Last year, North Dakota pheasant hunters bagged about
327,000 roosters, which was a bit higher than the annual harvest in 2017.
Starting Saturday, Oct. 12, hunters can begin the 2019
version of the state’s pheasant season, and if preseason predictions pan out,
the numbers might just go up again.
State
Game and Fish Department upland game biologist R.J. Gross said recently that the
agency’s late summer upland game brood survey indicates total pheasants
observed statewide were up 10% from last year. In addition, the number of
pheasant broods observed was up 17%.
“This was the first year in a while that we’ve
had good residual cover to start the year, and good weather for nesting and
brood-rearing,” Gross said.
The
survey covers more than 100 different 20-mile routes spread throughout the
state. “They’re
roughly 20 miles long,” Gross said in a recent edition of the Game and
Fish Department’s webcast, Outdoors Online. “This
year we did 275 routes, so it’s a little over 5,000 miles, so we are definitely
put the boots to the ground out there.”
Statistics
from the northwestern part of the state indicate pheasant numbers are up 49% from
last year, with broods up 75%. Since the drought of
2017, which was statewide and affected pheasant numbers everywhere, Gross said,
the northwest has had a very good increase, actually the last 2 years.
It’s pretty much the same scenario in
the southeastern part of the state as well. Results from the southeast indicate
bird numbers are up 32% from last year, and the number of broods was up 27%. Production has been very good
down there the last two years, Gross said. “So, I think pheasant hunters in the
southeast are going to be pleasantly surprised this year.”
In
the southwest, total pheasants were down 7% and broods observed up 2% from
2018.
“The southwest, which is traditionally where everyone
wants to go, still has the most pheasants,” Gross said, “but it was also hit
hardest by the drought in 2017. We saw more broods there this year, just a
slight increase, and then just a slight decrease in the number of pheasants per
100 miles. Where we saw broods and pheasants, we saw a lot of them.”
That may be common theme elsewhere in the state as
well, as Gross said many places that already have pheasants will likely have a
few more this year. What surveys the last few years have not shown is pheasant
range expansion. “They’re just not spreading out to the marginal habitats like
they used to,” Gross said
As
you take the field this fall, understand there is variability from region to region
and county to county. Your favorite pheasant field may produce a few more birds,
or perhaps your walks won’t be as productive as you expected.
Either
way, it’s still pheasant season, a time that avid bird hunters anticipate
year-round. And it doesn’t close until Jan. 5, 2020.
Stay
safe and have a great time in North Dakota’s outdoors.
