South Dakota’s 100th pheasant season
October in South Dakota is a glorious month. I love the crisp mornings, chilly evenings and weekend sounds of marching bands in homecoming parades. And I truly love the annual gathering of family and friends for pheasant season, the best fall classic of them all.
When I was a boy hunting with my dad or my school friends, the sharp cackle of a rooster pheasant flushed from fireweed along a fencerow or from a strip of unharvested corn or milo set my heart pumping. All these years later, that unmistakable sound still has that effect. The tradition of fall pheasant hunting may not be unique to South Dakota, but I’m convinced we do it better than anybody else. But, then, we should. We’ve been doing it for a century now.
This year marks the 100th pheasant season in South Dakota. Think of that. From a few visionaries who introduced that first hunting season in Spink County in 1919, the fall hunt has grown to an event that draws thousands upon thousands, residents and non-residents alike. I tell people the hunt is a tradition nearly as old as South Dakota itself.
The 100th anniversary proves my point. It’s one of many reasons our state is such a great place to live or visit, and it’s a big reason so many former residents return to their roots each fall. They are drawn by a tradition instilled in them by the generations before them.
Pheasant season in South Dakota is always a great experience. This year could be especially so. The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks brood survey earlier this year showed a 47 percent increase in bird numbers over last year. The survey uses a pheasants-per-mile index, and the GFP biologists tell me this year’s count is 2.47 birds per mile, up from 1.68 last year. The survey also shows more birds – and therefore more hunting opportunities – are spread across a broader area of the state. That’s exciting news.
The statewide season opens Oct. 20 and runs through Jan. 6. The GFP Walk-in Area program added 39,000 acres of hunting land this year, meaning about 1.1 million acres of public hunting land is available in the heart of the pheasant range. The department has a web-based interactive map of public lands and private lands leased for public hunting. It may be found at: https://gfp.sd.gov/hunting-areas/.
Whether you hunt public or private land, I encourage you to be courteous with others and respectful of the land and the wildlife. Conditions are right for a memorable hunting season. As I walk the fields, I intend to pause now and then to celebrate the tradition, enjoy the company of my hunting partners and revel in simply being outdoors in the fall in the best place in the world.
