing the season when they could solve the problem by ending late season roadhunting instead."

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IMO, this is more about Landman not liking road hunters:D

You really, really dislike anybody that may shoot a rooster in the ditch by your property, don't you?

Just a observance
 
onpoint said:
Quote Landman

"Commission solves the problem by closing the season when they could solve the problem by ending late season roadhunting instead."

____________________________________

IMO, this is more about Landman not liking road hunters:D

You really, really dislike anybody that may shoot a rooster in the ditch by your property, don't you?

Just a observance
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Just a little clarification. I dislike roadhunters that choose to shoot a rooster on the ditch that I own. If you check any deed at the court house you will find that the ditch belongs to the landowner who pays personal property taxes on it. The state owns an easement for the right-a-way but the it does not own the ditch. So I, like a lot of other landowners, dislike road hunting. Many landowners dislike roadhunters even more during the late season because roadhunters disturb pheasants in shelterbelts along roadsides and farmsteads forcing them out of their winter protection. For this reason landowners are against late season hunting and would like to see the season end before Dec 1, which is written policy of the Farm Bureau, an association that many farmers belong to. The Farm Bureau is also against road hunting. It is no surprise then that landowners expressed their opposition to a season extending to the end of January because, to them, its already open a month longer than it should be. None of this would be an issue if it weren't for roadhunting.

I believe that road hunting will end if landowners can unite and challenge the unarmed retrieval portion of the road hunting law. I don't think any court would rule that it is legal to trespass without landowner permission just because one shot a bird over it. If a person cannot legally retrieve a bird outside the right-of-way then road hunting would end.

Fortunately, we are seeing less road hunting each year. I haven't seen even one road hunter this year so we are making progress. Also we are seeing less road hunting for deer and a remarkable reduction in just ten years. There are still a few road hunting for deer but it is getting very risky to do so because more and more landowners are willing to call the warden when they see it happen.

Seven years ago we put up a tower deer blind, the second one in our area. Today there are 11 deer blind towers within a mile radius of our blind. Ten years ago it was a South Dakota tradition to shoot a deer from the road but today its becoming a rarety to see someone do it.

LM
 
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Do landowners dislike hunters that are in a WIA or GPA or similar - that are kicking birds out of their winter cover?
 
landman said:
Just a little clarification. I dislike roadhunters that choose to shoot a rooster on the ditch that I own. If you check any deed at the court house you will find that the ditch belongs to the landowner who pays personal property taxes on it. The state owns an easement for the right-a-way but the it does not own the ditch. So I, like a lot of other landowners, dislike road hunting. Many landowners dislike roadhunters even more during the late season because roadhunters disturb pheasants in shelterbelts along roadsides and farmsteads forcing them out of their winter protection. For this reason landowners are against late season hunting and would like to see the season end before Dec 1, which is written policy of the Farm Bureau, an association that many farmers belong to. The Farm Bureau is also against road hunting. It is no surprise then that landowners expressed their opposition to a season extending to the end of January because, to them, its already open a month longer than it should be. None of this would be an issue if it weren't for roadhunting.

I believe that road hunting will end if landowners can unite and challenge the unarmed retrieval portion of the road hunting law. I don't think any court would rule that it is legal to trespass without landowner permission just because one shot a bird over it. If a person cannot legally retrieve a bird outside the right-of-way then road hunting would end.

Fortunately, we are seeing less road hunting each year. I haven't seen even one road hunter this year so we are making progress. Also we are seeing less road hunting for deer and a remarkable reduction in just ten years. There are still a few road hunting for deer but it is getting very risky to do so because more and more landowners are willing to call the warden when they see it happen.

Seven years ago we put up a tower deer blind, the second one in our area. Today there are 11 deer blind towers within a mile radius of our blind. Ten years ago it was a South Dakota tradition to shoot a deer from the road but today its becoming a rarety to see someone do it.

LM
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Fair enough, I can understand where you stand

onpoint
 
Do the landowners hate guys that park the vehicle and walk road ditches or section lines mile after mile? Is that considered "road hunting"? I guess I've met some that apparently do hate that.
 
landman said:
Just a little clarification. I dislike roadhunters that choose to shoot a rooster on the ditch that I own. If you check any deed at the court house you will find that the ditch belongs to the landowner who pays personal property taxes on it. The state owns an easement for the right-a-way but the it does not own the ditch. So I, like a lot of other landowners, dislike road hunting. Many landowners dislike roadhunters even more during the late season because roadhunters disturb pheasants in shelterbelts along roadsides and farmsteads forcing them out of their winter protection. For this reason landowners are against late season hunting and would like to see the season end before Dec 1, which is written policy of the Farm Bureau, an association that many farmers belong to. The Farm Bureau is also against road hunting. It is no surprise then that landowners expressed their opposition to a season extending to the end of January because, to them, its already open a month longer than it should be. None of this would be an issue if it weren't for roadhunting.

I believe that road hunting will end if landowners can unite and challenge the unarmed retrieval portion of the road hunting law. I don't think any court would rule that it is legal to trespass without landowner permission just because one shot a bird over it. If a person cannot legally retrieve a bird outside the right-of-way then road hunting would end.

Fortunately, we are seeing less road hunting each year. I haven't seen even one road hunter this year so we are making progress. Also we are seeing less road hunting for deer and a remarkable reduction in just ten years. There are still a few road hunting for deer but it is getting very risky to do so because more and more landowners are willing to call the warden when they see it happen.

Seven years ago we put up a tower deer blind, the second one in our area. Today there are 11 deer blind towers within a mile radius of our blind. Ten years ago it was a South Dakota tradition to shoot a deer from the road but today its becoming a rarety to see someone do it.

LM
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Dec 1! Your nuts.
 
Uncle Buck said:
Dec 1! Your nuts.
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I don't think so. Read it yourself. Here it is.

http://sdfbf.org/policy_state.php#gamefish

You will find it towards the bottom of Game Fish and Parks policy where it reads:

We oppose road hunting.

We oppose extending the pheasant hunting season beyond December 1.
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The policy list you are reading are those the Bureau lobbies for in State Government.

LM
 
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landman said:
I don't think so. Read it yourself. Here it is.

http://sdfbf.org/policy_state.php#gamefish

You will find it towards the bottom of Game Fish and Parks policy where it reads:

We oppose road hunting.

We oppose extending the pheasant hunting season beyond December 1.
____

The policy list you are reading are those the Bureau lobbies for in State Government.

LM
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I am just saying there is no reason to arbitrarily set a Dec. 1 date. It is already set past 12/1 so how can you extend it?
 
BRITTMAN said:
Landman: I respect your views on roadhunting, but this should have its own topic thread.
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Perhaps but I feel that there is a relationship here. The GF&P's is the entity that wishes to maximize the hunting resource so they make recommendations to the GF&P's Commission, who is responsible for setting the rules. It was the GF&P's recommendation to extend the season to Jan 31 and now they are making a recommendation to the Commission to increase the limit to 5 birds per day. The Commission will take comments at their meeting next week and then ask for a motion and vote for approval. If they don't hear much opposition then they could likely approve the measure.

In the case of the season extension the Commission heard opposition from landowners who were concerned about road hunters disturbing pheasants using winter habitat next to roads and farmsteads. In many cases a steady stream of road hunters could keep pheasants out of shelterbelts all day long.

The Commission does not have the authority to end road hunting as that decision falls with the state legislative body. So in response to the concern of road hunters disturbing pheasants during the late season they simply elected to close the season, which in effect stops road hunting for the period in question.

Many landowners would like the pheasant season to end around Thanksgiving time, which marks the beginning of the winter season. The Farm Bureau supports this in its written policies. However the GF&P's Commission trys to balance the demands of the hunting public with the demands of the non-hunting public so they have compromised by ending the season the first weekend of January. This falls short of maximizing the use of the pheasant resource and does not completely met the opposite demands to close the season by Dec 1.

I believe that if the SD Legislature would eliminate road hunting, which they may if the opposition to roadhunting increases or there is a successful legal challenge to the unarmed retrieval, then the opposition against a longer season would be greatly reduced and the Commission could extend the season to Jan 31.

LM
 
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landman said:
Many landowners would like the pheasant season to end around Thanksgiving time, which marks the beginning of the winter season. The Farm Bureau supports this in its written policies. However the GF&P's Commission trys to balance the demands of the hunting public with the demands of the non-hunting public so they have compromised by ending the season the first weekend of January. This falls short of maximizing the use of the pheasant resource and does not completely met the opposite demands to close the season by Dec 1.

LM
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I don't know about your part of the woods but the farmers around me who want a earlier pheasant season closure are the ones who don't let anyone hunt anyway. I think it is foolish that GFP tries to appease them. Even if we got rid of road hunting they would still not be happy. I would not mind one bit if they got rid of road hunting. The only draw back to eliminating road hunting is then they would probably require you to unload and case your gun in the vehicle.
 
pheasantaddict said:
I didn't know unloading your gun and casing it was a drawback, I assumed it was logical.
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If that is what makes you feel comfortable that is fine. For me loading and unloading, casing and un-casing my gun 10 times a day is a pain. Plus I do not undersand the reasoning. Jack out the shell in the chamber stick one in sideways if you want and away you go.
 
One would think, it does not take long to uncase and load a shotgun. Although different strokes for different folks.
 
Well I see I have helped to thoroughly hijack this thread. We have gone from the 5 bird limit to road hunting to unloading the gun and casing it.

I am assuming the reason people think you should unload is for an added level of safety and that is fine. Granted an unloaded gun is safer than a loaded one. But hear is something to think about. I looked at the hunter incident report for SD for the years of 2003 and 2008 (the two I found). Out of all the upland hunting accidents only one was caused by a loaded gun in the vehicle (the guys dog supposedly stepped on the gun causing the safety to disengage and the gun to fire). All of the other accidents were caused by blockers or flankers getting shot or shooting the walkers. If a guy really wanted to decrease his chance of getting hurt he would not hunt with blockers. There I have helped to move the thread father away from the original post.
 
Or you would be sure of your target and the others around you. Recon by fire only works well when your going after Haji.
 
LWJ2009 said:
Recon by fire only works well when your going after Haji.
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You have no idea the number of deer hunters and coyote hunters that I have seen use that technique when trying to scare critters from sloughs.
 
I can imagine quite a few people do, although it is rather expensive when uncle suger does not foot the ammo bill. Besides a M249 works a bit better though for that kind of thing.
 
The fact that some may have a fair amount of money into their doubles or finer auto's that are wood stocked. They just may want to case them to protect them from getting all banged up. I have several guns I do just that with. Gouges in wood and scratched bluing last FOREVER and there something I don't want to be staring me in the face for years to come.

onpoint
 
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