Winner and pheasant hunting (Sioux Falls, Mitchell: to live, price, relocate to)

[smiley77]

Old man with a new pup is looking to relocate to winner,sd and would like to know a few things about the pheasant hunting.

[no8fann]

Like what, specifically? East River is some of the finest game bird hunting in the US - at least, that's what the fact that we draw people from around the world during hunting season tells us!

[SD4020]

The hunting is good. Winner has a huge draw from out of state. However access to hunting might be spendy. Unless you can get in good with a landowner or two.

Winter in winner can be miserable. Well the other 9 months when its not pheasant season I'd do nucking futs there. There isn't much and it not quite in BFE but you can see it from there.

Pretty much either side of the Missouri River for about 100 miles you are in good pheasant country. As evidenced by the amount of property damage they inflicted on my vehicles... I think in the last 8 years I have had pheasant vehicular incursions at least a dozen times. And last year I hit two deer with same pickup. Second one was fatal to the pickup.

I think I'd pick some place else in central SD to live. I would actually live along the river if I was to do something like that. I'd get in on more than pheasants, do some fishing and other exploring.

[SD4020]

Interesting article from Outdoor life.
SD Towns Named As Top Places For Sportsmen - KELOLAND.com | Sioux Falls News & Weather, South Dakota News & Weather, Minnesota and Iowa News

Rapid #3 and Pierre and Chamberlain made the list at 12 and 13. Either of those for shooting pheasants are great choices with come access to public shooting areas too.

[ElkHunter]

I don't want to hijack the thread but maybe some of you hunters can explain something to me.

I know that land is very difficult to get onto unless you are ready to fork out the big bucks. But, has South Dakota done anything to curb that to make it easier for hunters? It seems to me, if they took a couple easy steps they could open up more land, which would bring in more out of state hunters, hence, everybody making more money.

For instance, Wyoming had a problem with getting access. So now, when you purchase, say, a deer tag. It has three portions to the tag. You shoot a deer, one portion gets put on the deer, one portion gets put in your wallet until after the animal is process, and the third portion is given to the land owner. At the end of season, the land owner goes to fish and game and they pay him for each tag he has. This did not cost the state anything, because they simply raised the price of the tag and everybody was more then willing to pay a few extra bucks to gain more access.

I remember when Pheasant were few and far between in South Dakota except for a few pockets. Then they opened that big pheasant farm down by Mitchell and started releasing (all over the state) thousands of birds every year. Now, no matter where you go in South Dakota, they'll claim, "We are the pheasant capital of South Dakota".

[lifelongMOgal]

Link to SD Fish & Game pheasant page. It hasn't been updated for 2011 yet.

SD GFP | Hunting | Small Game | Pheasants

[lifelongMOgal]

Originally Posted by ElkHunter

..................I remember when Pheasant were few and far between in South Dakota except for a few pockets. Then they opened that big pheasant farm down by Mitchell and started releasing (all over the state) thousands of birds every year. Now, no matter where you go in South Dakota, they'll claim, "We are the pheasant capital of South Dakota".

There has also been a concerted effort in creating good habitat and wind breaks for the pheasant to winter through.