South Dakota Pheasants

[LuciandTim]

I have been told that many birds that are being shot in South Dakota are released birds. Farms and ranches that people pay typically $100 per gun are releasing these birds year round to keep the numbers up. I used to hunt a farm with a friend about ten years ago. We went every year and the cost was $100 a gun (luckily his dad paid ). The hunting was fantastic. I remember the last year we hunted two days with 10 guys and shot 72 birds. I also found out that same year that the owner was stocking his fields. What about the rest of the state? Another story that relates is A 2nd cousin who lives in North Dakota. He has a close friends who raises a lot of Pheasants. What I was told is that all his business comes from South Dakota. Is South Dakota the game farm state?

[LABS4ME]

Hey Tim... While some of the pay to hunt operations are releasing birds, it isn't the $100/gun ones. More like the $450/gun ones. I've talked to a gentlemen who owns one of these and his response was... "the guys coming out here spending that kind of money expect to get their birds, they want that 'South Dakota' experience, but aren't about to bust their butts for 6 hours to get 4 limits. They want multiple flushes and multiple opportunities like the opener through out the season".

With that said, I'm sure the amount of operations releasing birds is a fraction of the operations out there. We hunt an "operation", but we go in December when he is done with his clients (I've made good friends with him and he doesn't charge us, I knew Red Lake would pay off somehow ). He charges others $150/ gun... but you have to be ready to hunt hard by the end of October. He does not release any birds, but has 2200 acres that are groomed for keeping the population at it's peak. I was out there this weekend and we had to hunt all day for the opportunity to get our 12 birds. While it is nothing to see 1000 birds in a day, it is a different story to get close enough to the birds after a full season of hunting. You cannot even talk to your dogs. We also do some hunting on walk-in areas and there is no way they are releasing birds on those, but yet you have the ability to get into large numbers of birds on these also. With a little homework and a lot of patience and door pounding (especially this time of year) you can get into some fantastic wild bird pheasant hunting! It is not impossible to get onto private land in South Dakota if you invest time and stay away from the "famous" places, ie: Chamberlin, Winner, Aberdeen etc... go to "secondary" areas the DNR says should have good hunting and see how it goes. If that doesn't pan out, try another area until you find groups of birds.

Good Luck!

Ken

[BDR]

I will also add that some of the operations that are releasing birds get a game farm status and may hunt out of season.

[Mille Lacs Guy]

I don't think there are many guys releasing birds in South Dakota. Sure there are a few that do it but the released bird numbers relative to wilds birds are very very low. We have been hunting West of Aberdeen for years and this year and last year were great. We stay with a local farmer and hunt all public land. The farmer knows most of the people in the entire county and he says that very few of the birds are released.

Like I said above, we hunted all public land and we easily saw 300-400 birds per day. Most of them would flush wild way ahead but I don't think these were released birds, especially since we were hunting public lands.