PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — South Dakota’s wonderful October brought thousands more people out to spend time in the state’s parks.
And warm, dry weather likewise has encouraged hunters to head to the fields, where they’ve often been finding pheasants in strong numbers.
For those who enjoy the outdoors, this fall has been memorable in a very good way, members of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission were told on Thursday.
State Parks and Recreation Division director Jeff VanMeeteren reported that camping numbers in October rose 24% from a year ago.
“We just had a fantastic month,” he said.
Those 21,976 nights, along with advance reservations logged for next year at Custer State Park, together meant 39% more revenue than the division saw in October 2023.
During the first 10 months of 2024, campers stayed 352,875 nights in South Dakota’s state parks. That was up from 350,649 in 2023, VanMeeteren said, and might signal the end of a post-pandemic slump.
South Dakota’s state parks had unexpectedly experienced much more use during the first years of COVID-19. Camping rose, from 303,826 nights during the first 10 months of 2019 before the pandemic, to 380,555 for a similar period during the first year of the pandemic in 2020, and climbed again in 2021 to 392,055.
Since then, the numbers had been declining — that is, until October. The division’s 2024 revenue through October came in at $21,503,463. That was nearly $1 million more than at a similar point last year.
“We’re up five percent overall. That’s fantastic for us. We’re glad to see things turning around,” VanMeeteren said.
The warm, dry days of October paid off in another way. According to state Wildlife Division director Tom Kirschenmann, pheasant hunters had a “phenomenal” opening weekend.
He told the commission that hunters seeking pheasants in western South Dakota were finding good bird numbers. “They were excited,” he said.
In the state’s central region, hunters reported taking about two roosters apiece, while in the southeast and northeast they typically had one to two birds each, according to Kirschenmann.
He said harvest of crops is always a factor, and information from Game, Fish and Parks conservation officers as well as USDA statistics showed that approximately half of the corn crop and nearly all of the soybeans were already out by the traditional Saturday opener on October 19.
“It was really good conditions for harvest, and farmers were going hard for harvest,” Kirschenmann said.
Harvest now is complete, aside from some sunflower still in the fields, according to Kirschenmann, and that means hunting will get better, because the crop cover is gone, leading to birds concentrating more in slough bottoms and other natural habitat.
Kirschenmann said he always encourages hunters to check in with landowners before heading out. “They know full well what they’re seeing at ground level,” he said.
Overall, South Dakota has “very strong bird numbers across the state” and the best weeks of the season are now here, according to Kirschenmann.
The department this year has a record 1.6 million acres of land open for public hunting, up from 1.5 million last year, he said, including partnerships with other organizations, such as Pheasants Forever and its PATH — Public Access To Habitat — program.
“We’re extremely excited about this,” he said.
The department now wants to reach 2 million acres of public access. “That’s our next goal. We want to get there and we want to provide opportunities to hunt,,” Kirschenmann said.
He showed the commission a pheasant-license sales chart. There was “the big blip” each year starting the Thursday before and continuing through the opening weekend, followed by a smaller but still obvious spike the second weekend.
“This is a trend we’ve seen over years,” he said.
Another trend, Kirschenmann said, is that residents have been buying more pheasant licenses. During the past five years those sales have risen from roughly 73,000 to about 81,500 so far this year. “Things are going fantastic. We’ve got strong birds out there,” Kirschenmann said.
GFP Secretary Kevin Robling, who oversees the department, added an enthusiastic closing comment about how good the hunting is in the state that promotes itself as home to the largest pheasant numbers in North America.
“The best months are ahead of us,” Robling said. “We welcome everybody to South Dakota. It’s been a great season so far and it’s only going to get better.”
