ChuckNGaleRobbins.com
Intermountain Pheasants: From Great to Gruesome in 2006
By Chuck Robbins
Over the long haul wild pheasant populations rise and fall dependant on quality habitat—or lack thereof. In the short term weather—severe winters, wet, cold springs, sudden hail storms—can wipe out a good thing in heartbeat, but given healthy habitat and lots of it, on the heels of all but the worst disasters, pheasant populations rebound quickly. To be sure, prime pheasant habitat exists on some public lands—National Wildlife Refuges, Wildlife Management Areas, Waterfowl Production Areas, etc. but the bulk of the best habitat is found on private lands. Access then, is key to enjoying consistent hunting success. In other words, no matter how many roosters this fall you need to get at them to score.
In the New West, beyond owning your own spread or paying a trespass fee, gaining access to wild roosters on private lands starts with a game plan and a lot of leg work. Strike up relationships with land owners, beg permission; knock on ranch doors, beg permission (seems to get harder each passing season). Increasingly we find land owners highly protective when it comes to roosters. You can hunt all the little chickens you want just leave my big chickens alone is an all too familiar refrain these days. In 2006, ferreting out and nurturing relationships with those landowners do allow pheasant hunting may be the most important items hunters can bring to the table.
To protect valuable resource hunters need to show landowners courtesy, appreciation and, above all, respect. Be sure to obtain written permission as required, not only is it the law but one trespass violation is often all it takes to lock gates down for good. Be sure to close all gates, ranchers have enough problems with loose livestock. If driving is allowed (and mostly these days not) stay on established roads and off wet ones. Pick up your empties; pack out not only what you pack in but also what others leave behind. Watch your line of fire, no pheasant is worth a wounded farm animal or pet, shot sprayed building or farm implement, heaven forbid, a human being. Dress appropriately; commando garb has no place in the pheasant fields. Go out of your way to thank your host, hunting private lands is a privilege not a right; make sure the landowner knows how much that privilege is appreciated. P.S. Bearing gifts is perhaps the surest way to gain a return invitation.
Another way, (and my favorite) is to get with the programs: The wonderfully successful free hunting access to private lands programs available in the three leading pheasant states: Montana’s Block Management (8.5 million acres); Idaho’s Access Yes! (1.2 million acres); and Colorado’s Walk-In-Access (160,000 acres). For example, last season in Montana alone we hunted about 25 prime private rooster spots and not one dime for access; simply park the truck, sign in, loose the dogs and go. What a bargain, don’t you agree?
So it begins with finding a spot. Next develop a hunt strategy, a plan of attack. Careful planning equates to enjoyable, successful hunts. Know your quarry. Don't equate cock birds still kicking last day with those foolish, often young of the year cocks made for such easy gunning opening morning.
Item 1: Roosters survive the initial opening weekend onslaught learn quickly and not likely to hang around for round two. Survivors prefer running to flying, so a good dog becomes a prerequisite. As hunting pressure increases survivors head for the thickest, gnarliest cover available. And they will go however far it takes, sometimes hightailing a lot farther than many of us care to walk.
Item 2: You need backup hunting ground and this requires additional study—scouting. Hunt the easy stuff first then move the operation to the nearest tough cover. This begs the question can you get on? If not keep going until you find a nasty spot allows hunting. Note also, after the furor dies, after most hunters quit to take up rifles for big game and other late season pursuits rooster often move back into the easy stuff, the CRP so productive opening weekend. Know your quarry.
Item 3: Bring a good dog, you can indeed shoot roosters without, but you will get a lot more chances with; besides good dogs make bird hunting fun, period.
Item 4: Late season roosters: fun, tough to corral, almost always require lots of leg work, challenging in the extreme--cute actually, in the foxy sense. As such we try to cram in as many late season days as possible. Typically we see roosters, often in mind boggling numbers, though shots tend to be few and far between and actual birds in the bag…Well, if the goal is meat in the freezer, best head for the nearest Safeway. This from veteran hunters armed to the teeth with savvy dogs, dogs who know roosters. So what next? Why do we go at them next day and the next… This brings us to…
Item 5: Doggedness pays off…sometimes anyway.
What follows is an overview of Rocky Mountain Region wild ringneck hunting prospects for 2006…listed best to worst, in this reporter’s somewhat biased opinion, of course.
Montana
On the heels of a devastating winter and killer spring I think you could sum up expectations prior to last season as “cautiously optimistic”—generally dry winter, decent spring, good nesting and brood rearing cover, not too harsh summer—in a nutshell, “maybe not great but okay.” And that is pretty much how it played out. We found the hunting as advertised, pretty good in some spots, okay in others, not so hot in a few—overall I’d give the 2005 Montana rooster season a B+.
Generally speaking, the heart of Montana’s accessible ringneck hunting is found in the central, north central and particularly in the northeast, Region 6. East of the Continental Divide isolated hot pockets occur in most of the major river basins, especially the Yellowstone and its tributaries in the southeast. You can hardly go wrong following the Hi-Line east from Great Falls/Shelby to the North Dakota border or poking around the Yellowstone, Tongue, Powder or Bighorn River bottoms.
When asked to speculate on the upcoming season Andrew McKean, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Region 6 I&E Officer, painted a much rosier picture than the “cautious optimism” expressed by FWP personnel last year. “Crowing counts in Region 6 are well above the long term average. Overall we experienced a fairly mild winter and so far this spring there has been fair moisture. Barring unforeseen disaster nesting and brood rearing conditions should be good. And a good carry over of adult hens should produce a good hatch and hopefully that will equate to good hunting.”
While other parts of the state experienced plenty of snow, the general consensus appears to be, “It was snowy, but not the sort of blizzards and cold devastates upland bird populations; pheasants appear to be in pretty good shape and unless we get a really bad late spring, followed by a harsh, dry summer we should be good to go come October.”
Personally, we spent a good deal of early spring in various parts of the state. Nearly everywhere we heard roosters crowing, perhaps like no spring in recent memory. Official spring crowing counts are not yet fully processed but word on the street is “lots of rooster music.” A friend who lives in the north central part the state reports, “This spring there are rooster chickens everywhere.”
Okay, I’m excited, bring…it…on.
As with elsewhere in the Rocky Mountain region, the bulk of pheasant hunting takes place on private lands but in Montana are many acres of primo habitat found on public lands: National Wildlife Refuges, Wildlife Management Areas, Waterfowl Production Areas and State School Trust Lands; Nature Conservancy Lands are other often overlooked possibilities. Map collections and GPS skills are handy items—hint, hint (relevant, by the way, not just in Montana but anywhere).
Pheasant season opens in mid-October and runs through January 1 (check current regs for exact dates). The daily limit is 3 cocks, 9 in possession. A non-resident upland bird license costs $110, plus $10 Hunting Access Enhancement Fee (applied to first license purchase of year only).
Idaho
Don Kemmer, IDFG biologist, says, “2005 might have been our best pheasant hunt in 5-10 years, I’m hopeful 2006 will be at least as good. Assuming everything falls in place maybe even better in places. In the best habitat we seem to have a good carry over of hens and the weather so far this spring has been pretty decent. While May is still way too early to accurately predict barring the disastrous untimely hail storm or an extremely cold, wet June, fall hunting should shape up nicely. One caveat: some spots experienced a fairly snowy winter, how the birds fared remains to be seen. And of course how the rest of the spring and summer plays out is anyone’s guess?”
“Another good reason for optimism,” added Kemmer, “is increased access to both private and public lands. Our Access Yes! Program has really taken off. As of May 3rd we have 630,000 private acres enrolled and another 689,000 acres private access to public lands on the docket combined more than double the acreage enrolled last year.
The best hunting is found in the Clearwater (Lewiston) and the Southwest (Boise) regions. The heart of Idaho’s CRP is found in the Bear River country in the southeast. Pheasants occur pretty much statewide; the keys are agriculture and good habitat, assuming you can get on, you should find birds.”
Pheasant season opens in October and runs through December in Management Areas 1 and 3; MA 2 closes about a month earlier. Check the current regs for exact dates; generally the bag limit is 3 cocks per day, 6 in possession but check also for exceptions. A non-resident license costs $81.75 season.
While this discourse primarily deals with the wild pheasant forecast I should mention IDFG’s popular pheasant release program at 9 Wildlife Management Areas in Southern Idaho: Fort Boise, Market Lake, Payette River, Mud Lake, Montour, Cartier Slough, C.J. Strike, Niagra Springs and Sterling. In addition to the above non-resident license a permit ($21.50) is required and allows taking 6 ringnecks total; 2 per day. Hunters may purchase multiple permits but the 2 bird per day bag limit still applies. I asked a Montana neighbor who participates for brief head’s up: “As you might expect hunting pressure is heaviest on release days and tends to dwindle toward non-existent by the end of the two week interim (between releases). We employ good dogs and usually enjoy decent hunting throughout but we work at it. In other words, there are birds out there but you might have to hike a ways to find them.”
Sounds sort of familiar, huh?
Colorado
Tyler Baskfield, CDOW Public Information Specialist, says “Based on hunter feedback we had a pretty good hunt last fall. It appears a good carry-over of adult birds following a pretty easy winter and decent spring (so far) should equate to decent hunting again this fall; that is barring the unforeseen disaster can wipe out a whole county’s hatch overnight.
Yuma County traditionally puts up the biggest harvest stats and, as you might expect the heaviest hunting pressure; followed by Phillips and Logan counties. In fact most of our pheasant hunting takes place in the northeast—proximity to the large population centers is a big reason. For my money, I would put in a little extra travel time, head to the relatively unheralded southeast—decent pheasant hunting, less competition and you’ve got quail as bonus—scalies especially but bobwhites too wherever good habitat exists in the riparian zones.”
Baskfield went on to say, “Our Walk-In Access program has been a huge success; with about 160,000 acres enrolled hunters willing to work a little can expect decent hunting throughout the season, not just opening weekend.”
East of I-25 pheasant season runs November 20-January 16; west of I-25 season closes January 2. Non-resident license costs $11 single day; $56 season.
Utah
Despite that pheasants have declined big time over the years in its heyday (the 50s and 60s) Utah ranked as a destination. Alas these days most of the chasing takes place opening weekend.
According to Dean Mitchell, UTDWR Upland Game Program Coordinator, “pheasant populations should improve slightly over last season, hopefully the increase will equate to a few more birds in the average hunter’s bag. Early spring rains throughout the state should provide decent nesting and cover and a better hatch especially in the central, northern and northeastern regions. Overall though hunting will be fair at best. Hunters should concentrate on areas of decent habitat, where habitat is lacking birds will be scarce to non-existent. In Utah “cultivated lands” and those posted “No Trespassing” require written permission to hunt. Perhaps the best thing hunters can do is to establish and nurture good relationships (well before hunting season) with landowners willing to work with our agency to improve and maintain good pheasant habitat. By the way, funds are available through the DWR Habitat Fund for habitat cost-share projects to landowners willing to participate.”
This season, in northern Utah, DWR is implementing a new three-year pilot Walk-In-Access Program. Under the new program DWR is paying private landowners to allow public hunting of pheasants. For a list of participating landowners and maps go online at: http://wildlife.utah.gov/walkinaccess/.
Non-resident small game license costs $45.00 and generally the season runs the month of November but there are exceptions so be sure to check the current regs.
Nevada
Nevada pheasants are pretty much restricted to the Western Region. The latest harvest figures (2004) show 357 hunters bagged 635 birds; Humboldt County accounted for 54 %. This represented the lowest kill since 1994, down from 2003 and off about 30 % from the 10 year average. That staff biologists are quick to change the conversation to chukars and quail about says it all.
New Mexico
New Mexico holds a four day general season and several single-day permit only hunts, which also about says it all. But I wanted to hear from the “horse’s mouth” so…The biologist on the phone put things in perspective in a hurry, “Pheasants, in New Mexico, you gotta be kiddin’; quail we got, pheasants we don’t got, that answer your question.”
Right on.
Arizona
Despite numerous attempts to establish wild pheasant populations, the gaudy aliens remain a specialty game bird in Arizona. Hunting is allowed with falcons on a limited permit basis and with bow and arrow. With the cessation of the experimental pheasant program in 1973, hunter numbers have never exceeded 100 in any given year and the annual harvest has been less than 50 birds…and “50” is not a typo.
Agency websites: Arizona: www.gf.state.az.us/ Colorado:
http://wildlife.state.co.us/ Idaho: http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/. Montana: http://fwp.mt.gov/. Wyoming: http://gf.state.wy.us/. Nevada: http://www.ndow.org/ Utah: http://www.wildlife.utah.gov. New Mexico: http://www.wildlife.utah.gov/.