Headed to South Dakota this weekend for a few days of pheasant hunting. Has anyone been this year? How was it? According to the reports, their state numbers are up, but it looks like they are down a tad from last year in the area we are going. Of course, half the birds we saw last year would still be a great year.

I am heading up there too this weekend. We will be hunting in Aberdeen, SD. This is my 3rd year in a row to make the trip and its been well worth it the previous 2 years.

Apparently corn is still not harvested. Will be tough hunting in most of SD this early in the season. Other than that, another outstanding hatch as usual. Public gets pounded like no other state, would be wise to bring the checkbook for private.

I hunted private land near Mitchell on 10/24 and 10/25. Got rained on Friday, but we managed 32 birds with 16 guns. On Saturday I think we had around 25. 50 mph wind on Sunday, so we didn't even try. It was a little tough, but everyone got plenty of shots. We would have done better with more dogs. Should be better weather this week.

We do it ourselves by road hunting. This is my 2nd year in a row to go and my dad and friend's 4th or 5th. Will report back when I get back.

We hunted North Dakota 3 days last week. We got limits every day, but we covered the miles to get it done. I met a guy at the airport who'd hunted South Dakota the week before and he said there we big numbers of birds.

Don't know about South Dakota, but North Dakota is losing 400,000 acres out of the CRP program. It's sure to have an impact on the populations, but this year was pretty good.

Good luck to you.

Yea, lack of re-enrollment of CRP is scary thing for us upland hunters. Cant blame the farmer when they get more for corn than crp acreage. Funny thing is that Govt backs both programs, so there is a problem.

is it ever bad up there

Just got back from S.D. {Huron} A snow storm was comming in tomorrow, most of the farmers still had corn standing but were busting their butts to pick most of it. We got 21 birds in four days, 3 hunters, one dog. I posted story and pics in photo section. Hunted the Family farm and a few other sections friends own.