| So if you're like me, you grew up on saving | | | | nesting and hatching brood. |
| for shells, license fees and gas to get you | | | | |
| to your favorite pheasant hunting "spot". | | | | - Habitat Cashflow - South Dakota dominates |
| That "spot" may have been a road ditch, | | | | the commercial fee hunting business and than |
| public ground, railroad track, bridge | | | | means farmers can afford to "leave a little" |
| overpass or any other place that you might | | | | for the pheasants. Heck, they can afford to |
| think a pheasant would hide. If you were | | | | leave a lot! Habitat is everything. |
| lucky you might have met and developed a | | | | |
| relationship with a farmer and he was nice | | | | - CRP acres - Any state that has high CRP |
| enough to let you hunt on his private land. | | | | acres is where you will find the birds plain |
| | | | and simple. South Dakota has them. North |
| Once you've done that for 20 years and you go | | | | Dakota has them too and that is no surprise |
| through a few years when the pheasant | | | | why North Dakota is a sister state to South |
| shooting ain't real good it doesn't take the | | | | Dakota when it comes to being the king of |
| mind long to start to wonder if there are any | | | | pheasant destinations. |
| better places to hunt pheasants than your | | | | |
| usual local haunts. | | | | - Land prices, rents and dirty farming - |
| | | | Thank God that some land in South Dakota just |
| UGUIDE receives many calls and guests from | | | | ain't real good for farming. When farm ground |
| the Midwest. States like Wisconsin, Illinois, | | | | is not as productive and rents are lower then |
| Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Indiana are | | | | of course land prices are lower and the |
| probably the most common origination points | | | | farmers aren't as bent on farming up to the |
| for a South Dakota pheasant hunting vacation. | | | | fence lines or trying to plow under wetlands |
| I suspect that the sad but true driver to the | | | | and slough or weedy areas to get them to pay. |
| reason behind that growth is that what one | | | | |
| day used to be great pheasant hunting has | | | | South Dakotan's have long enjoyed to tourism |
| dwindled to a below average pheasant hunting | | | | business associated with their remote |
| experience in those states. The price of | | | | destination. For the most part they really |
| farmland has gone up dramatically in those | | | | enjoy pheasant hunters and pheasant hunting |
| states in recent years and one can only | | | | but the majority of resident farmers are not |
| speculate that farmers who were once able to | | | | avid pheasant hunters. Now deer hunting, that |
| "leave a little for the pheasants", now can | | | | is a whole different story. |
| no longer afford to do that. Seems that there | | | | |
| is a relationship between skyrocketing land | | | | I think it makes a big difference that |
| prices and farmland cash rents - the result: | | | | pheasant hunting and the business of hunting |
| plummeting pheasant populations. | | | | pheasants has been in the culture of the |
| | | | state for so many years. |
| I'm not sure what the magic is behind South | | | | |
| Dakota's seasonally high pheasant populations | | | | Bottom line is that if you love to pheasant |
| but a few factors separate this state from | | | | hunt, and that look in your dogs eye is |
| the rest: | | | | making you feel guilty about not getting him |
| | | | on more real wild birds, then you should look |
| - Soil types - South Dakota's soil has high | | | | into making your next wild pheasant hunting |
| lime content which is supposedly good for | | | | vacation destination... South Dakota. |