Tom Kirschenmann predicted that hunters would harvest more pheasants in South Dakota this season than they did last year.
“I would not be surprised to see 1.5 million birds harvested this year,” Kirschenmann told state Game, Fish and Parks Commission members during their meeting in Rapid City.
He added, “It’s hard to drive anywhere in South Dakota right now and not see upland birds, whether it’s pheasant or grouse.”
Hunters took an estimated 1.3 million wild pheasants and an estimated 99,000 sharptailed grouse and prairie chickens in South Dakota during 2024.
The 2025 grouse hunting season opens on Saturday, September 20.
Pheasant hunting opens gradually. First comes a youth-only season September 27 through October 5, open on public and private land. Next is a residents-only season, limited to public lands, that runs October 11-13. Then comes the full season opener on Saturday, October 18, running through January 31, 2026.
Alex Solem is the upland game biologist for the Wildlife Division that’s part of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department. He told the commission on Friday that the estimated harvest of 1.3 million pheasants during the 2024 season was based on surveys of 15,000 residents and 15,000 nonresidents and doesn’t include the approximately 400,000 pen-raised birds that hunters took at shooting preserves.
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