SD Pheasant Limits May Increase In December
Pierre, S.D. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Due to the delayed harvest of crops this fall, the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission intends to act at its Dec. 3-4 meeting in Pierre on a proposal to raise the three-bird daily pheasant bag limit to five cock pheasants daily.
Under the proposal, the current 15-bird pheasant possession limit would increase to 25 male pheasants.
If adopted, the emergency rule would take effect Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009, and remain in place until the current pheasant season ends on Jan. 3, 2010.
“The ability of hunters to harvest pheasants in the first seven weeks of the 2009 pheasant hunting season has been severely inhibited by lack of row-crop harvest,” said GFP Secretary Jeff Vonk. “The weather patterns that led to this situation were not anticipated by the Commission when it adopted the pheasant season back in April.”
The adjustments in the daily limit and possession limit will not hurt overall pheasant numbers in future years because only cock pheasants may be harvested, Vonk said.
“As crops are taken from the fields, the refuge that pheasants found in oceans of cornfields will disappear, and birds will be concentrated in the remaining cover,” Vonk said. “The addition to the limits will allow hunters the ability to make up for opportunities that were lost in the first part of the season.”