So quiet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

B

benelli-banger

Well-known member
In relation to last summer's drought conditions, it is so darned quiet! I guess we had a lot to debate, like whether or not extreme drought actually impacted pheasants! I have been to SD, ND, and MT 5 times this summer (mostly SD), and let me tell you I think things look really good! And I have heard that from all the contacts that I have, including the county road maintenance manager for a SD county that is 100 miles away from my home range in SD. Green, lush, decent amount of insects...make no mistake, #'s don't just recover overnite after such a tough event, but it is a start.

Seems that we haven't had the pleasure of a certain user here for almost a year...hope his properties are doing well, which I think they are, since I have looked at his website a few times and it looks good...hope that is the case, it is a good bellwether for a good hunk of SD pheasant range...
 
All of my contacts have said seeing more birds than the last couple years hands down so that is good. Crops good but north central part of the state is getting hit with heat and dry now but that is only gonna affect crops and shouldn’t change the birds. I talked to guys across about a 100 mile wide stretch and reports same everywhere. We had a great hunt last year so if this year is even better not sure we will know what to do. Can’t wait to see my buddy kill the first wild bird off his pup. Should be a blast.
 
North central is what I'm worried about. Been seeing temps near 100 and no rain for a while. In 2016 all of our normal sloughs were dried up mud. With the continued drought we relocated our annual November hunt in 2017 but have rebooked for this year.
 
North central is dry but we have had dew and fog so the chicks should be able to get a drink. If they can catch a grasshopper they will be well fed. We will be up from last year but the cover may be short if we don't get rain. Corn harvest should be early with this weather. The Hoven area looks tough but with todays 102 plus strong south wind it will change a lot of things.
 
Sooooo, after looking at all the weather reports over the winter and spring it looks better than last year.(On paper or computer anyway) Did seem to be some real hail issues in central/west South Dakota and Montana, Than drought in Kansas, but overall better than last year, which doesn't necessarily say much after the tough go of it last year. I guess the benefit of last year was that although we didn't see as many birds as in years past we didn't see as many hunters. A silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud. It can't come back in one or two years, but hopefully the young dogs can get a few more birds under them.
 
This is a bit like a steep stock market decline...once it bottoms, it isn't unusual for it to rebound a lot, fairly quickly...still may not mean much if you lost 80% of your $, and then it rebounds by 50%...you're still down quite a bit! I will go out on a limb and predict that statewide the #'s are up by 40-60% this year, with some areas up even more than that. Hope I am way low!!!!!
 
benelli-banger said:
This is a bit like a steep stock market decline...once it bottoms, it isn't unusual for it to rebound a lot, fairly quickly...still may not mean much if you lost 80% of your $, and then it rebounds by 50%...you're still down quite a bit! I will go out on a limb and predict that statewide the #'s are up by 40-60% this year, with some areas up even more than that. Hope I am way low!!!!!
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like many years, there will be real good areas where the birds reproduced and got what they needed........dry areas and the unusual hail tracks will be areas short.
 
So 2 years ago in my area it was real good and last year there was 3 hailstorms and we're wiped out by hailstorms. This year looks promising, crops are fantastic and the hatch appears to be really good. I expect to see pretty good gains and if that's the case it just proves that under the right conditions birds can recover pretty quickly. Fingers crossed
 
haymaker said:
North central is dry but we have had dew and fog so the chicks should be able to get a drink. If they can catch a grasshopper they will be well fed. We will be up from last year but the cover may be short if we don't get rain. Corn harvest should be early with this weather. The Hoven area looks tough but with todays 102 plus strong south wind it will change a lot of things.
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Haymaker, what is wrong with the Hoven area... a super dry pocket?
 
I find it quite amusing how frequent the negative updates were last year, but until now there has been very little activity on here. Just shows how fast "bad news" spreads vs "good news". Living 750 miles away I try to check this website rather frequently to see what locals have to say about numbers and habitat. I guess not hearing much all summer long is a good sign lol.
 
Flushedup said:
Haymaker, what is wrong with the Hoven area... a super dry pocket?
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It appears to be a dry pocket but that pocket is getting bigger. It must have started being dry there sooner. There may still be pheasants there. This is not the same as last year.
 
haymaker said:
It appears to be a dry pocket but that pocket is getting bigger. It must have started being dry there sooner. There may still be pheasants there. This is not the same as last year.
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That is what I figured you meant. I honestly am having a hard time believing that the birds in that area and towards you will be able to reproduce enough to sustain a huntable population for the 10 week season... We are torn between going out to our old haunts area and to a completely new area in SD.

By the way, thanks for being a little source of info for the area that we hunt, it is hard to get some sort of real report out there.
 
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