Full South Dakota Game Fish & Parks April Update

The South Dakota Game, Fish and Park (GFP) Commission held their April meeting in Pierre, April 4-5 at the Matthews Training Center in Pierre.

Wildlife Proposals

East River Firearm, Archery, and Muzzleloader Deer

Harvest data and observation reports from GFP staff, landowners, and hunters all suggest deer numbers are low in southeastern South Dakota following die-offs because of the severe 2022-2023 winter and hemorrhagic disease in 2023. In response, the Commission proposed changes to the numbers and types of East River Deer Hunting Season licenses.

The proposal would result in a reduction of 860 firearm deer licenses (38% reduction) or 985 tags (650 fewer any deer tags and 335 fewer antlerless whitetail tags) among seven counties including: Bon Homme, Clay, Hutchinson, Lincoln, Turner, Union, and Yankton.

In addition, archery and muzzleloader hunters in Clay, Lincoln, and Union Counties would no longer be allowed to harvest antlerless deer using their antlerless whitetail deer license (LM1 type). However, they would still be allowed to harvest a deer using their archery or muzzleloader any deer license type (01 type).

Landowner Own Land Prairie Antlerless Elk Hunting Season

During the 2024 South Dakota Legislative session, Senate Bill 173 enrolled an act to provide a landowner own land elk license for antlerless elk in the prairie elk season.

The Commission proposed such a season with the following qualifications:

• An applicant must own/lease a minimum of 240 acres within an elk unit;
• Members of the qualifying landowner-operators family including grandparents, parents, spouse, children, children’s spouse, or grandchildren who live on the ranch or in the closest community and have an active role in the ranch operation also qualify;
• Only one qualifying applicant per ranch unit per year may purchase a landowner own land license;
• A qualifying applicant for a ranch unit may not purchase a landowner own land elk license if any qualifying member of the ranch unit holds an elk license in that unit;
• A ranch unit is described as all private property owned and leased for agricultural purposes by written agreement by and individual qualifying landowner in the state; and,
• A ranch unit may not by subdivided for the purposes of qualifying for more than one landowner own land elk license.

Raccoon Hunting Season

The Commission proposed to allow nonresidents to use dogs, statewide, as an aid in the taking of a raccoon within the specified nonresident raccoon season structure.

Custer State Park Coyote Hunting Season

The Commission continued discussions on extending the Custer State Park Coyote Hunting Season to start November 1 and continue through April 30.

The Commission discussed their previous proposal to remove closure of season from one-half hour after sunset to one-half hour before sunrise and allow coyote hunting throughout the day and night.

Small Game Hunting Seasons

The Commission continued their discussion on lengthening the quail, partridge, and grouse seasons to Jan 31, aligning these seasons closing date with the close of the pheasant season.

The Commission continued their discussion to remove the word “common” in the snipe season hunting rules, allowing for the take of all species of snipe.

The Commission proposed to extend the tree squirrel and cottontail rabbit hunting seasons to run from Sept. 1 – March 31 on publicly accessible land.

Custer State Park Bison Hunting Seasons

The Commission continued their discussions to allow the use of archery equipment during the Custer State Park trophy and non-trophy bison harvest season.

The Commission also discussed the March proposal to decrease the allowable hunting days for trophy bison from three to two. Hunters typically fill their tags within two days, and this change will allow increased opportunity for scheduling hunts.

The Commission also continued discussions to increase the number of trophy bison licenses available from eight license to 10 and non-trophy bison licenses from 15 to 20. This would result in a total of 11 trophy bison licenses, including the one license available through the Hunt for Habitat raffle.

Wildlife Finalizations

Elk Hunting Seasons

The Commission chose the following license allocations for the 2024 elk hunting seasons:

• Custer State Park: 15 resident “Any Elk” licenses, including 1 raffle “Any Elk” license, and 0 “Antlerless Elk licenses;
• Custer State Park Early Archery: 5 resident “Any Elk” licenses;
• Black Hills Archery: 192 resident “Any Elk” licenses and 90 resident “Antlerless Elk” licenses;
• Black Hills Firearm: 570 resident “Any Elk” licenses and 730 “Antlerless Elk” licenses; and,
• Prairie Elk: 126 resident “Any Elk” licenses and 210 “Antlerless Elk” licenses.

The commission also proposed to include the month of November for prairie units 15A, 35A, and 35B. The resulting season dates would be Sept. 1 – Dec. 31 for Unit 15A and Sept. 15 – Dec. 31 for units 35A and 35B.

Bighorn Sheep Hunting Season

The Commission also reviewed recommendations to add one bighorn sheep license to the Custer State Park Unit, and reduced by two licenses to the Hell Canyon Unit for the 2024 and 2025 bighorn sheep hunting seasons.

The Commission amended the Bighorn Sheep hunting season to remove hunting unit BHS-BH1, which includes those portions beginning at Highway 385 and the Pennington County line, then south of Highway 385 to Sheridan Lake Road, then east on Sheridan Lake Road to Highway 79 in Rapid City, then north on Highway 79 to the Pennington County line. This proposal would then expand the unit boundary for BHS-BH4 to include the former boundaries of BHS-BH1 and those portions of Pennington County west of Interstate 90, Elk Vale Road. and US Highway 79.

The recommendations would allow for the following license allocations:

• Custer State Park: 4
• BH2: 3
• BH3: 0
• BH4: 2

This recommendation would also allow for one bighorn auction license, for a total of 10 licenses available for the 2024 and 2025 hunting seasons.

Tree Stands and Trail Cameras

The Commission voted to expand requirements on tree stand placement and construction on Walk-In-Areas and all private lands leased by the Department for public hunting access.

This will allow a user to label these with either their name and address or their GFP customer identification number. Individuals would need to obtain permission to use trail cameras on private land leased for hunting access by GFP.

Time Restrictions for Use of State Park Systems and Public Lands

The Commission voted to clarify that Oahe Downstream Recreation Area and West Shore Lakeside Use Area, and other areas north of Fort Pierre, observe the Central Time zone. This clarifies that while these areas are technically located within the Mountain Time zone, they operate on the Central Time zone as that is what the communities in which they are associated with operate.

August Management Take

The Commission voted to remove Aurora, Beadle, Bon Homme, Brookings, Clay, Davison, Hanson, Hutchinson, Jerauld, Kingsbury, Lake, Lincoln, McCook, Miner, Minnehaha, Moody, Sanborn, Turner, Union, and Yankton counties from the August Management Take Hunting season unit. Those counties will not have an August Management Take season for Canada geese in 2024.

Nonresident Waterfowl

The Commission voted to add additional licenses to the Nonresident Waterfowl hunting seasons. The additions include:

• Adding 50 licenses to the 3-day NRW-00V area; and,
• Adding 55 licenses to the 3-day NRW-00Z area.

The Commission did not increase licenses to the 10-day statewide, NRW-00B area, which would remain at 3,925 licenses available. The Commission did not increase these licenses, to alleviate concerns regarding additional licenses available on public land in northeast South Dakota.

These 105 license additions fall within the 5% yearly increases allowed in statute.

Public Comment Opportunity and Upcoming Meeting

To hear the discussion on any of the topics on the agenda, audio from the meeting is available through South Dakota Public Broadcasting and will soon be available on the GFP website as part of the meeting archive.

To see these documents in their entirety, visit gfp.sd.gov/commission/information.

To be included in the public record and to be considered by the Commission, public comments must include a full name and city of residence and be submitted by 11:59 p.m. CT, April 28.

The next GFP Commission meeting will be held in the Custer State Park Event Barn on May 2-3.