I saw the release and was very skeptical of the "didn't harm them one bit". Even in the easiest of winters, pheasants die. Some just aren't equipped to handle the cold/snow and the challenges that come with it. Even in the toughest of winters, some make it through. I'm in Watertown and hunt this area pretty much exclusively. I often reference 1996/1997 as the winter was horrific and was followed up by a rowdy stretch of cold and rain that hurt the pheasants who had survived the 80+ inches of snow with the wind and the cold. The following fall was the worst I'd seen in my life. Opening day had us flushing a hen. But it was less than 10 years later when we hit a peak where pheasants looked like locusts. They are resilient and in the scheme of things, a lot of places desperately needed the moisture this past winter provided.
Our 2022/2023 winter was softer than Aberdeens, as well as west and south of us. We didn't have as much snow and the first storm had ice that actually created a canopy on the cattails that held up until the end of February. More impoartantly, we have some folks doing really great habitat work and if there was a large cattail slough (25+ acres, IMO is large) and a reliable food source, pheasants within 5 miles found it. Again, not all, but a lot. But there was a strong number of pheasants that survived the winter.
Two things I noticed in late winter - the first would be the vehicle mortality. With grit and food sources blanketed, more pheasants went to the side of the highways to get what they needed and this translated into more fatalities than I normally notice. At the same time, where I saw dead pheasants, I saw 10x as many live birds. Again, some just don't handle it right, some are smart enough to get out of the way or at least not flush into oncoming traffic. Second, the roosters seemed to fare better than the hens. Which will provide some nice hunting this fall based on those survivors alone. I'm going to pick on some people here, but the western MN folks need to get their butts out and fill the vest with roosters. On a sales route in that area at the end of January, I saw so many birds, but I'll bet it was 2:1 pheasants to hens. Do better, ya lakers.
The big takeaway is that while we did have a hard winter that did take some pheasants, there is still a decent number around. Going on a 1-10 scale, my area was at a 7 to 7.5 this past fall and I'd guess the winter dropped it to a 5.5. But with average brood rearing conditions, I'm reasonably confident that our population will get back to a 6.5 or 7 in October. And as A5 mentioned, knowing where and when to place yourself and a dog that knows how to find pheasants is going to have a much greater impact in most years, rather than the overall population of pheasants. This report is as anecdotal as it gets and is hyperlocal, so your mileage may vary.
. I'm in mushroom mode. At least in my 40 years I learned pheasant aren't prey to possums. They can usually get in & out of snow just fine. They don't have "multiple hatches". And they move around. I seen lots of trees with 10 feet or more of drifts. Phez still used them trees, they were just 10 feet off the ground. Lots right around farm houses where they could also get food maybe. Still cover there unles the trees were really short. If not guess what they did. Starts with m.