South Dakota approves cap on nonresident deer and pronghorn archery licenses

The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission has unanimously approved a change in the allocation of South Dakota deer and pronhorn nonresident archery licenses. The change will limit these archery licenses for nonresident hunters on public land only. The new limit will allow for a maximum of 2,200 archery deer tags and 450 archery antelope tags available to nonresidents. Deer and pronghorn tags were formerly unlimited on public land, and will remain so on private land.

About one-fifth of South Dakota’s deer archery licenses were obtained by nonresident bowhunters in 2021 but they made up approximately half of the mule deer buck harvest.

South Dakota Deer and Pronghorn draw changes

As a result of the changes, there are new draw application dates for nonresident archery permits for both deer and pronghorn. If you were previously planning to purchase an unlimited tag, you must now apply earlier in the year via the competitive draw. You can track these dates in the OnPoint app. There are no draw odds yet available as it will be the first year of the modified draws, but 2021 shows 5,851 total nonresident deer tags sold. This includes both public and private tags, and the hunter split between those is not known, but it is far greater than the new 2,200 nonresident tag limit.