2023 Pheasant Season End Conclusions - Final Report
January 17, 2024 by UGUIDE South Dakota Pheasant Hunting
2024 will be celebrated as UGUIDE's "20th Anniversary". It's amazing how much has been learned and how much is still learned on an annual basis.
This year the major learning's is just what skills groups of hunters bring to the UGUIDE equation and it's harvest numbers. The 2nd was an insight into just how big of an impact highly skilled dogs brings to the harvest numbers as well.
By the way, I should mention that yours truly went 0 for 3 on the last day of my season confirming my good days, bad days theory.
As you may have noticed, we stopped reporting harvest data for each individual camp per week. The reason for this was brought about at my camp by the week 2 group. I hunted 2 days with my week 1 (opener group) and they limited out for a group of 10 after about 3-4 hours each day and only touched 50% of the total acres of the farm. I had no idea what our bird numbers were before that and I would take those results any year. Then my week 2 group shows up. 13 dogs and 6 guys that we able to carve up farm into 4 unique days of hunting. I disclosed exactly which acres were hunted and those that were not touched yet. You would certainly think that at least one of the 4 days this group would accomplish limits for 6 hunters? Surely?? No, not one of the four days was a limit accomplished. Why you say? I have no idea but I am certain it is related to the disclaimer I put in my harvest report.
"Disclaimer: Please consider the results below DO NOT factor in daily weather, crop harvest progress, shooting skills, dog skills, number of dogs and group hunting skills as well as total hours hunted during each day."
So once I realized that we truly have no control over hunters success and we know it can be attained I was left with no choice but to roll up our harvest data to the next level that did not reflect on any one camp. Since I have observed that most hunters do not take a sobering look at what skills they are actually bringing to this task, I was no longer willing to let that result impact the marketing of a truly excellent hunt offering. This is what I was talking about in regards to this years "first major learning".
The 2nd major learning was experienced during my week 9 groups hunt at this same camp. We normally hunt with 12-14 people and after 3 days of hunting would average a harvest of 1 bird per person per day or about 30 birds total with our best ever of about 55 total. I had opportunity to meet a neighboring outfitter who brought in to our group about 8-12 dogs per day for our 3 day hunt. We ended up harvesting 94 roosters.
The difference? Our group, like most UGUIDE group's, bring a knife to a gun fight. He brought the GUN to the gunfight. End of story.
As I also say in my homepage marketing disclaimer: "These Hunts Are Not For Everyone." That's fair chase baby. It's an Unfair Chase."
So this year our harvest roll-up resulted in a 1.9 harvested birds per person per day for the season across all camps. We started collecting data back in 2015 and our low has been 1.3 and our high has been 2.1.
With that being said we have some excellent hunts still open for the 2024 season with not a bad hunt in the mix.
Faulkton, Gunner's Haven, Meadow Creek,Pheasant Camp Lodge, West River Adventures
Don't Miss Out!! Check Availability of all 2024 UGUIDE Pheasant Hunt's
