Midwest Pheasant Harvest - 24 Seasons

The numbers for Iowa are a real eye opener. At one point 20 years ago they put over a million roosters into their harvest. But less than a decade later, just over 100,000. Astonishing drop in bird numbers there. I presume because of habitat loss.

I always remember 2006 and 2007 as the two best pheasant hunting years I've ever had here too. These numbers confirm it.
 
What happened in South Dakota between 1963 and 1964? Weather event? Assuming that's not a typo.... it has never been close to that since.
 
Kansas harvest the lowest ever in 2023 at 227,000, except 2013 at 190,000 . This is sad. Terrible downward trend.
 
There were a lot of pheasants killed in the Dakotas in the 1930s and early 1940s. Depression era and then WWII resulted in many pheasants killed and canned (preserved) to last the year. Many were plinked away on railroad tracks and old dusty roads with .22 rifles. It was likely a main protein food source for many in the pheasant range. ND estimates at least 2.5 million pheasants were killed in 1944 and again in 1945.

Aberdeen is known for serving pheasant sandwiches to all the soldiers traveling on the troop trains, but several rail stops in ND also served similar fare.
 
I was thinking soil bank but wasn’t sure when it ended. That’s a dramatic drop. I thought it ended earlier.
 
There are two variables in those numbers. The one unaccounted for is number of hunters. I can tell you where I hunt, used to be a very big and productive area but after about 1980 (claims of the big blizzard, and farming changes) the number of hunters has dropped by magnitudes. Used to be thousands of hunters in the fields, now there might be a few dozen.

And bird numbers are pretty good, IMO. I'll put up 50 on a bad day and as many as 300 into the air on a good day. And the states are not in the survey!
 
I would sure like to see the 60's and 70's for Kansas. I remember the early 60's when the limit increased to five total with the option of one hen in the five.
 
Bob Peters said:
That's why I'm going every chance I can. I'll prolly be in the doghouse with my boss and a few family members. But that means I'll get a few more blasts at flushing pheasants, and I've got my priorities straight.
Click to expand...
Always better to go hunting and then ask for forgiveness later. After a while they’ll become accustomed to it.
 
I remember the season of 2001 vividly in Iowa. HORRIBLE! late in 2000 and into the late winter/spring we had god-awful ice storms. And lots of them. I remember birds burrowing out little circle in the ice in the fields. It was all they could manage to get to food. That was also about the time so much of the CRP was coming out. It was a "perfect storm". Through most of the 90's I had good seasons in Iowa and the Iowa bird take was over SD a lot of the seasons. After the winter/spring of 2000/2001 Iowa was never quite the same after that. In 2000 I shot 50+ birds. In 2001 I shot 21 and only shot my limit twice in that entire season. That's a significant fall-off.
 
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