Watertown, SD Report

[Dakotazeb]

Talked to a guy I know that has a hunting operation on his farm about 80 miles SW of Aberdeen. Just recently he had a group of non-resident hunters come out and hunt his place. He said they had been coming to SD to hunt for years and had always hunted the Watertown area and done quite well. However, this year they were really struggling. 10 of them had hunted 2 days and only taken 2 roosters. They said that while birds were down 46% statewide they felt the Watertown area was down about 99%. From what I've seen around here this year I would have to concur.

 

[Geno]

2 of us and my Golden Retreiver hunted around Arlington which is south of Watertown about 40-50 miles I think and got 20 roosters in 5 days the week after Thanksgiving. We were on private land, did not see another hunter that was pheasant hunting during the week. 3 of the birds were young, the other 17 all had magnificent tail feathers. The 1 and only day we got our limit and were done at 1:05 we drove up to Kones Korner Gun shop which is close to Watertown. I guess we were extremely fortunate-the hotel owner said many other groups that stayed had basically poor results, and there were many cancellations. The bird numbers compared to the last 10-12 years we have been going were definetely down and by more than 50% for sure, 1 day we only got 1 bird-and we saw very few hens which is very concerning for next year.