SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — About 80% of the land in South Dakota is privately owned, so how does a hunter find land on which to hunt pheasant?
The state has more than five million acres of public land and private land open to public hunting, according to the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks (GFP) Department. The acres include private land leased for public hunting.
Some of the five million acres are private land that comes from landowner participation in several programs. Those public hunting access areas are also habitat for pheasants to nest and live.
“As far as habitat, the last couple of years it’s been fairly consistent,” said Cody Rolfes, the Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologist in the counties of Brown, Marshall and McPherson. “There’s a lot of it up here.”
Sam Fryman, the Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologist in the counties of Spink, Beadle and Clark, said habitat acres have also been consistent over the past few years. “The (Conservation Reserve Program) and set aside acres have stayed constant,” Fryman said. Some landowners don’t enroll some years while new landowners enroll, so the acres stay about the same, he said.
A consistent number of public access acres is good for the Prairie Ridge Lodge in rural Garden Center in Clark County.
“There’s a lot of acres of public hunting,” said Aaron Bjerke who owns Prairie Ridge Lodge with his family. Many of the lodge’s guests will hunt on public land, Bjerke said. The lodge houses hunters. It does not offer guide service or land on which to hunt, he said.
The GFP has said one of its goals is to increase public hunting access on public and private land.
The state’s Walk-In Area (WIA) program has 1,400 landowners who provide public hunting access to more than 1.2 million acres of private land, according to the GFP. The state is also working with Pheasants Forever and onXHunt, a hunting access map company, on Public Access to Habitat (PATH) to open up more private land to public hunting.
PATH started in 2023 and 20,000 acres of habitat and access in pheasant and prairie grouse range have been enrolled, according to Pheasants Forever. PATH uses land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Landowners are paid $25 per acre which is on top of a GFP signing bonus and GFP WIA payment.
Examples of other programs are the Controlled Hunting Access Program (CHAP) which has requirements on hunting times and limits on game on private land and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). CREP is state-sponsored and it provides hunting in enrolled acres in the James River watershed and the Big Sioux River Watershed.
“Up here in the James River (area) we’ve got a lot of CREP acres,” Rolfes said.
Iowa, like South Dakota, is working to increase public land access and public hunting access on private land. The state’s pheasant harvest was about 600,000 bird last year, second in the nation.
The terrain in northwestern and north central Iowa is similar to eastern South Dakota with grassland and crop fields, said Todd Bogenschutz of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
There are private acres enrolled in CRP and “there is CREP up there but not a lot,” Bogenschutz said.
The state’s WIA program has about 30,000 to 40,000 acres, he said.
Bogenschutz is hopeful that a new Farm Bill will improve the per acre rate at which landowners are paid for the CRP program. That would help increase pheasant habitat and the chances for public hunting access to those CRP acres, he said.
Hunting access to public land and private land is critical to the longevity of pheasant hunting in the state.
Hunting publications often discuss access and hunting on public lands. Hunters can get discouraged if public land is too crowded or if they find it difficult to access private land with permission.
OnXHunt representatives said in a recent YouTube video that one of the most common barriers for hunters is access to hunting land.
Some hunters have turned to game lodge hunting including with guides or private shooting reserves.
The pheasant harvest in South Dakota was about 1.2 million birds in the October 2023 through January 2024 season. The total number of bird harvested at private shooting reserves was 375,716, according to the GFP. That includes 354,133 released birds and 21,863 wild birds.
The state had 208 renewals of private shooting reserve licenses and 27 new for a total of 235 licenses for 2024-2025.
Prairie Ridge Lodge differs from shooting reserves.
“We just currently offer lodging” Bjerke said. “A lot of our customers lease ground or hunt public lands or have a family or friend with land.”
Some guests do hire local hunting guides, Bjerke said.
There is a mix of hunters in Fryman’s coverage area.
“A lot come out here and they hunt private ground,” Fryman said. “Some come from out of state and they have built relationships with landowners. They’ve been hunting on the same property year after year.”
“We have a handful of lodges with guided hunts,” Fryman said.
Although the state may have multiple publicly-owned hunting access lands, resident and nonresident hunters may be sharing that access. South Dakota sold 84,610 residents and 81,380 nonresident pheasant hunting licenses in 2023.
Rolfes said pressure or crowding is sometimes mentioned in the area but there are multiple public access areas in a 40-mile radius of Aberdeen for example. A hunter needs only drive a mile or two down the road if one public access area is occupied.
Bjerke said hunters at his lodge hadn’t been concerned about overcrowding at access sites.
“I never really hear a lot of that (overcrowding),” Fryman said. Also, hunters understand that the opening weekend is typically very busy, he said.
Bogenschutz had advice for hunters who may be new to an area or looking for acres on which to hunt. “I’ve encouraged people to knock on doors and take advantage of ‘Iowa nice,'” he said. “Most landowners are pretty good (about giving permission.)”
Still, showing up with 15 hunters at the door won’t make best first impression, Bogenschutz said.
