South Dakota Roadside Counts are out!

I would reconsider your trip. It looks pretty bleak. I think some guys on here just want to escape their possessive wife. That is a ton of cash to spend with luke warm results at best. The cold hard facts are the state numbers are done by 20%. That is going to make hunting birds a challenge. I saw similar numbers years ago and we had very long days. Not telling you what to do. Some guys on here just ignore the facts and are dreaming about all the pheasants that do not exist in South Dakota this year.
 
meridiannursery said:
I would reconsider your trip. It looks pretty bleak. I think some guys on here just want to escape their possessive wife. That is a ton of cash to spend with luke warm results at best. The cold hard facts are the state numbers are done by 20%. That is going to make hunting birds a challenge. I saw similar numbers years ago and we had very long days. Not telling you what to do. Some guys on here just ignore the facts and are dreaming about all the pheasants that do not exist in South Dakota this year.
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Was just mess n meridiannursery I'm not nervous about the trip I'm as excited as ever now with the down numbers hope it keeps many at home or on pay to play land... We will be out there in SD pheasant land regardless of 20% down...

Seen a 120+ bird flush last year on public had time to stop van get gun get over to the birds still flushing shot my last bird for limit got a limit in 40 some minutes got into multiple 50+ bird flashes on public if I only had more guys with we would of had a blast ... I'm sure in early 2000s I would of seen a 500 bird flush or something crazy like that but when over 100 birds are popcorn flushing all around u on public I don't think man I wish there was more in that flock...

The area we are hunting isn't even represented in the survey there's a very huge area of SD pheasant core range not in survey so fingers crossed the birds are up in that area lol
 
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UGUIDE said:
Yes, listen to SMO everyone and cancel all your pheasant trips..........so he can have the whole place to himself.

Come to think of it I am beginning to think the GFP has found this a great way to keep people out of the state.

Remember back to the year counts were down 65%. You can look up posts here validating the fact that the hunting was not all that bad.
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Listen to uguide & meridiannursey I like to have the place to myself come November...

Uguide if anybody cancel's there hunt due to low numbers in the roadside counts & u need a guy to hunt the land free of charge do let me know I'm game I'll just take a pic later with birds in front of a public land sign nobody will know...
 
Sm munsterlander is right about guys being "locked in" this year. Very few guys are going to walk away from losing deposits or paid in full trips. However,
If the birds are down in certain areas as much as the survey says, will those same guys rebook immediately after a poor hunt / trip. We won't know that answer until after the season.
 
If you read the whole report you could see the probable cause for the low count. They didn't have as good weather this year during the survey timeframe.

This survey relies on very specific weather conditions to maximize pheasant observability. Pheasants are most visible during mornings with clear skies, heavy dew, and light winds. Under these ?prime? survey conditions, pheasants congregate in open areas such as roadways to dry their feathers in the warm morning sun. It is the goal to conduct all surveys under prime conditions so results are comparable from year to year. This year, 88 of the 110 survey routes were conducted at least 1 time during prime conditions. Many routes were surveyed more than once in an attempt to get at least one survey completed under primary conditions. Final results show 66 of the highest counts for the 110 routes coincided with prime conditions. Cold morning temperatures may also lower pheasant observability during otherwise prime conditions. Morning temperatures were less than or equal to 55? F for 21 high-count surveys. Last year, 96 survey routes were conducted at least one time under primary conditions.
 
The reason for the low numbers (if you believe in them) is habitat. If you hunt private or public and there is good habitat you will see birds. I know this report has been debated on this site many of times... I tend to believe the people/farmers out in the field vs. someone driving by 2x in a 20-day period to count pheasants. Its been going on 5-years since I bought my 160 and I can tell you the bird numbers have exploded, why? Habitat (trees/wintercover, food plots and nesting cover). My friend was out doing some maintenance on some of our new trees and he said the # of chicks were crazy good. Appear to be all different sizes. Again, I know who I believe... Call the farmer, he will tell you. One quick comment on the road survey... We all have had honey holes in years past that dry up and you think what happened.. Turns out the pasture across the road was plowed up, the slough was farmed and now its corn and beans... How can these same routes they have been driving for years not experience that same sort of change in farming. If you look at the reported decrease its fairly uniform. Do you think the whole state of SD had similar weather (winter/hail storms, to much rain etc.,)? no way, to me its simple... loss of grass/cover
 
Drake1 said:
The reason for the low numbers (if you believe in them) is habitat. If you hunt private or public and there is good habitat you will see birds. I know this report has been debated on this site many of times... I tend to believe the people/farmers out in the field vs. someone driving by 2x in a 20-day period to count pheasants. Its been going on 5-years since I bought my 160 and I can tell you the bird numbers have exploded, why? Habitat (trees/wintercover, food plots and nesting cover). My friend was out doing some maintenance on some of our new trees and he said the # of chicks were crazy good. Appear to be all different sizes. Again, I know who I believe... Call the farmer, he will tell you. One quick comment on the road survey... We all have had honey holes in years past that dry up and you think what happened.. Turns out the pasture across the road was plowed up, the slough was farmed and now its corn and beans... How can these same routes they have been driving for years not experience that same sort of change in farming. If you look at the reported decrease its fairly uniform. Do you think the whole state of SD had similar weather (winter/hail storms, to much rain etc.,)? no way, to me its simple... loss of grass/cover
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Exactly....
 
Two years ago the farmer where we hunt told me it was ok if I didn't want to come. He said the birds were down and the guys there opening weekend had to hunt all day to get their birds. We went and hunted all day and shot birds everyday. Several years ago my land I hunt in Kansas became devoid of pheasants. I would walk all day and not shoot my gun. Three days one time without a shot. With good dogs, the worst day I have ever had in SD was a shot at a couple birds. Everything is relative.
 
Just remember one thing ---- if you saw 100 birds last year in a field then this year you only see EIGHTY----OH NO MISTER BILL. :eek: Habitat-- Habitat--- Habitat :D
 
SDJIM said:
Just remember one thing ---- if you saw 100 birds last year in a field then this year you only see EIGHTY----OH NO MISTER BILL. :eek: Habitat-- Habitat--- Habitat :D
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No kidding. I can only miss 8 or 10 times a day this year VS the usual fifteen or so. Mister Bill that cracke dme up
 
The report hasn't changed my mind one bit! Then again like someone mentioned earlier, "it's all relevant". Although I would expect any well educated hunter to disagree with my logic and not remove their weapon from its rightful place in the safe. Don't waste the fuel, don't load the hound, just call off any plans to go hunting.
PLEASE DO NOT GO, at least until November. That way you won't bother me during my inaugural trip to SD. :) :) Just kidding, I love company. If anyone sees to middle aged folks chasing a couple of high strung pointers', with either OH or Sc tags on their trucks. Stop in and join the fun. Most likely we'll need advice on finding birds anyway:eek:
 
small munsterlander owner said:
Listen to uguide & meridiannursey I like to have the place to myself come November...

Uguide if anybody cancel's there hunt due to low numbers in the roadside counts & u need a guy to hunt the land free of charge do let me know I'm game I'll just take a pic later with birds in front of a public land sign nobody will know...
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SMO, Gov. Daytons new buffers are going to produce way more birds than SD. Save a fortune and hunt pheasants in Minnesota.
 
UGUIDE said:
SMO, Gov. Daytons new buffers are going to produce way more birds than SD. Save a fortune and hunt pheasants in Minnesota.
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Remember I camp out & eat cold bologna sandwich's i don't spend much out in SD plus I'm waiting on the MN roadside counts to be released... Lol
 
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I think we should all take a step back and remind people these road side counts are accurate. This is STATE verified information. In an effort to maintain the pheasant population we should just build "The Wall"
 
I totally agree. Only thing I can think that would have affected this season is CRP loss.
Drake1 said:
The reason for the low numbers (if you believe in them) is habitat. If you hunt private or public and there is good habitat you will see birds. I know this report has been debated on this site many of times... I tend to believe the people/farmers out in the field vs. someone driving by 2x in a 20-day period to count pheasants. Its been going on 5-years since I bought my 160 and I can tell you the bird numbers have exploded, why? Habitat (trees/wintercover, food plots and nesting cover). My friend was out doing some maintenance on some of our new trees and he said the # of chicks were crazy good. Appear to be all different sizes. Again, I know who I believe... Call the farmer, he will tell you. One quick comment on the road survey... We all have had honey holes in years past that dry up and you think what happened.. Turns out the pasture across the road was plowed up, the slough was farmed and now its corn and beans... How can these same routes they have been driving for years not experience that same sort of change in farming. If you look at the reported decrease its fairly uniform. Do you think the whole state of SD had similar weather (winter/hail storms, to much rain etc.,)? no way, to me its simple... loss of grass/cover
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when I was out there about 2 weeks or 3 weeks ago I went for a drive at about 7:30 am-8:15 am...don't know if there was a lot of dew or not, but I drove about 15 miles total, about 40% of which was near good or decent habitat, including some pasture, CRP, cattails, and other short grass fields. While in the vicinity of bird habitat, I saw about 6-7 broods, and I was pretty impressed with the size of those broods...most seemed to be in the 6-10 chick range, though there could have been multiple broods commingled. Either way, I suspect I saw around 50-60 birds in that drive, which equates to around 3-4 birds per mile, though this was very unscientific and I was not striving to be accurate...I am quantifying this after the fact. I thought things looked good...the cover is VERY green and lush and healthy, the crops are looking good, and I thought the pheasants looked to be pretty abundant, as was the word from the farmers. The only thing I can say about weather issues is that we had lots of rains in May, though none of them were deluges, and the temps seemed to be OK, not terribly cool...we'll find out in due time, I guess!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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