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South Dakota help needed

biggest buck

biggest buck

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Hello fellow Iowawhitetailers!

I'm looking for some input on public ground hunting around the Pierre area for Pheasants. I have the states public hunting area atlas but it has so many different types of areas that I have no idea which location(s) would be best. The Fort Pierre national Grasslands look huge just to the south of Pierre but is it worth hunting? And then there are the WIA areas just north of Pierre. Its been many years since I hunted the Pierre area and I am just kind of lost at where to start planning our trip to.
There's about 8 or 9 of us going the weekend of October 25 for a couple days and I need to get some lodging set up somewhere soon.

Thanks!
 
The Grasslands is a pretty big place.
Stop in and talk to the rangers in the main office, and they will point you in the right direction.
We went to the grass lands last year, for a day of our week long trip, and barely touched the public land.
You are going early enough, where there should be a good amount of birds, but you will have to compete with the other hunters.
We stayed in the NE section of the state, and saw the most birds on the road, north of fort pierre.
Check the posts on http://www.ultimatepheasanthunting.com/ to see where things are at.
All the birds in the NE section of the state were in the cat tails (mainly from the drought last year).
The cat tails were rough on us and the dogs, but thats where we saw, and shot most of the birds.
GOOD LUCK!
 
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Just so happens I live in Pierre! The bird numbers are/will be down but you should still be able to find some.

The grasslands has a lot of acres and there are pheasants out there, the biggest problem with them is that the grass gets grazed fairly hard and by the time you get there the grouse hunters will have a large number of them pushed off to private lands.

The large WIA's north of Pierre are usually pretty good hunting, I did talk to the land manager from those areas yesterday and he is not seeing much for birds - doesn't mean you won't find some up there.

If you don't find some in those areas, try some of the GPA and School/Public ground north and east of Blunt. Also, the GPA lands along the River have some good habitat if you can figure out how to get to them - usually the trails are not marked very good.

I will be bowhunting some of these areas before you get here so if I find a pocket of birds I'll try to remember to let you know. I would recommend downloading the free GFP App on your phone... the maps on this app are always up-to-date and pretty easy to use.

You will have to deal with other pheasant hunters that weekend as it is our 2nd weekend of the regular season.

Let me know if you need anything else and I'll try to keep you up to date when I start bowhunting.

Adam
 
Thanks to both of you for your input! When you guys say the bird numbers are down, how down are they. The last time I drove thru Pierre, in 2009, there were birds everywhere along the highway coming from Bismarck to Pierre to I-90, literally hundreds of them. I take it they aren't that thick anymore.
MKJRUH, lodging was my next on my list to get going on. Thanks a ton!
 
I'm currently in Pierre ripping lips, and on the way through the Highmore area ( just east of Pierre) we seen a lot of pheasants. Not sure if there's any public land over that way but there are definitely a ton of pheasants.
 
The pheasant count will be out either late next week or the week after. Honestly, will probably be one of our lower counts in a number of years - but we had record numbers 2006-10.

Best way of putting it... we used to see thousands of birds in one day and could have our limit in 20 mins no matter where you went. This year will be similar to last couple years where you should be able to get a couple of birds/person, maybe your limit if you hit them right. But seeing thousands of birds in the air at one time will be less frequent.Of course, there are places where that still happens, but they are also pay to hunt.

Bowtech84 is right, the Highmore area has lots of birds, but not as much public ground.
 
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