# Seen the future



## rowdie (Jan 19, 2005)

10 years ago I worked for a year in Gregory SD. This is the area of SD that started pay hunting, guides and game preserves. Gegory is 26 miles from Winner SD South of Interstate 94 just west of the MO. River. It is the place where John Elway and other big shots come to hunt when they hunt SD.

Since this was my first teaching assingment out of college, I didn't have the $$ to pay landowners $200-$500 a day to hunt. So guess what, I never pulled a trigger in that part of the state the entire hunting season. Not even my job position and coaching got me "in" enough with any landowner, that a fee wasn't expected to go hunting. Charging hunters to hunt is just the way it is down there. EVERY landowner charges!

Then you have the game preserves. They have their own seasons, and their own limits. ($$ per bird killed). Then they lease land too that they then guide on. (they can shoot the SD limit too) Pheasants are raised by anyone with five acres and enough time to raise them, and sold to the game preserves, and other guides who want to ensure successful hunts to clients. The "guides" radio their hired hands to release the birds into shelter belts or crop strips right before they "decide" to go try a new spot. Most these birds are raised with blinders on in small cages their whole lives. The blinders are so they don't kill each other in such small quarters. They get released for about 30 minutes of freedom before being shot at.

The town and a lot of people are now banking on the return of the hunters every year. They can't imagine a world without the stream of hunters comming in every fall. Most local guys just don't get to hunt. The regular guys with jobs just can't afford it and its been so long since pay hunting stated that they never have hunted much, if at all. Its weird talking about hunting down there, because they relate it directly to having $$ or being rich.

I hope this never happens in ND


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## djleye (Nov 14, 2002)

Amen!!!!


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## Remmi_&amp;_I (Dec 2, 2003)

Ditto Doc ! :beer:


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

rowdie, I would sure like you to email that post into the ND newpapers as a letter to the editor, and also to the members of the HNRC and SNRC. Very telling comments from the trenches.


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## adokken (Jan 28, 2003)

Rowdie send one to the Minot Daily News E-Mial ([email protected]) mand I am sure some one can give you the address for the Bismarck Tribune, Thanks we need all the help we can get with this crowd in the Legislature.


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