2024 Pheasant Season End Conclusions - Final Report
December 25, 2024 by UGUIDE South Dakota Pheasant Hunting
2024 will go down in our books as a record year. One to benchmark all others against. Like in last year's report you can say the big factor is dog skills but this year's numbers showcase mother nature as the biggest factor of all.
I'm not sure exactly what the magic combination was but a mild winter and a mild wet spring/summer was the recipe. And we were dry going into spring with most dugouts not reaching more than half full until the spring rains came and filled them up.
Vegetative growth, bug populations explosion and big June brood hatches was the result. It started drying up in July and we are still in some drought stages across the state which may be a stress for next year.
Our measure of success is a 2.4 pheasant per person per day average across the season and all UGUIDE camps. The previous high mark was 2.1 which we hit in 2020 and 2016. The all-time low was 1.3 in 2017. My own camp hit a harvest high I have not seen since before 2010.
Our Average Harvest Per Group Per Camp Per Week was 77 Roosters per Group per Week average. Our total rooster harvest for the season was 2,687 which blew our previous high of 2,158 in 2022 out of the water.
A lot of memories were made this year and the hero of it all was mother nature because we have learned she is a majority share partner in our en devour.
Check 2025 Availability of all UGUIDE South Dakota Pheasant Hunting Camps
Meadow Creek - Note: Meadow Creek is seeing Sharptail Grouse harvest on the order of about 25-30% of pheasant harvest numbers with some bonus Hungarian Partridge mixed in.
West River Adventures - Note: WRA is seeing Sharptail Grouse harvest on the order of about 20-25% of pheasant harvest numbers with some bonus Hungarian Partridge mixed in.
