It's BAD!!!

K

KansasGsp

Active member
Didn't come out to SW Kansas Opening Day, so this Christmas break is the first time I've been here this year. Got out here Wed, ate a quick lunch and set out with the dog to see what we could find. The cover looks good, hunted the same private ground we're in years past seeing 100 plus pheasants in a half day was the norm. Walked for 3 hours and didn't see a single bird! Got up and went out Thursday for 2 hours and same story. Got to the point where I wasn't going to shoot one if I did see one but just wanted to hunt to see one. Been driving around shooting coyotes and still never seen a bird out here until about an hour ago and I seen one hen behind the feed yard. I knew it was going to be bad, but I had no idea it was this bad. I'm not sure it can recover, there's no birds for seed. It's sad because Christmas break was always my favorite time as I got 5 days to pheasant hunt in SW Kansas on private ground. Now, I'm stuck to chasing coyotes around and I think my dog is ready to bite me.
 
It's about that bad in NW too.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure what the coyotes are eating. I knew it was this bad, but most people just can't bring themselves to believe it. My buddy from NC had to make that trip 1 day. He didn't see anything either. In the life of dogs, this is a disaster. It's sad for any kids or older folks that missing a year so greatly affects! The high comodity prices will exacerbate it as well. Folks losing money on the land will want to milk it for what they can get. That will leave little for our game animals to live on. The overgrazing as far east as me will affect production of both birds and beef for the next decade. We hadn't recovered from the drought in the 90's yet! Some of those pastures here look like they belong in Atwood. The bluestems are nearly gone, replaced by blue gramma and buffalo grass. Despite that, they are still stocking like big bluestem was the dominant species. Vicious cycle!!!
 
Prairie Drifter do you think the pheasant populations will ever fully recover or do you think we will go the way Iowa has?
 
I guess you have to keep in mind just how the habitat has changed. A lot of the CRP has come out and more is going out as time passes. We can't expect the population to equal what it was in the best of cover when there was more of it. However, where there is proper cover in good condition, we should be able to expect a recovery that will fill that cover. It may be as good as it ever was, but not on as wide an extent. A lot depends upon the ag economy and farm program. Our game populations are somewhat dependant upon those. They are often a byproduct of what is going on in the way of production agriculture. We need to keep educating folks on why we had CRP in the first place. Unfortunately, when the comodity prices rise, the profitability of those marginal acres increases and it may again make sense to farm those acres. Again, unfortunately, folks that break out those acres may get hit by that decision when the economics goes out of it and they will once again be farming those acres at a loss. Oh for a crystal ball:)
 
I think you will get a rebound, if Mother Nature cooperates. One thing that troubles me is that I think Soybeans will be the next commodity In the world market to gain momentum. That would be a disaster in itself, but couple with a continuation of the drought and CRP losses it could spell disaster for upland birds. Oklahoma saw a good boom this year in recruitment numbers on Quail, after devastating drought condition over four years. Again Mother Nature holds the critical key IMHO. Over grazing is still problematic, I would have thought that lesson would have been learned by now. I imagine a few of the old-timers are Rollin in their graves seeing how far we have over-cropped and over-grazed the prairie lands.
 
Soybean boom is already here! Good news, ( I guess), they are produced in wide varieties of climate. In the U.S. we thought of soybeans as a southeastern crop, into the 60's, It was news when we saw soybeans in SE Kansas. Now all the way up to Minnesota, et.al. Small grains and 4 row equipment was the key. The "advances ", in agriculture, fescue pasture, burning the native prairie EVERY year, more soybeans, with corn as THE alternative crop, less wheat, no strip row farming on the great plains. It came on fast, faster than I thought it could. Without some change in the current flavor of agricultural business plans, it might I be impossible. I remember driving through Illinois, in February of 1973, from St. Louis to Chicago. It was plowed ground everywhere, I could believe a sparrow could survive there. But here we are, and there are wild pheasants being seen, raised, and harvested. Not like 1960 Wheatland, Ill., where a guy could get permission in a short ride of the loop and have a good chance to get a limit. We lost by a series of minor cuts, hedgerow here, plowed prairie there, discontinued milo cropping. We probably need to adjust our expectations to retrieve it with small steps to recover what we lost, and less expansive expectations of the harvest. I doubt most of us will see it happen, without a massive intersession of a government program. We had that, Soil Bank, and CRP. It's possible, but the truth is we had false security, CRP and Soil Bank, masked the continuing habitat destruction. Had a conversation today, with a customer farmer, he apologized that he didn't have time to bulldoze out a marshy spot to get an acre more of production. I told him why I think it's important to leave it! Maybe I won. it's a couple of acres, I'll lease it and keep it till the urge is gone! Always a covey of quail there, and a few pheasants, safe for the winter, better than double on a solid point. We all start out hunting later become conversationalist!
 
Quite frankly I am concerned that they won't come back. Back in the mid 80's we thought that the quail would bounce right back in southeast Kansas and they simply disappeared all together. Conservation has taken a back seat. All forms of hunting have become commercialized and gov't has given up on conservation. The CRP program is weak and milo has disappeared in favor of corn. I don't think that the pheasant population will comeback at all if left up to only the pheasants. It is going to take a huge CRP program and a whole different way of farming. Something that our legislation will not do.
 
some birds

first the sort of good news sort of. the past couple of days, the turkey won. i did get in two hours with the mutts on fri., hunted two places, saw 12 birds, shot two. about equal hens and roosters. sat. after the no show turkey's i got in another 4 hours keeping up with my no hokum dogs. shot two more birds and missed 3 straight. i was 4 for 4 in the bag. wind really picked up so that's the excuse. saw about 30 birds, about 2/3 were roosters. all total, i hunted parts of 4 fields and saw birds in every field, two of which had at least a doz. birds each. it is more work finding a field to hunt that has cover than finding the birds. the birds were behaving quite well, so much for late season wild stuff. what is depressing is the lack of cover and the plowed fields. sometimes i could drive for several miles and not even see mouse cover. winter wheat looked pretty poor to me also. folks, i believe that for many of us and for the dogs we now have, the best of what we have seen in at least colorado and kansas is over. there are just too many things that have to change in the next 5 to 10 years in order to see a significant rebound and none of the necessary changes are even in the works, more moisture would certainly help but then the weeds would still need some place to grow and those places are also disappearing and rapidly. another result of this will be, and you can see it with the guys on this forum, that is you have quit hunting or nearly so. that bodes poorly as we need the security of numbers and the voices they give. it also means fewer kids and eventually it will mean that we get run over by everybody else. anyway, i had a pretty great parts of two days in the field and did see enough pheasants to be enjoyable and my dogs are now fast asleep dreaming of next week when they can go again, ya see, they just want to go and don't seem unhappy when we don't get anything, they do seem to give me a funny look when i can't hit anything, other than that they are happy and we should be also

cheers
 
Yeah I definitely picked a tough year to start a bird dog. We have been out to NC Kansas 4 times and saw one. And that was while we were driving in. No birds makes it tough on a first year bird dog. Theres one covey of quail I know of but it is a small covey and I dont want to shoot it up.
 
I just returned from out west. What PD describes is precisely what I've witnessed over the past 15 years in this particular area. In the days when we shot limits of birds, there was a bit of CRP on every section it seemed. Every year another field or 2 would be plowed under, but I always thought new ones would replace them in time. That hasn't happened yet.

My boy knows we used to fill tailgates with limits of birds in the same area that we were in this w/e. Of course he wishes it were that good again, so he was asking questions on the way out. Upon arrival we went to the last remaining private CRP patch I had permission to, only to find it a "parking lot" as PD would say. The entire half section was flat.

We drove from one place to the next where the CRP had been removed. There are areas there now where you can drive for 10 miles and not see any cover big enough to poke through 8" of snow.

It is bad. We could be in trouble.
 
kansasbrittany said:
I just returned from out west. What PD describes is precisely what I've witnessed over the past 15 years in this particular area. In the days when we shot limits of birds, there was a bit of CRP on every section it seemed. Every year another field or 2 would be plowed under, but I always thought new ones would replace them in time. That hasn't happened yet.

My boy knows we used to fill tailgates with limits of birds in the same area that we were in this w/e. Of course he wishes it were that good again, so he was asking questions on the way out. Upon arrival we went to the last remaining private CRP patch I had permission to, only to find it a "parking lot" as PD would say. The entire half section was flat.

We drove from one place to the next where the CRP had been removed. There are areas there now where you can drive for 10 miles and not see any cover big enough to poke through 8" of snow.

It is bad. We could be in trouble.
Click to expand...

KB Thats the worst news I have ever heard. I watched the same thing happen is Colorado near Holyoke, and in Nebraska near the pan handle. I hate it. Its very hard to get kids these days off the computer and games and out in the fields to hunt. If they do go and see nothing, Its no fun, and they don't want to go he next time.

The crp is gone and the birds with it. What ever happened to the farmer who cared more about the land then.....
 
jmac said:
KB Thats the worst news I have ever heard. I watched the same thing happen is Colorado near Holyoke, and in Nebraska near the pan handle. I hate it. Its very hard to get kids these days off the computer and games and out in the fields to hunt. If they do go and see nothing, Its no fun, and they don't want to go he next time.

The crp is gone and the birds with it. What ever happened to the farmer who cared more about the land then.....
Click to expand...

I don't think we can blame it on the farmer. When president Clinton took office, CRP started being plowed under like no other. Then we get the Bush's and we gain CRP again. In comes Obama and guess what. We need a farm bill. We have to encourage farmers to plant CRP with a wealthy return.
 
westksbowhunter said:
I don't think we can blame it on the farmer. When president Clinton took office, CRP started being plowed under like no other. Then we get the Bush's and we gain CRP again. In comes Obama and guess what. We need a farm bill. We have to encourage farmers to plant CRP with a wealthy return.
Click to expand...

My 2 cents.
If the State of Kansas cared as much about birds as they do deer,then we would have more grasslands.
Deer hunting generates a lot of revenue for the state.
Until someone figures out how to make bird hunting a profitable venture for the state, it will always be second fiddle to our four legged friend.
Again, my 2 cents, which is only worth 1.5 these days.
:cheers:
 
gsh lover said:
My 2 cents.
If the State of Kansas cared as much about birds as they do deer,then we would have more grasslands.
Deer hunting generates a lot of revenue for the state.
Until someone figures out how to make bird hunting a profitable venture for the state, it will always be second fiddle to our four legged friend.
Again, my 2 cents, which is only worth 1.5 these days.
:cheers:
Click to expand...

I guess you lost me gsh. 99% of Kansas is in private hands and the State has little impact there, has to be voluntary. Farm program influences are Federal programs, not State, and they have HAD significant impacts through CRP, crop incentives, etc. I get your bent, but the reason deer are big and birds aren't is partly due to demand and partly due to the wider adaptive niche deer have over upland birds. Much of what was once quail habitat is now not. Woody expansion and fescue among other things have trended those acres out of the bobwhites adaptive range. We do have a few quail focus areas with more being discussed. Unfortunately, pheasants are at the whim and will of the ag program.
 
like I said, my 2 cents worth.
I realize that land ownership is mostly private, but the State CAN use our hard earned money to help promote farming practices that will keep cover in the fields. IF we can get the cover back, then the quail and phez will come back.
There are plenty of seed stock out there, even if we have to bring wild birds from out of state.
But, this conversation is mute if we cannot get the proper habitat back.
It sadden me to see the phez go the way of the quail. I am looking forward to taking my grand kids out west on their first hunt.(and I don't even have any yet)
PD, your one of the most knowledgeable guys on this site, and I, along with others respect your opinions.
But,(there's always a butt), I still feel that the State can do something, and IF upland hunting brought in as much revenue as Big Game did, they would.

:cheers:
 
GSH, we have biologists across that state and PF/QF also have biologists across the state who's entire job is to help any landowner with those projects. However, at the present time landowners are farming every available acre to take advantage of the inflated value of corn, soybeans, and wheat. It's not that we don't want to help, it's that the landowners have to want to make it a priority. Right now it is not a priority with them. The state has no way to push or leverage them into wanting to do something. The reason CRP is being torn out is because the landowners can make more $ per acre farming those acres than is being paid for CRP rental. Economics is driving the system and you and I are just along for the ride. An eventual train wreck is coming, it's just a matter of time and the tide will shift. Then it will take time to make the transition back to conservation programs.
 
Welcome to Ohio where they dont care unless it grunts or gobbles. There are times i wish the deer would just go away.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top