Pheasant Map Is Out

If you are interested:

https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/recreation/hunting/pheasant/prospect_map.pdf

Nice. No matter what it says I’m going to go to the exact same spot I always do but this year it’s brown!

The report eluded to “suboptimal” counting conditions. I’m thinking the dryness did not force pheasants to the roadsides during more typical years. I’ll be out regardless, and the count is OK anyway. Gonna be fun……

I like to look at the statistics, but I usually take these with a grain of salt. If you have habitat, you have birds. Drought is certainly a factor, but you only need enough moisture to get a bug hatch. Plenty of grasshoppers out there. My spot is in the “very poor” and I have seen many birds. Optimistic for another good year.

The detailed report said the conditions when they were conducting the survey impacted seeing broods since it was very dry. There was no dew so the birds didn’t head to the roads.

Crop harvest is the single biggest determination of success when I pheasant hunt. If there’s fields of corn still up, it sucks. After most of it comes down, it improves greatly. In December when there’s just a few fields of corn left, they are magnets for birds.

Keep in mind that all of the DNRs that put out these kind of surveys essentially say the numbers aren’t reliable at all and super dependent upon the conditions at the time of the survey. South Dakota stopped doing the road side counts last year for basically that reason – they said the results were not a very good representative of the current population. Granted, the surveys from recent years showed a continual decline in SD pheasant numbers which likely had a direct correlation to decreased non-resident license sales, so who knows what’s really going on.

Take these types of reports with a grain of salt.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

Keep in mind that all of the DNRs that put out these kind of surveys essentially say the numbers aren’t reliable at all and super dependent upon the conditions at the time of the survey. South Dakota stopped doing the road side counts last year for basically that reason – they said the results were not a very good representative of the current population. Granted, the surveys from recent years showed a continual decline in SD pheasant numbers which likely had a direct correlation to decreased non-resident license sales, so who knows what’s really going on.

Take these types of reports with a grain of salt.

I wonder why SD even did surveys to begin with since they release pheasants like we stock walleyes.

That map seems very accurate to me. Do not bother hunting Wright County. There are no birds here.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

South Dakota stopped doing the road side counts last year for basically that reason – they said the results were not a very good representative of the current population. Granted, the surveys from recent years showed a continual decline in SD pheasant numbers which likely had a direct correlation to decreased non-resident license sales, so who knows what’s really going on.

The reason they stopped doing it is because their population has been slowly declining, which results in less hunters coming, which reduces revenue. So essentially they were treating it as a marketing campaign. When the marketing campaign goes south, they just stopped marketing the bad news in hopes that hunters would still show up.

Pheasant numbers are terrible here in SD. Stay home and watch football.

tornadochaser wrote:

Pheasant numbers are terrible here in SD. Stay home and watch football.

No, no, no… Remember that there are none in Minnesota and you have to keep driving to South Dakota!

Our areas in Iowa look good this year. Significant increases.

One area I always hunt successfully, is always in the “very poor” category…

Where you have habitat, you have birds…. If only we could get farmers to quit mowing ditches for 6 hours on Sunday afternoons, there’d be birds everywhere!

ganderpike wrote:

Where you have habitat, you have birds…. If only we could get farmers to quit mowing ditches for 6 hours on Sunday afternoons, there’d be birds everywhere!

In 2020 state statue was passed that prohibits the mowing of ditches (except 8ft) before August 1st.

http://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/160.232

Dont read too much into these roadside counts.

We ran 6 pheasants up last night at my brother’s just walking to the pole shed. They have been heavy here.

Drought years, especially a couple/few in a row have always produced good numbers of birds in my experience.

Dog has been flushing quite a few out in the duck sloughs.