{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/weekly-column/100-years-of-pheasant-hunting-in-south-dakota", "100 Years of Pheasant Hunting in South Dakota", "2018-10-19", "2018", "2018-10", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "Mike Rounds", "R000605", "www.rounds.senate.gov", "rounds", "https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "Pheasant hunting season is a time of year that many South Dakotans look forward to for months. I\u2019ve been looking forward to it since the end of last year\u2019s season! It\u2019s a time to pass down traditions and join friends and family in the fields. We\u2019re especially looking forward to this season, as it marks the 100th year of pheasant hunting in South Dakota.\n\nIn 1918, our state established its first pheasant hunting season. The first official hunting season was actually held in 1919 in Spink County. Spink County is home to the \u201cPheasant Capital of the World\u201d in Redfield, where the Chinese Ring-necked Pheasant was released into the wild. As many of you know, the pheasant hunting is still excellent in Spink County, just as it is in so many other areas of the state. This year\u2019s pheasant brood survey shows a 47 percent increase over last year, so no matter which area in the state you hunt, you should be able to find birds.\n\nHunting is more than just a hobby for South Dakotans, it\u2019s also a big source of income for businesses in communities across the state. Every year, people from all over the country visit our state to hunt in the best pheasant habitat. They stay in our hotels, dine in our restaurants and enjoy all of the other great things South Dakota has to offer. We look forward to welcoming them and helping to enhance their hunting experience.\n\nI\u2019m looking forward to spending opening weekend hunting with our family and friends near Presho. We have our opening weekend traditions, but this year will be a little different with the loss of my dad, \u201cGrandpa Don\u201d earlier this year. He hung up his old Model 12 shotgun a few years back, but he always bought lunch for the group at Hutch\u2019s Caf\u00e9 after our hunt and enjoyed hearing everyone\u2019s stories from the day. He will be missed this year. We\u2019ll also miss my hunting dog, Baby, who passed away recently. She came from a long lineage of hunting dogs and loved the thrill of chasing birds.\n\nLike many of you, the land we hunt on is surrounded by Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acres, which makes great pheasant habitat. We continue to try to improve the habitat each year by making sure there is water nearby and that we have a diversity of crops planted. We have sunflower, wheat, corn, sorghum-sudangrass mix and kochia weed, which makes good cover for pheasants.\n\nAfter hunting, when we get all the birds cleaned, a favorite recipe of ours is \u201cpheasant poppers,\u201d which our kids usually make. Pheasant poppers are jalapenos and pheasant breast wrapped up in bacon with a toothpick and grilled, baked or fried. The woman who raised my dad, Georgiana Kauth, always cooked pheasant with mushroom gravy in a cast iron skillet, and that was a favorite recipe of mine growing up.\n\nA few of our grandkids are old enough to mentor hunt this year, so we\u2019re looking forward to watching them. All the grandkids will come down though, even if they aren\u2019t old enough to hunt yet. Opening weekend is a great opportunity to spend time together with family and friends. I hope everyone has a fun, safe and successful opening weekend in South Dakota!\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-27T23:08:35Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/weekly-column/100-years-of-pheasant-hunting-in-south-dakota"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8796399924904108, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}