Keep in mind the best habitat for pheasants and quail

It should go much higher OaN. California, second only to Texas in beef production, is in the worst drought in recorded history. Range land is in dismal condition and there's no water to irrigate hay crops or alph alpha in much of the state. Large (and I mean LARGE) herds are being sold off or slaughtered. It will take a while for our beef herds to recover from this and in the meantime the Midwest can pick up our lost production. :cheers:
 
I have hunted NW ND and NE MT every year for the last 9 years. Know it well.
Geographical differences may dictate somewhat different percentages.

However, let's make sure we are talking the same language here:

(1) The real pheasant deal = CRP type, THICK, healthy, knee high+ to waist
high grass

(2) Marginal grass = Native prairie, grazed ranchland, fallow fields. This grass
is usually shorter and thinner.

So when I use the term "grass", I'm talking the "high octane" stuff. The real good stuff. Number (1) above.

10-15% should be in (1). Number (2) can add some benefit though.
 
oldandnew said:
If I were you, I would get on bended knee, and hope that the cattle market goes even higher and stays that way! The only way to see land back in grass is to make cattle profitable. Then the profit margin is in your favor. Grassland and beef cattle and pheasants are all linked into the same ecology. Ditto, huns, prairie chicken, sharpies , and quail. Need rotational grazing, dusting, rested recovery in a pasture, let me introduce you to the trusty beef cow! Besides, we might get consumer relief at the supper market, create more demand to challenge pork and chicken nuggets. Like it used be! pheasants, et.al. will take the cue. If we role reversed, with an equal exchange between row crop and cattle production, we can close the habitat forum.
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haymaker said:
Thanks for the reply. I try to take care of the build up with high density stocking or mob grazing. It works well where I can use it. However I have an ongoing battle with smoth brome grass in my native pastures, which I am losing. Do you think burning would help that?
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Certainly not an expert, but I am in the 8th year of trying to restore a smooth brome stand into a warm season, BBS, SG, IG stand.

To give a little insight into the background, I cleared the area, disced it up well, planted RR soybeans in it the first year. Hit it with Roundup 3times to kill any brome seedling that germinated . Frost seeded Indian grass, big blue and a little switchgrass. No forbs at this time. Mowed it religiously over two years, and applied milestone for the dreaded Canadian thistles. Got a pretty nice stand after 5years, but brome was starting to make headway into the stand. Two years ago, mid spring I sprayed the early green brome with roundup,(which you can do before the warm seasons break out) and then did a control burn on the property 2weeks later. That definitely helped, but the brome was still there. Last spring I mowed it short, and did another light discing to tear up the brome roots which are a sod forming root. While this tears up the to of the warm season grasses, the roots of an established stand are 4to 6 feet deep. I worried a lot about disturbing the top layer of soil and exposing new weed seeds, so I sprayed the plot with a pre emergent to stop germination of any seed in the seed bed. I also worried about not getting germination of the desired plants, but decided to sacrifice those and truly see what I had established. I don't know if it was the maturity of the stand, environmental conditions, or dumb luck, but I had the most beautiful stand last year I've ever seen.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Establishing a warm grass stand is not an undertaking for an old man. It's way way too time consuming.

In this world of instant gratification , a prairie restoration is a long term project. I would guess there are more failures than there are successes. I'm 1 for 3 in my lifetime, as I've had 2other failed for patches. I wish I knew then what I know now.
 
RK Special K said:
The one absolute common denominator is grass. And my education has taught me that 8-15% would be reasonably adequate THROUGHOUT western "pheasantland". Probably closer to the higher end of this percentage.

We can't control the weather - with bad weather, we will have fewer birds. With good weather, many more.

But certainly with less than 5% grass, it's really not worth talking about real wild pheasant hunting anymore. Good or bad weather, there simply won't be enough birds. Take up golf or bowling.
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So tell me, how many is enough birds. Define that for me if you will please.
 
Sharptails and Huns don't do well in tall thick grass, pheasants do.
Huns and Sharptails and Sage grouse do well in the short grass mixed native grasslands, pheasants don't.
Know what your after and choose your area accordingly.
Lots of combination areas for those who know what to look for,
 
The cover that the Sharptail, Sage Grouse, and Huns are in (not all the exact same cover) sure was fun to run a pointing dog in. Big and Fast running does well there.

Pheasants and quail around here can be in similar cover. But the quail have to have some bare dirt in that grass cover.
 
Haymaker - Good question. Glad you asked.

For SD I think we should expect the average from 2002 - 2012. Roadside counts of 7-8 million. Some years more, some years less.

I'm concerned about central SD but I am MUCH more concerned about the "outer core" areas that have been eroding, such as:

1. TX panhandle
2. OK panhandle
3. NE CO
4. Western and NC WY
5. Eastern and NW SD
6. SW MN
7. NC MT
8. SC and SE ND
9. Almost all of Iowa
10. Almost all of Nebraska
!1. Almost all of Kansas

Central SD and 1-11 above is my basic geographical definition of "Pheasantland USA".

These areas should be given the chance to be almost as good as SD's average over the last 10 years. At least 75% of these areas should be restored to this level.

A good example is NE Nebraska, around Norfolk.

I hunted this area in 2007 and 2008. In 2 HARD days of hunting I only saw 2 roosters UNTIL I got to the extreme northern edge around LIndy/Crofton/Bloomfield. Some CRP up there and barely scratched out a few birds.

The lady at motel in Bloomfield said " when my Mom and Dad had this place, it and all the other area motels were booked solid for the first 3 weeks. Opening day this year(2008), I had 2 rooms booked for pheasant hunters".

When we are filling motels and cafes for the first 3 weeks in most of the above areas, we'll be at the "right" number of birds.
 
I would like to add NW Missouri to "Pheasantland. Years ago this area was good pheasant hunting. I was just there last week. It now has almost zero grass and is farmed about as intensely as is possible. Needless to say, there are NO pheasants there(well, maybe 4 per county). With 10% grass, I would be the first to book a room there for the opening!
 
Also, the area around Lindy/Crofton/ Bloomfield, NE where I did fair in 2007-8 has now lost almost all its CRP. I considered going in 2011 but the farmer contact there said "don't bother, I've only seen 3 roosters around here in the last 6 months". This jives with NE G & F estimated declines of 15-25% EACH YEAR since 2008. Now, if I had choice, I would go bowling or throw darts instead of hunt around there.

The erosion continues on...........
 
I have a little different take on the "private enterprise" being able to dramatically improving the habitat / bird population.

The biggest problem is cause by the government subsidies/mandate for ethanol.

Without that would all this land still be converted to row crop? Some but not much. It drives up the price of crops to where other land uses are not as attractive, like CRP.

If it was true private enterprise things would be more in balance. IMO
 
Still, CRP is a government program, not "private enterprise". After the soil bank program(another government program), the decline in habitat and numbers was almost straight downhill. In short order, it wiped out pheasant hunting in the eastern states and the western states barely hung-on. SD's roadside estimate in 1976 and 1977 was about 1 million birds. Might have had a harvest of 2-300k. Very dismal by South Dakota standards. It was teetering on the brink. Staggering like a punch-drunk boxer. Almost down for the count.

Private enterprise certainly DID NOT come to the rescue. They turned its back on it! The CRP program started in 1985 and grass was once again restored to the landscape in many areas but not nearly enough. The core was restored but the fringes kept eroding. It's a temporary, fickle band aid approach to a long-term problem. Therefore a LONG-TERM PERMANENT solution is required.
 
If we relied on private contributions for conservation and habitat programs it would not be funded. Although the benefits are great, they are too vague, long-term and abstract for the nearsighted, myopic, short-term "profiteers" to grasp. It's not what private enterprise is about. It demands profit and cash flow NOW and I mean ASAP, as in today or at the latest tomorrow at noon!

Please don't expect our great free enterprise system to do what it WILL NOT and CAN NOT do. It's way to busy doing other good things.
 
RK Special K said:
Still, CRP is a government program, not "private enterprise". After the soil bank program(another government program), the decline in habitat and numbers was almost straight downhill. In short order, it wiped out pheasant hunting in the eastern states and the western states barely hung-on. SD's roadside estimate in 1976 and 1977 was about 1 million birds. Might have had a harvest of 2-300k. Very dismal by South Dakota standards. It was teetering on the brink. Staggering like a punch-drunk boxer. Almost down for the count.

Private enterprise certainly DID NOT come to the rescue. They turned its back on it! The CRP program started in 1985 and grass was once again restored to the landscape in many areas but not nearly enough. The core was restored but the fringes kept eroding. It's a temporary, fickle band aid approach to a long-term problem. Therefore a LONG-TERM PERMANENT solution is required.
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Who is it that requires this long term solution, and what percent of the population do you think they represent?
 
I know out here they're creating "managed wetlands" for companies to use as carbon offsets. Maybe some similar aapproach could be used to create more grassland in the mid west?
 
haymaker said:
Who is it that requires this long term solution, and what percent of the population do you think they represent?
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Anyone who cares for clean water or the gulf of Mexico should support more grass I would think.:thumbsup:

You definitely cant market an idea like that as "a place for us to hunt pheasants".
 
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WE THE PEOPLE, collectively, through our governing bodies make these decisions that private individuals and businesses are incapable of. It's done for the over-all long-term good of the people. That's the purpose of government(or should be) - to look out for the interests of people where private enterprise cannot.

Public projects are a collection of "good things". Each project isolated by itself may only benefit 20%. I would guess that only 25% of the people use or would agree to fund National Parks or Refuges. Same with freeways, etc. etc. But taken as a whole, they all add to the general quality of life for the majority. It's government doing what free enterprise can't. When our money stays home and is spent on an asset that shows up on the left side of a balance sheet, then government is doing what it should do. When our government is pissing our money away overseas, with nothing but a HUGE liability on the right side of the balance sheet, that's a BIG problem.
 
RK Special K said:
Haymaker - Good question. Glad you asked.

For SD I think we should expect the average from 2002 - 2012. Roadside counts of 7-8 million. Some years more, some years less.

I'm concerned about central SD but I am MUCH more concerned about the "outer core" areas that have been eroding, such as:

1. TX panhandle
2. OK panhandle
3. NE CO
4. Western and NC WY
5. Eastern and NW SD
6. SW MN
7. NC MT
8. SC and SE ND
9. Almost all of Iowa
10. Almost all of Nebraska
!1. Almost all of Kansas

Central SD and 1-11 above is my basic geographical definition of "Pheasantland USA".

These areas should be given the chance to be almost as good as SD's average over the last 10 years. At least 75% of these areas should be restored to this level.

A good example is NE Nebraska, around Norfolk.

I hunted this area in 2007 and 2008. In 2 HARD days of hunting I only saw 2 roosters UNTIL I got to the extreme northern edge around LIndy/Crofton/Bloomfield. Some CRP up there and barely scratched out a few birds.

The lady at motel in Bloomfield said " when my Mom and Dad had this place, it and all the other area motels were booked solid for the first 3 weeks. Opening day this year(2008), I had 2 rooms booked for pheasant hunters".

When we are filling motels and cafes for the first 3 weeks in most of the above areas, we'll be at the "right" number of birds.
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I have been hunting for about 50 years, the years that you talk about are the best years of my life. I did get in on the tail end of Soil Bank, but the best stretch of hunting was 2002 to 2012. To get private land to do what you want there has to be an incentive of some kind to make it happen. It can be tootsie rolls or watermellons but there need to be something that gets the land owner to say " I think I will plant pheasant cover on my land." When the market wants more corn it comes up with an incentive and presto we get more corn. The same principle here.
 
Again, this is not a job for private enterprise. Hasn't happened and won't happen. It's a part of the "public good" grid that WE THE PEOPLE are responsible for and that contributes to:

1. Recreational hunting opportunities
2. Assisting Rural America with land values and positive economics
3. Clean air and water, good soil and conservation in general
4. Land is a good investment for public money - it's an ASSET, not expense

Putting 10-15% in grass is a win-win-win-win deal. Hunters will be happy. Landowners will be happy. Conservationists will be happy. Businesses in Rural America will be happy. And the PEOPLE get a GOOD long-term asset on the balance sheet. Gets things firing on "all cylinders". The quality of life WILL improve for Rural America. It's a "slam dunk".
 
RK Special K said:
Again, this is not a job for private enterprise. Hasn't happened and won't happen. It's a part of the "public good" grid that WE THE PEOPLE are responsible for and that contributes to:

1. Recreational hunting opportunities
2. Assisting Rural America with land values and positive economics
3. Clean air and water, good soil and conservation in general
4. Land is a good investment for public money - it's an ASSET, not expense

Putting 10-15% in grass is a win-win-win-win deal. Hunters will be happy. Landowners will be happy. Conservationists will be happy. Businesses in Rural America will be happy. And the PEOPLE get a GOOD long-term asset on the balance sheet. Gets things firing on "all cylinders". The quality of life WILL improve for Rural America. It's a "slam dunk".
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What part of this makes the landowner happy? I am a conservationist and I don't want anything to do with it. High speed dirt farmers will hate it.
 
Here's what MOST(but certainly not all) will come to realize and appreciate:

1. Higher land values
2. Higher crop prices
3. Less to farm
4. Get a cash payment for 10% of their land at the going rate.
4. Can "speed dirt farm" all they want on the remaining 90%. Knock yourself out. Use a dragster to pull a drag. Have fun! Whatever....... Most will plant shelter belts because it's good for the soil and birds and farm it as they always have. No big deal but some will see it as a "time machine" back to the forties and fifties.
 
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