doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com where to hunt in South Dakota?

Clarification -- subject to specified wild bird season dates and limits, landowners can charge for access to hunt, provide guide service, lodging, etc. with no requirement to release birds. Supplementing the population with released birds is required of those with a "preserve" license (not sure if I'm naming it right) where both wild and released birds are shot.

Jay

JDW-

Revenue from bird hunting didn't save the Iowa's pheasants. I'm wonder if it will matter in SD.

Even if corn prices crash, the shelterbelts and wetlands that have been lost are not coming back.

Unless people act fast, there's a good chance that the golden days of SD will be gone for good (or at least very long time).

OWD

None of this sounds very encouraging. I may just stay close to home and hunt the local pet & shoots. They will be cheap compared to the accumulative cost of gas, food, hotels, & licences. I like wild birds as much as the next guy, but why drive all day (or two) for next to nothing but an armed walk?

I think you're probably making the right decision. I wouldn't have gone there if it weren't to visit with our friends.

OWD,

If corn prices crashed the shelter belts bulldozed over would still be gone, but the sloughs would return in time. That they would is why the farmers are lying miles of perforated field pipe to keep them drained. The maintence of them is worthwhile only as long as that land they drain is yeilding a profit.

In absence of a farm bill that provides for set aside lands, SD's pheasant hunting future will fall squarely on the backs of the state government of SD,

I hear rumblings that this will be an agenda item at the next session of legislation.

By the way, are you still hunting the Froid area with your little Springers?

OWD, when it comes to looking at pheasant hunting as a source of revenue, there's a world of difference between IA and SD. It's been regarded as a business and a very important source of revenue in SD--both for the state and for the private sector. Even when IA was the #1 pheasant state in the nation--which we tend to forget it was, for 11 out of 15 years 1985-99--not many people thought of it that way, even though it was by far the major "tourist" industry for quite a few small towns. But Iowa never had the big outfitters and pheasant hunting lodges like SD, and the state actively discouraged landowners from charging hunters a "trespass fee"--even though they were allowed to do that under CRP regulations. Thus, there has not been much of a "business" lobby for pheasant hunting in Iowa. What Iowa does have, however, is more Pheasants Forever chapters (more of them than the state's 99 counties) and more PF members than any other state. But that hasn't saved Iowa's pheasants either.

However, weather has played more of a role in the pheasant decline in Iowa than it has anywhere else: a succession of winters with above average snowfall followed by springs that were cooler and wetter than average. Luck of the draw. Very bad luck. For as long as there have been weather records kept in Iowa, the state had never experienced anything like that. CRP losses also hurt, and even without the long run of bad weather, pheasant numbers would have declined some. But they would not have dropped anywhere nearly as drastically as they have (to about 10% the number of birds that were being bagged just 10 years ago) had it not been for the bad weather.

Larry how can you say increased snow fall and cooler springs?

Haven't you heard of global warming? I am of course kidding as I believe you are in some part correct that weather is a major factor. I do not agree that CRP losses and other cover changes are not as important if not more important than weather.

I am convinced that in Kansas that the near complete loss of CRP (allowed to cut over multiple drought years) and changing use patterns (removal of cover, fencerows, etc) are not an even bigger issue

Increased snow fall can be a by product of warmer temps -- warmer air holds more moisture. More moisture means more snow.

Changing weather patterns can also be a by product.

And if you don't have cover and habitat, where are the birds and other game supposed to live, eat, & breed?

Out in those walls of weed free corn?


OWD

If the FedGov eliminated ethanol subsidies, I bet we would see a bunch more land going back into CRP. That would be a winner on two fronts

Yes increased snow can be caused by warmer temperatures; except the last ten years have not really been significantly warmer.

I recently read from a UN Scientist that cooler temperatures are also a "by-product" of global warming (I guess he is so smart he understands that and the rest of us utilizing common sense just don't get it). In the future I imagine that hotter summers will be explained as a by-product of global cooling. While global warming can be used to justify any weather deviation, it is proving more and more to be bull.

What is not bull and is easily provable is changing land use patterns. The increase of corn production to feed the ethanol to solve so called warming is a big factor in habitat loss. The retasking of land to corn and other grain production unlike supposed warming is a provable fact. In discussion with farmers this last week in SD I heard at least three times that when the current CRP contract is over the land is going into corn. After all the local ethanol plant needs so many million bushels a year to stay busy.

Not only is the global warming issue bogus, but taxpayers are subsidizing what would otherwise be an uneconomical feel good tree hug in ethanol. It is sad that so many can be fooled so often.

Even those not fooled become willing dupes or worse yet coconspirators in order to profit from it through participation in subsidized programs that would be otherwise economically unfeasible.

Watching the fleecing of the taxpayer by both sides of the aisle to pad the pockets and reinforce the dubious beliefs of their key backers is sickening. Living with the byproduct of beltway profitiers and others???? Long term I wonder why I bother.