South Dakota Upland:
A DIY Hunter's Paradise
From sharptails to pheasants, South Dakota is a DIY hunter's dream. Explore 12 top spots with great access and hunter lodging.
Wide open spaces and abundant birds make South Dakota a mecca for upland hunters. While the pheasant remains king among South Dakota’s gamebirds, many hunters start their seasons early with sharptails in the heat of September. That September 20 sharptail opener kicks off upland seasons that run until January 31. With over five million acres of public lands statewide, including 1.6 million acres of private land leased for public hunting-with much of this in the primary upland game bird range, South Dakota is a top destination for do-it-yourselfers. East of the Missouri River, from top to bottom, you’ll hit the state’s prime pheasant area. West of the river, you find sharptails and prairie chickens in the grasslands. South Dakota’s state parks and recreation areas in prime hunting spots make perfect basecamps for the traveling hunter. Several offer comfortable modern cabins and group lodges that are ideal places to relax after a long day of walking. There are also plenty of park and recreation areas with campsites, camping cabins (means “bring your own water”) and RV hookups for the hunters willing to rough it a little. Here’s a list of places to stay to help you start planning your South Dakota DIY upland adventure.
Roy Lake State Park
Tucked away in the northeast corner of the state on the fringes of the state’s primary pheasant range, Roy Lake shouldn’t be overlooked. It sits amidst glacial lakes and potholes of all sizes, surrounded by plenty of grassy pheasant cover. There is some hunting available on the park itself, as well as modern cabins and suites sleeping up to 10. The area is surrounded by Waterfowl Production Areas, which means there are tons of cattail marshes where you can flush late-season birds out of heavy cover.
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East-central South Dakota’s Lake Thompson Recreation Area sits among a mix of agricultural fields and marshy waterfowl production areas. Comb the sloughs and grassy areas early in pheasant season, then head into the marsh grasses when cold weather hits. A National Natural Landmark, Lake Thompson is a wetland turned into a deep lake by heavy rains and snowmelt. Author Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and set books in next-door De Smet, SD. Lodging might include your own little house on the prairie, if you rent the farmhouse refurbished as a Group Lodge. There are also campsites and camping cabins.
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Lake Thompson Recreation Area
On the shores of the massive Lake Oahe impoundment, Spring Creek offers modern cabins and suites in a location just 30 minutes from the 115,000-acre Fort Pierre National Grasslands, where serious gundog owners make the pilgrimage every year to kick off their season on sharptails. You’ll find some pheasants in the grasslands, too, and more east of the river in a patchwork of walk-in and game- and waterfowl-production areas.
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Spring Creek Recreation Area
Modern cabins right on the lakeshore provide a well-situated home base for groups of up to eight hunters. Besides the impressive lake view, you’ll find plenty of bird hunting opportunities in a spot that sits between the sprawling Fort Pierre National Grasslands and some prime pheasant country. The land on the shores of the lake are open to hunting on both sides all the way to North Dakota, and those acres including game production areas. There’s more good public pheasant ground to be found inland as you travel east.
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Oahe Downstream Recreation Area
If you’re coming from the east, Newton Hills State Park, just below Sioux Falls, is one of the first places you’ll hit as you cross into South Dakota. An oasis of hilly, dark woods on the banks of the Big Sioux River, it’s a unique spot to set up camp, either in the modern cabins or in the group lodge. The area around Newton Hills is primarily agricultural land, with walk-in and waterfowl production areas scattered amidst the farm fields, ideal for hunters that may prefer thoroughly working smaller spots rather than roaming vast areas of cover.
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Newton Hills State Park
South Dakota’s deepest natural lake, spring-fed Pickerel Lake covers 900 acres of the state's richest pothole country. Base your operations in one of the modern cabins in the campgrounds, and head out in virtually any direction to find pheasants. There’s public land everywhere, especially just north of the park, where the large mix of walk-in and waterfowl-production areas would keep you busy all season if you could stay that long.
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Pickerel Lake Recreation Area
Shadehill Recreation Area, in northwestern South Dakota, puts you close to acres upon acres of prime sharptail habitat in the national grasslands nearby. You’ll find some pheasants here,and Hungarian partridge as well, so a full mixed bag is a possibility. Take time to find the historical marker within the boundaries of the recreation area on the spot where mountain man Hugh Glass was mauled by a grizzly in 1823, an incident made famous in the 2015 award-winning film, “The Revenant.”
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Shadehill Recreation Area
Mina Lake Recreation Area sits inside the horseshoe formed by Lake Parmley, just west of Aberdeen, in some of the state’s best pheasant country. The one modern cabin in the area sleeps 10, and there is plenty of elbow room for even a party of that size to spread out to sample the many, many parcels of public land in the area. There’s a mix of cover-types comprised of both grassy set-aside and cattail-choked marshes.
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Mina Lake State Recreation Area
On the eastern shores of Lake Oahe, West Whitlock gives you good access to tons of walk-in land a few miles to the north. The area is a mix of ag land, grassy hills and some potholes—in other words, ideal pheasant country. Whitlock’s facilities are limited to campsites, one RV hookup, and camping cabins without water.
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West Whitlock Recreation Area
West of Watertown, Fisher Grove State Park sits on the site of a ford across the James River used by Native Americans and, later, stagecoach lines. Today it puts you in easy striking distance of walk-in areas, game production areas and marshes. You’ll have a mix of wetland complexes and grass fields to hunt north of the park. Fisher Grove has 22 electrical campsites where you can set up your home base for the hunt.
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Fisher Grove State Park
Sitting near the Nebraska border and the Fort Randall Dam, Randall Creek Recreation Area offers easy access to excellent habitat for sharptails and prairie chickens in walk-in areas to the west, and to pheasants in the Lake Andes National Wildlife Refuge and associated Waterfowl Production Areas. Randall Creek has campsites and camping cabins for rent.
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Randall Creek Recreation Area
Offering a scenic view of the Missouri River, the Lewis & Clark Recreation Area has campsites and camping cabins for visiting hunters. It’s also a few minutes from Yankton, a town of 25,000, in case you need to stock up on supplies or go out to eat. North and northwest of town, you’ll find lots of small walk-in areas and game production areas, many of them ATV-accessible to hunters with disabled permits. Whether you walk or ride, there’s a lot of hunting to be had here on smaller, easier-to-cover areas.
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Lewis & Clark Recreation Area
