From the Aberdeen coaltion

I guess I care about bird numbers, as we put time and effort into keeping them as strong as possible. Not sure why any hunter or conversationist would not care. South Dakota had very severe weather in January. Some spots were obviously hit harder than others. Pheasant numbers in our area, which is considered among the best in our state, are down and it will likely take years for them to rebound. We didn't go from an "8" to a "7". I'd estimate it to be more of a "6" to a "2" situation. We've been though some tough years with our birds and had just begun to see some progress. Discouraging to see this setback.

I truly hope I'm proven wrong......
 
Report from Redfield farmer was estimated at 1500 birds on the 6,000 acre farm along the James River in early winter where they were feeding. Spring floods pushed them all out of the cattails where they over-wintered and the count was at about 500, of which 100 were hens. Fields cleared out around the same time and they could get at leftover harvest loss so they should make it all through. Average winterkill ranges from 1/3 to 2/3 so they were likely on the high end but 100 hens with broods of 10-12 can bring those numbers right back up.
 
Bird numbers? Who cares. I never hunted SD in the glory days but have always had pretty good luck the last few years. I’ve had amazing hunts and have had crap ones. I think it’s comical what people consider low numbers. The family farm in Central IA in the late 90s was a 9 or 10 for hunting. Now a 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-10. those are low bird numbers. 10 years ago my dad would say he never saw a bird all year. I take reports and opinion like a weather man, if he’s wrong it don’t matter but if he’s right, he’s a genius! So if numbers were an 8 last year but drop to a 7 I’ll take that all day. So if I have great spots to hunt and you have crap, causing me to have success and you don’t. Are the numbers down?
Great attitude..
 
Not sure why any hunter or conversationist would not care. South Dakota had very severe weather in January. Some spots were obviously hit harder than others.
Not trying to speak for others, but I think most hunters on this board care about bird numbers and the general health of the land and its wildlife. The distinction I see is that when it comes fall and hunting opens, then a lot of guys that live for pheasant hunting "don't care" about bird numbers, meaning that regardless of the forecasts and the scouting they are going to hit the fields and give it the old college try.
Pheasant numbers in our area, which is considered among the best in our state, are down and it will likely take years for them to rebound.
If there's good habitat around and it's a good hatch this year you might be pleasantly surprised. I've gotten good reports from two very different corners of MN, and we had record snowfall and blizzards here too. I've got my fingers crossed for you, hoping for goldilocks conditions the rest of the spring and summer. Thanks for working on wildlife habitat and doing what you can for Mr. and Mrs. pheasant.
 
I think some of us miss the bigger picture here too. How much pheasant habitat was in severe or extreme drought status heading into fall last year? I would venture the majority of it was, and some area still are (Kansas, looking at you). Yes, record snowfall this past winter did not help pheasant mortality. But in the long run, if it helps alleviate some of this terrible drought, there is a silver lining.

Pheasant numbers are a bit of a moot point if there's extreme drought. They can't live in the dust.
 
So if I have great spots to hunt and you have crap, causing me to have success and you don’t. Are the numbers down?
Kind of depends where you advertise your success. If it's on here, typically guys take several factors into account. If it's in a facebook group, obviously numbers are WAY down (in SD, mostly because they stopped the brood count survey), & you were shooting pen-reared pheasants. If you shot those flare nares in SD, the Governor herself released them to make up for the failure of "her" nest predator program to adequately destroy the state's coon & skunk populations. Whatever the reasons for success/failure may be, it couldn't have had anything to do with the crazy notion that some folks are able to find, hunt, & shoot wild pheasants more effectively than others. Facebook is funny that way.
 
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I live in Aberdeen. The pheasant numbers are going to be down. I saw wind rows of dead pheasants from the snow plow in areas.
Must've been by where they release a whole bunch for out of staters from PencilVeinya or Wisc. Wild ones don't just stand there and let a plow or anything else just mow em down. One hear or there might not make it but a hole bunch aren't going to all die. And I noticed that where there's danger pheasants learn & avoid the danger next time.
 
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 sure hope you're right. Our creek cattails were completely buried under several feet of snow, with a hard crust on top that sealed everything below. Any birds that initially managed to survive underneath would have been easy prey for the skunks, coons, and possums that our governor hoped to reduce. There were very few spots in our three-quarters-of-a-mile of creek where birds would have been able to get out from under the crusted snow, or crawl back into it for cover after feeding somewhere. Area shelterbelts were drifted in from 6-10 feet deep. The snow remained in place for months, with very little ground exposed enough to provide access to feed. I'd like to be more optimistic, but other locals seem to agree that the situation was close to catastrophic.

It's true that with good conditions, we could get good production out of any survivors, but in our case it will require perfect weather and multiple hatches to approach anywhere near the number of birds we had prior to the blizzard. I've hunted this same area for around forty years, with a succession of solid dogs, and have experienced incredible highs and discouraging lows. When the birds just aren't there, even legendary hunters with infallible dogs are unable to make them appear.
 
As has probably been mentioned already, a winter like ‘96/97 took its toll, and the birds recovered over time, but CRP was still in existence in significant #’s in those 3,5,7 years after that terrible winter. Not so much today…harder to bounce back as quickly…maybe not. Fingers crossed. 🤞
 
Must've been by where they release a whole bunch for out of staters from PencilVeinya or Wisc. Wild ones don't just stand there and let a plow or anything else just mow em down. One hear or there might not make it but a hole bunch aren't going to all die. And I noticed that where there's danger pheasants learn & avoid the danger next time.
From February to April the only place any pheasant, wild or released were located was on the roads. That was the only place they could get something to eat. Everyday I came by for work and their numbers slowly but surely were less every day. They were just dying from exposure on the roads and some were getting hit by vehicles. We lost a lot of pheasants. I am sure places like Sand Lake will be fine because of the abundance of cattails but those birds that were forced to the roads because of lake of habitat didn’t make it.
 
From February to April the only place any pheasant, wild or released were located was on the roads. That was the only place they could get something to eat. Everyday I came by for work and their numbers slowly but surely were less every day. They were just dying from exposure on the roads and some were getting hit by vehicles. We lost a lot of pheasants. I am sure places like Sand Lake will be fine because of the abundance of cattails but those birds that were forced to the roads because of lake of habitat didn’t make it.
Those that aren't/weren't here probably have a hard time visualizing just how bad it was. As many know I am very active in our local pf chapter and I had many people tell me they were only seeing birds on or near the roads and their #'s were diminishing.

Our chapter gave some $ to a farmer who plowed over 2 miles of cornfield so the birds to get at the ground. Those plowed strips were full of deer , turkey , and pheasants.
 
I sure hope you're right. Our creek cattails were completely buried under several feet of snow, with a hard crust on top that sealed everything below. Any birds that initially managed to survive underneath would have been easy prey for the skunks, coons, and possums that our governor hoped to reduce. There were very few spots in our three-quarters-of-a-mile of creek where birds would have been able to get out from under the crusted snow, or crawl back into it for cover after feeding somewhere. Area shelterbelts were drifted in from 6-10 feet deep. The snow remained in place for months, with very little ground exposed enough to provide access to feed. I'd like to be more optimistic, but other locals seem to agree that the situation was close to catastrophic.

It's true that with good conditions, we could get good production out of any survivors, but in our case it will require perfect weather and multiple hatches to approach anywhere near the number of birds we had prior to the blizzard. I've hunted this same area for around forty years, with a succession of solid dogs, and have experienced incredible highs and discouraging lows. When the birds just aren't there, even legendary hunters with infallible dogs are unable to make them appear.

Dam thats crazy. I didn't know that possums and skunks and coons were hunting adult pheasants too. I thought they were just goig after the eggs and nests.
 
WT actual F? Sorry Charlie this is getting rediculous. Only way a wild one is dying from exposure on the shoulder of a road is if he exposed to the grill of a truck. And you're right Smasher, no a possum or coon isn't hunting & eating no adult rooster under no canopy of snow. Neither is multiple hatches goign to help make up for a bad winter. Know why, cause once a hen fez has 1 hatch she's done. She don't hatch more than 1 brood ever. And now we have pheasants that can't find a way in & out of a snowy cattails. If theres cover to be had a pheasant will find his way into it. Yea we had a bad winter, more pheasants died, starved, froze, got smacked by cars. But how many time do we have to here there was 50 of them around 1 day & a few days later there was none. If theres no place to stay warm or no food they dont just sit around and all of a sudden POOF! they're gone. They move someplace else to try to find shelter and food and then its no big suprise why you don't see them no more where you saw them. He can find 25 kernels of corn scattered around a quarter section under a foot of snow. you don't think he can find other slews or shelter belt someplace 5, 10, 20 miles away? He will sure try, if he can't find it "then" he might die. Morel of the story is they dont stay put waiting to die.
 
My gut says as always it will vary greatly based on localized events. So far three different contacts of mine in a pretty wide area have said birds appeared to make it just fine and one went as far as to say awesome when asked what bird numbers looked like now that they have been out farming for a few weeks. Doesn’t mean they are right or wrong but it makes me feel a little better than if they had said numbers sucked. Either way fingers crossed for great nesting conditions across all of the upland states. 🤞🤞
 
So sue me, 🤡. 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.
 
I'm sure you seen aplenty, some of it while in mushroom mode. Unfortunately, you didn't see our ground, and I'm not sure you even live in the state, or experienced the blizzard.

This was a once-in-a-decade type of storm. It lasted four days. Winds up to fifty miles per hour. Over two feet of snow in many spots. The cattail-choked creek that runs through our ground harbors the majority of our birds. It's about ten feet lower than the adjacent fields. After the blizzard, it was impossible to see where the creek was, as it was completely buried. Not powder, but drifts with a hard crust. The several feet of snow over the top of the cattails remained there for over a month. Few if any open spots for birds to get in or out. Any birds that tried to ride the storm out under that canopy were vulnerable to the variety of predators slinking around down there with them, particularly after not feeding for four or more days and being weak as hell. We found dead birds laying near the snowed-in shelterbelts, and before you start with the "them was planted burds!" stuff, understand that we don't release any. Obviously, some survived the blizzard, hopefully many, but I'm a little doubtful they'd then have had enough juice left to fly twenty miles to locate better cover. Particularly when it was unlikely, given the scope of the storm, that things were much better elsewhere. The surrounding area consists of harvested or plowed fields buried in snow, and a few shelterbelts that were also snowed-in. Those birds didn't have many places to go, and their opportunities to feed were few and far between. Guess what a "hole" bunch of them did? Starts with d.

One of the friends I referred to farms 5500 acres, around thirty miles north of us. He, too, found dead birds after the storm, and watched hawks and eagles taking out survivors who were out on the snow-covered fields searching for food. He reports that he isn't seeing many birds this spring while out planting. But then again, he's only been farming there for sixty years and may not be familiar with the morel of the story.

Also, I'm aware that hens rarely have more than one brood, unless the first nest is destroyed early on. I was sarcastic when I said we'd need multiple hatches in order to restore our numbers to anywhere near last year's. I see now that I should have explained that in order to avoid causing you distress.

We lost a lot of pheasants in our area. I'm confident that plenty made it through. Hopefully more than it appears at this point, but it's hard to believe that our numbers next fall won't be impacted by the storm.
 
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