SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Authorities are investigating a hunting accident that sent a man to the hospital.

Michael T. Stufft, 31, of Dimock, was shot in the abdomen while hunting deer near Hartford on Saturday, the Minnehaha County sheriff's office said Sunday in a news release.

Saturday marked the first day of rifle deer season in the southeastern part of South Dakota.

The sheriff's office said Stufft walked to a nearby house to get help and was then airlifted to a hospital in Sioux Falls.

The shooting appears accidental, said Sgt. Preston Evans of the Minnehaha County Sheriff's Department. His officers, along with game wardens from the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department, spent much of Saturday morning visiting landowners to ask hunters' names and locations.