The 2009 pheasant brood route survey, done by the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department, showed that pheasant broods have declined 26 percent from last year.
Over the past three years the number of CRP acres in that state has declined 24 percent.
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The future doesn’t bode well either in that South Dakota expects to lose two-thirds of its CRP acres over the next five years.
The numbers are as bad or worse in North Dakota and other states that have enjoyed the fruits of the most beneficial federal program ever devised, at least with respect to wildlife anyway.
Anyone who thinks there isn’t a correlation there simply doesn’t understand the value of the Conservation Reserve Program, or the need to keep it alive.
It’s not all bad news in South Dakota though as the average pheasant count was 6.32 birds per mile, which is the fourth-highest tally in the past 45 years.
There will certainly be plenty of roosters to pursue this fall but if you’re a dedicated pheasant hunter (or any kind of hunter) you should be researching anything you can do to help support the Conservation Reserve Program.
Contact legislators, both federal and state, join organizations like Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited and/or any such group actively working to save the CRP program.
Do your part.
No, do more than your part.
Don’t wait until the habitat and the birds have disappeared like they did shortly after the Soil Bank Program ended in 1964.
It’ll be too late.
If you’re as dedicated a hunter as you believe you are it’s time to roll up your sleeves and administer CPR to CRP!
WATERFOWL
I wasn’t home for the resident waterfowl opener but my sons did some duck hunting and have very good success, limiting out both days.
The N.D. Game and Fish Department predicted a better duck season this fall and that seemed to be the case based on their experiences last weekend in Richland County anyway.
Yesterday the nonresident duck and goose hunting season opened in North Dakota so there should be more hunters in the sloughs.
That can be beneficial because it tends to keep the birds moving.
However, in recent years there have been fewer waterfowl hunters out there to keep the birds stirred up.
Maybe, with the decline in pheasant numbers, more hunters will break out their decoys and pursue a few ducks and geese instead.
Personally, I love the sight of ducks hooking their wings and dropping into a decoy set.
I usually take a break from the big game hunting and play with the ducks and geese and that’s exactly what I’m doing this weekend.
I’ll have a report next Sunday.
Minnesota’s duck season opened yesterday as well but it’s been very tough going for duck hunters in Minnesota for quite a number of years now.
There is some decent Canada goose hunting to be had but the duck situation is dismal.
PHEASANTS
Next weekend is a big one for bird hunters.
The pheasant season will open on Saturday, Oct. 10th and for the first time in ten years or so the prospects aren’t that great.
The N.D. Game and Fish Department estimates pheasant numbers in the state are down by as much as 50 percent.
The decline is, as most know by now, the result of a rough winter, something we haven’t experienced much in recent years.
However, I offer the same advice I always do in these situations.
Don’t let the forecast dampen your enthusiasm for the hunt. Get out there and find out for yourself whether there are fewer birds.
You only need three roosters to fill your bag limit anyway!
The object is to enjoy the hunting experience by being outdoors, hiking through the grass, watching the dogs work and actually hunting for the birds.
It’s not supposed to be easy, which it has been for pheasant hunters in recent years.
I even heard of some complaints over the past couple years that there were so many birds the hunt was over too quickly each day.
That might not be the case this year but it won’t matter to the dedicated pheasant hunter.
For them it’s all about the hunt.
That said, there really two kinds of pheasant hunters.
There’s the casual variety that goes out on opening weekend to take a couple of the young, naïve birds for a meal or two and that’s good enough for them.
Then you have the serious pheasant hunter that maintains a dog or two and spends a lot of time scouting and lining up hunting spots.
They like the opener too but the hunting is better later in the season when both the hunters and the row crops thin out dramatically.
Count me as an opening weekend pheasant hunter.
I don’t have a dog anymore and just about the time the pheasant hunting gets good I’ve had my fill of bird hunting and am back after big game with a bow. To each his own, I guess.
RESTRICTIONS
Nonresidents need to remember that they are not allowed to hunt on any state owned or managed land during that first week of the pheasant season.
From Oct. 10-16 nonresidents can hunt only federal or private land, regardless of what type of game they’re hunting.
Areas that are off limits to nonresidents for that first week include PLOTS acres, state Wildlife Management Areas, School Lands or any other properties owned or managed by the state.
The purpose of this restriction, which was ramrodded through the state legislature a few years back, is to give resident hunters a jump start on the season.
Most resident I’ve talked to love the rule because they can hunt with less competition on state land, at least for that first week.
It’s a popular regulation not likely to change.S.D.
PRAIRIE DOGS
If you’re into the specialized world of long-range prairie dog hunting you might be interested to know the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department is using aerial photographs to monitor prairie dog towns.
Current technology is showing approximately 622,000 acres of black-tailed prairie dog colonies distributed across 22 counties in the western reaches of the state.
That’s a decline from the 625,000 acres counted last year and of those acres, 53 percent are on non-tribal lands.
If you’d like to peruse the data you can access it online at the department website at sdfgp.com or by emailing your request to wildinfo@state.sd.us.
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