Fort Peck Reservation season being shortened?
- Thread starter calamari
- Start date
mnmthunting
Banned
What season? Pheasants, upland?
Haven't heard, pheasants makes no sense because it's a rooster harvest only.
Grouse and huns maybe would settle birds down a bit before Winter.
I have heard that pheasants and upland numbers are very low throughout eastern Montana.
Haven't heard, pheasants makes no sense because it's a rooster harvest only.
Grouse and huns maybe would settle birds down a bit before Winter.
I have heard that pheasants and upland numbers are very low throughout eastern Montana.
mnmthunting
Banned
They have a update at the MT Fish, Wildlife and Parks web site. Click hunting then upland gamebird outlook.
Couldn't come up with anything but bad news.
Couldn't come up with anything but bad news.
mnmthunting, you're right, my post wasn't specific enough. I was talking about pheasants. You're right again about not needing many males to maintain the population but if the overall population is hit hard by winter kill, the further reduction of birds through hunting may become an issue.
There's something going on in wild bird populations here in Calif. as they haven't rebounded from the slump we're experiencing and we don't have winter kill of adults to worry about in the Central Valley. We have cover on the public areas that is often too good to hunt effectively. Smartweed, for example, higher than your head and that you can't walk through. Wet and damp areas put in specifically for upland birds, but no wild bird production. I helped with brood counts on a state wildlife area last week and they are comparable to last year which was as bad as they've ever been in memory on that site. Nobody seems able to put their finger on what our problem is.
Montana DFWP plants a lot of birds in parts of the state where Calif. doesn't have a similar program. That would help with winter kill impacts. I don't know if Ft. Peck plants. I tend to doubt it.
This is probably just the usual before the season angst about the bread landing jelly side down and it won't be any fun hunting. Just paranoia.
There's something going on in wild bird populations here in Calif. as they haven't rebounded from the slump we're experiencing and we don't have winter kill of adults to worry about in the Central Valley. We have cover on the public areas that is often too good to hunt effectively. Smartweed, for example, higher than your head and that you can't walk through. Wet and damp areas put in specifically for upland birds, but no wild bird production. I helped with brood counts on a state wildlife area last week and they are comparable to last year which was as bad as they've ever been in memory on that site. Nobody seems able to put their finger on what our problem is.
Montana DFWP plants a lot of birds in parts of the state where Calif. doesn't have a similar program. That would help with winter kill impacts. I don't know if Ft. Peck plants. I tend to doubt it.
This is probably just the usual before the season angst about the bread landing jelly side down and it won't be any fun hunting. Just paranoia.
mnmthunting
Banned
Calamari, I always find it interesting how so many places in the "48's" that have no situation with "Winter Kill", Spring storms interrupting nesting etc. SO why don't pheasants thrive?
Tell you WHAT!! Predation you think!!!
Tell you WHAT!! Predation you think!!!
California is a strange situation in that generally pheasants are either on one of two types of lands, public and private. Intensely farmed private land like rice fields or upland orchards, pastures and private duck clubs but, generally, there isn't much nesting habitat for upland birds on rice operations. The checks are all that there is with the rest flooded. This makes it easy for the few predators in those areas to just walk the bank and vacuum up a lot of the nests.
The public lands are state and federal wild life areas that tend to be wetlands and uplands with some crops planted for use by all birds. There is good nesting cover and low predator numbers on some of the best places but pheasant numbers remain low. There aren't huge expanses of dry grain fields and natural cover subject to low hunting pressure while still having public access like in Montana. That's a huge generalization about the differences but it's close.
Although winter kill of adults isn't a problem, spring rain and following cold snaps can kill chicks and ruin nesting success. Conversely, not having enough moisture in the spring puts stress on the chicks in their initial days and weeks by not having enough invertebrates to eat and water to drink. Some area managers plant some grain and think that will be all that's needed since pheasants do so well in the grain states while our local mosquito abatement districts are spraying and killing everything that chicks need to grow before they can shift to the grain that's planted.
One 10,000 acre state wildlife area, Gray Lodge, shot a little over 300 pheasants last year with a 5 week season. In the mid 1990s the same area shot 1,700 roosters with a 3 week season. Nothing has changed on the area except a huge increase in mosquito abatement and raiding of the area's budget by the abatement districts to pay for the spraying while exempting the adjoining rice fields. Statewide however, pheasants are in a deep down cycle and nobody seems to have a reason why except maybe the spraying and clean farming practices.
The public lands are state and federal wild life areas that tend to be wetlands and uplands with some crops planted for use by all birds. There is good nesting cover and low predator numbers on some of the best places but pheasant numbers remain low. There aren't huge expanses of dry grain fields and natural cover subject to low hunting pressure while still having public access like in Montana. That's a huge generalization about the differences but it's close.
Although winter kill of adults isn't a problem, spring rain and following cold snaps can kill chicks and ruin nesting success. Conversely, not having enough moisture in the spring puts stress on the chicks in their initial days and weeks by not having enough invertebrates to eat and water to drink. Some area managers plant some grain and think that will be all that's needed since pheasants do so well in the grain states while our local mosquito abatement districts are spraying and killing everything that chicks need to grow before they can shift to the grain that's planted.
One 10,000 acre state wildlife area, Gray Lodge, shot a little over 300 pheasants last year with a 5 week season. In the mid 1990s the same area shot 1,700 roosters with a 3 week season. Nothing has changed on the area except a huge increase in mosquito abatement and raiding of the area's budget by the abatement districts to pay for the spraying while exempting the adjoining rice fields. Statewide however, pheasants are in a deep down cycle and nobody seems to have a reason why except maybe the spraying and clean farming practices.
mnmthunting
Banned
You explained it very well, thanks.
bobeyerite
New member
Wayne and Calamari, you raise a point that is really a sore subject. Bug Spraying. Pheasant Chicks and other small upland birds rely on bugs for food. Kill off the bugs, you kill the food supply. Also the spray, some will say it will kill the chicks, when they eat the bugs. A lot of upland people claim this is a major factor in the decline of the mature birds..........Bob
The issue of killing invertebrates is a sore subject with me too. Sorry for the poor pun but our world is increasingly made up of people who can be stampeded and frightened by non-existent boogy men. In Calif. it's West Nile Virus that drives the abatement districts creation and mission.
West Nile in a human population seems to peak and then an immunity develops so that serious cases decline and eventually a lot of money and effort is expended on destroying links in wildlife's food chain for little benefit to humans and great detriment to birds. The abatement district in my county gets one million dollars a year and this year so far there has been one sick bird found and no human cases. I've yet to see them actually do anything except have flocks of chickens they monitor for disease and hand out Gambusia to put in ponds. They spray the heck out of the water areas in the western part of my county where pheasants are however. They said they would control Hantavirus when the district was formed and expanded to cover the National Forests that make up the Eastern part of my county. It is to laugh.
Just an aside, I've seen and heard very few coyotes in rice country, no foxes a fair number of skunks. Clean farming affects large predators too. The major predator that I think affect pheasant populations are rats. Their population seems to be high right now while during the good pheasant years you saw very few of them on the road. When rat populations were high my hunting partner would often try to shoot them with a pellet pistol out his window on the drive out to the hunt. I've had ducks hanging from a mirror 4 feet off the ground eaten by rats over night while we slept. They wouldn't eat all of the bird but head and breast were pretty much gone.
West Nile in a human population seems to peak and then an immunity develops so that serious cases decline and eventually a lot of money and effort is expended on destroying links in wildlife's food chain for little benefit to humans and great detriment to birds. The abatement district in my county gets one million dollars a year and this year so far there has been one sick bird found and no human cases. I've yet to see them actually do anything except have flocks of chickens they monitor for disease and hand out Gambusia to put in ponds. They spray the heck out of the water areas in the western part of my county where pheasants are however. They said they would control Hantavirus when the district was formed and expanded to cover the National Forests that make up the Eastern part of my county. It is to laugh.
Just an aside, I've seen and heard very few coyotes in rice country, no foxes a fair number of skunks. Clean farming affects large predators too. The major predator that I think affect pheasant populations are rats. Their population seems to be high right now while during the good pheasant years you saw very few of them on the road. When rat populations were high my hunting partner would often try to shoot them with a pellet pistol out his window on the drive out to the hunt. I've had ducks hanging from a mirror 4 feet off the ground eaten by rats over night while we slept. They wouldn't eat all of the bird but head and breast were pretty much gone.
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