But that’s what Korzan, owner with his wife, Lorie, and adult sons of a pheasant hunting lodge near Kimball, S.D., is doing this week — drawing water from three 1,000-foot-deep wells and transporting it to the vast pheasant-habitat plots that blanket his 3,500-acre spread.
The grasses and shrubs are needed to help pheasant chicks hatched in recent weeks survive the parched conditions that prevail this summer not only on his property, but across much of South Dakota.
“This drought is the worst I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Korzan, 58, said.
Dennis Daugaard declared a drought emergency across South Dakota, allowing farmers and ranchers to cut and bale state highway ditches adjacent to their properties.
South Dakota corn and soybean crops also are struggling or have been written off altogether, as have countless spring and winter wheat fields.
Pheasant hunters alone spent more than $170 million in South Dakota in 2015, with $140 million coming from nonresidents.
“But in some areas of the state we haven’t had measurable rain in quite a while,” he said.
“North from Pierre through Mobridge to the North Dakota border is particularly bad.” In a more typical South Dakota summer, spring and winter wheat fields provide cover for many nesting pheasant hens and their hatched chicks.
“Going into spring we were really optimistic because our bird numbers looked good and conditions were good for an excellent hatch,” Morlock said.
“And when you don’t get rain, and you don’t have dew, you don’t have insects,” he said.