My husband wants to know if you have any pheasant hunting in your area. He has been wanting to get a hunt together for years.
Some, but not a lot. 50-100 miles east of us is where the pheasant hunting starts getting really good. We have the wild turkeys, some Hungarian & chukar partridge, doves, and sharptail grouse.
http://gfp.sd.gov/hunting/small-game/pheasants.aspx Map at the bottom of the page shows the HUNTER spending distribution, not BIRD distribution. However, by digging around on the site, I believe pheasant hunter-success stats can be found; I know they publish them for big game on a unit basis.
Of course, we’re in the very bottom, left-most county on the maps.
http://gfp.sd.gov/hunting/small-game/prairie-chicken-ruffed-grouse.aspx
As a landowner with enough acreage to qualify, I can hunt small game & furbearers on our property without any license; and I can get a landowner preference for big game tags, if I apply for tags in the unit the property is located in. About half the tags in the first draw of a unit are set aside for landowners-only; basically it requires at least 160 acres, and residency to qualify.