Windy Hill Outfitters Pheasant forecast
August 29, 2009

 

Windy Hill South Dakota goose report
August 28, 2009

 ABERDEEN — More reports of coyotes are coming from northeast South Dakota this year, which is also among the worst years for crop damage by Canada geese in lake-studded Day County and other East River counties.

 

That’s according to the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks — and farmers.

 

“Geese are eating our soybeans and wipe out the whole area where they feed,” Ethan Gaikowski, 16, of rural Waubay, said Wednesday. He is the son of farmer Bernard Gaikowski.

 

Geese plunder their farm every year, and this year it’s bad, Ethan said.

 

Kelly Cape of the federal Farm Service Agency for Day County said higher water levels this year probably explain why more geese are in the area. He, too, is hearing reports of more crop damage by geese. The federal farm program does not reimburse farmers for these losses, Cape said.

 

The state tries to keep geese numbers down but can’t always do what it would like, said Art Smith, head of wildlife damage management at Game, Fish and Parks. Budget restraints are one factor.

 

Also, the department often requests additional days of goose hunting and higher limits for the number of geese that hunters can take. That’s a federal process, Smith said, and these requests are not always met — including one for this year.

 

Actual killing of the geese or any other wildlife species that eats crops or livestock is a last resort for the state, and not something it likes to do, Smith said. In Day County, his staff has destroyed nests, removed adult geese and installed fences around fields where damage was most severe in Day County, he said.

 

His office must be sensitive to the needs of hunters and landowners, he said. “It’s tough to find a middle ground sometimes.”

 

The East River goose population is about twice the 60,000 that Game, Fish and Parks would like to maintain. The early goose hunting season starts Sept. 5.

 

For the state as a whole, the favorable news for livestock farmers is that more fox are around. That’s a reliable indicator that coyote numbers are down, Smith said. The two species do not like to share the same habitat.

 

Coyotes prey on farm animals, particularly lambs and newborn calves, he said, while fox are less likely to go after domesticated animals, he said.

 

“Many more fox are being seen in the state,” Smith said.

 

Even so, “Coyote numbers are coming back up in the northeast part of the state, and we do still have livestock producers affected by coyotes, East River and West River.”

 

It’s difficult to take a census of coyotes or fox, he said.

 

In the Aberdeen area, Campbell County historically has had more coyote problems than other counties. This year, however, Campbell County Extension educator David Vander Vleet said he is hearing about the same number of complaints as usual.

 

Pheasants, blackbirds and deer also can cause problems for South Dakota farmers, Smith said. Pheasants eat corn seeds before they emerge from the ground. Blackbirds eat sunflower seeds before they are harvested, and deer eat crops.

 

Controlling wildlife numbers is a touchy political issue nationwide. Some environmental groups call for an end to the use of taxpayer dollars to kill wild animals. Livestock associations counter by pointing to the millions of dollars their members lose annually as a result of predation.

 

Gunning coyotes from airplanes is a federal effort, Smith said.

 

The state works from the ground through trapping, shooting and snaring. His department has 23 such grounds people, who respond to complaints from livestock and crop producers, as do conservation officers.

 

The state’s wildlife management measures related to livestock deaths are financed by a combination of federal and state dollars.

 

Crop depredation relief measures in the state are funded by a surcharge on most big-game hunting licenses, Smith said.

 

 

 

 

All's Good in South Dakota Pheasant Country
August 09, 2009

 By Ron Schara  

On a recent Monday, all the world suddenly felt right.

The lawn work was done. The bank didn't call about another overdraft. The truck was packed with a Lab and a shotgun — and I was heading west.

Indeed, little is better than a Monday when you're South Dakota bound to go pheasant hunting.

It's the stuff that makes October a memorable month. There's a ringneck-rich pheasant forecast in the wind. The cornstalks are dried and rattling. And the prairie grasses wave with a hint of autumn gold.

After five hours of riding, Raven, the Lab, whines in her car kennel. It's no potty call. She knows. She's in pheasant country.

It was October 1966 when I first experienced pheasant hunting, South Dakota style. My Lab's name was Pej. He was a big and tall male dog who'd run to North Dakota if there was a bird to retrieve. As I recall, I think Pej did, in fact, spend most of his hunting time at the opposite end of any field I walked.

At the noontime start of hunting (a South Dakota tradition), I joined a party of fellas from Missouri who themselves had a long tradition of South Dakota pheasant hunting.

By 3 p.m. someone counted the dead birds and announced we were done; we had limited out. Ten hunters, 30 birds. The Missouri boys were disappointed. The year before it only took 90 minutes to get their limits.

Me? I'd never seen so many pheasants in the air. The 1966 pheasant forecast was pretty bleak, state officials had warned. At that moment I learned a bleak pheasant forecast in South Dakota is apt to be utopian by any other standards.

That is still true today, although more of South Dakota's famed pheasant hunting no longer relies on a natural hatch of birds. Today, tens of thousands of hatchery-raised ringnecks are released every fall by the roughly 235 pheasant-hunting operations scattered around the state. Three decades ago, commercial pheasant-hunting business numbered only a few.

While I prefer to pursue wild birds, I must admit Raven doesn't make the same distinction. It's probably also true that most visiting hunters don't know or even care who hatched the rooster now cackling over the cornstalks.

Also recently, I walked a corn and milo strip with Scott Barton, a 17-year-old pheasant hunter from New York and a guest of Scattergun Lodge in Pierre, S.D.

Scott was toting his youth-model 20 gauge and anxiously awaiting the next flurry of pheasant wings. Wild wings or released wings, it didn't matter.

Four years ago, Scott was fighting a serious case of cancer that was attacking his young body. A youth organization, Hunt of a Lifetime, offered Scott a chance to fulfill a life's dream: South Dakota pheasant hunting.

Last week, Scott and his father, Jon, returned for one more memorable October where Octobers are best.

 

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South Dakota Pheasant hunting outlook forecast report- Windy Hill Outfitters
August 06, 2009

 South Dakota pheasant hunters may likely enjoy the best pheasant season this fall since the Soil Bank years of the 50s and early 60s. Recent brood counts conducted by Game, Fish and Parks biologists in late summer indicated a 23 percent statewide increase over last year, and 18 percent higher than the historic 2005 season. 
The pheasant population index was at a 40-year high in 2005, and the upcoming fall index tops that mark. After the 1.8 million birds harvested last year, officials are optimistic that the harvest total could exceed 2 million birds this season, the first time that’s happened since the 3 million in 1963.                                                                                                                                                     For now, attribute the great population and hunting to CRP, which of course provides prime nesting habitat for, not only pheasants, but many other species of wildlife as well. But the heavy habitat this year, combined with ideal weather conditions during hatching last June, has resulted in the highest pheasant count in South Dakota on record since 1963.                                                                                                                 

Survey counts this year show that the number of broods observed on routes increased by 15 percent and the average number of pheasant chicks in those broods increased by 11 percent. The average brood size in 2007 was 6.71 chicks per brood. 
The brood survey is conducted on 110 thirty-mile routes in South Dakota where pheasants are found in sufficient numbers to count, mostly in the eastern half of the state. The survey results in a pheasant-per-mile (PPM) index that can be used to forecast an area’s relative population density. In addition to being up over 2006, the 7.85 pheasants per mile average is 67 percent higher than the 10-year average of 4.71. For now, pheasants will plentiful in the main range of South Dakota this year. Hunters will, indeed, enjoy the prosperity as they walk through another great season. 

South Dakota's points of interest, facts and trivia
August 05, 2009

 Sculptor Gutzon Borglum began drilling into the 6,200-foot Mount Rushmore in 1927. Creation of the Shrine to Democracy took 14 years and cost a mere $1 million, though it's now deemed priceless. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln are sculpted into Mount Rushmore the world's greatest mountain carving. The Crazy Horse mountain carving now in progress will be the world’s largest sculpture (563' high, 641' long, carved in the round). It is the focal point of an educational and cultural memorial to and for the North American Indian.  Custer State Park is home to a herd of 1,500 free-roaming bison. Bison can weigh as much as 2,000 pounds. Historically, the bison played an essential role in the lives of the Lakota (Sioux), who relied on the “tatanka” for food, clothing and shelter. Jewel Cave is the third-longest cave in the world. More than 120 miles of passages have been surveyed. Calcite crystals that glitter when illuminated give the cave its name. With more than 82 miles of mapped passages, Wind Cave contains the world’s largest display of a rare formation called boxwork. Badlands National Park consists of nearly 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. Badlands National Park contains the world's richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, dating 23 to 35 million years old. Sturgis is home of the annual Black Hills Classic Motorcycle Rally.