ND 2020 PLOTS guide published

A

antelopecreek

New member
North Dakota Game and Fish Department

The 2020 PLOTS guide is now available online at https://gf.nd.gov/plots/guide. Free printed copies will be available mid-August at vendors across the state (https://gf.nd.gov/plots/guide/vendors).
Notes:
- Online PLOTS map sheets are updated weekly and will reflect tracts that have been added or removed subsequent to the printed guide's release.
- Guides are not available to mail, so hunters will have to pick one up at a local vendor or Game and Fish offices or print individual maps from the website.
- A mobile app may be used to view PLOTS maps on a smartphone in the field. See https://gf.nd.gov/maps/mobile-apps for more information
 
Yep, another guide to plowed fields, hayed fields and scenes of cattle grazing. Sorry for being so negative, but unfortunately that's what many look like when you find them. The PLOTS program is a great concept, however it needs a major overhaul. It seems like G&F will pay a landowner for land with little cover or allow the landowner to graze or hay the land. It appears that quantity is preferred over quality. There are some darn good PLOTS out there, but it will take you a while to find them. And when you do, they have been gone thru over and over again. I've found that PLOTS will pay off later in the season, when the crops are down and the fair weather hunters have hung it up for the season. But early in the season, it's a crap shoot. Some of the best public lands you can hunt here are WPA's. Granted you have to use non tox, but they can be very productive.

The guide itself can be very confusing, there are no roads posted in it except for main ones, sure you can count the squares, but it would be much easier to have county roads identified. I find I need the PLOTS guide along with ON X Hunt app. to find many of the PLOTS.

Just my rant and thoughts on this subject.

Best,

Greg
 
Game and Fish says those tracts that have little cover on them pay a very low stipend; you may be talking $100 or less for a quarter of land. Also need to remember it's not just for pheasant land, what is a pasture may be decent sharptail grouse or coyote hunting. But yes, it would be great to see more 'good' land enrolled. Even if the program got a big infusion of cash I doubt many more landowners would use it as they don't want a revolving door of strangers on their land. I definitely like that they work with interested landowners to improve habitat. Plots isn't perfect but it's a lot better than nothing.
 
I agree with Zoops, it ain't perfect, but it is a whole lot better than their neighbor to the south. Not all is pheasant land, but some may be deer country or that picked field may hold geese. Just to have a place to walk that might hold birds is well worth it. I believe most states pay the landowner based on the quality of the habitat. In MT the more people that hunt an area the more the landowner gets, so some landowners help the habitat and get paid more. No state has a perfect system, but ND is near the top of the list.
 
i think better than nothing is the best it gets here. not very fruitful if they are trying to attract hunters. marginal ground and grazed ground is getting to be the norm in ND, SD and KS. people will begin to stay home and shoot preserve, especially with covid rates high in these states.
 
Being fortunate enough to have hunted lots of states with walk in access programs , id put PLOTS at the top. As stated , not perfect but really nice to have.
 
hunter94 said:
i think better than nothing is the best it gets here. not very fruitful if they are trying to attract hunters. marginal ground and grazed ground is getting to be the norm in ND, SD and KS. people will begin to stay home and shoot preserve, especially with covid rates high in these states.
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I live in the SW part of ND and do nearly all my hunting on PLOTS, state land, or federal public land. There's more here than a person could explore in a lifetime, I know as I've been a resident since 1982. Being a local I have the advantage of being able to look over lots of PLOTS before seasons open. A guy really has to do the footwork as the cover & food planted in them varies year to year. But hey, if some NR want to stay home this Fall, that's cool. More for us ND guys...
 
Labs said:
I live in the SW part of ND and do nearly all my hunting on PLOTS, state land, or federal public land. There's more here than a person could explore in a lifetime, I know as I've been a resident since 1982. Being a local I have the advantage of being able to look over lots of PLOTS before seasons open. A guy really has to do the footwork as the cover & food planted in them varies year to year. I can advise I'm more worried about getting bit by a rabid coyote than I am of catching ChiCom Flu. But hey, if some NR want to stay home this Fall, that's cool. More for us ND guys...
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Use
Labs said:
I live in the SW part of ND and do nearly all my hunting on PLOTS, state land, or federal public land. There's more here than a person could explore in a lifetime, I know as I've been a resident since 1982. Being a local I have the advantage of being able to look over lots of PLOTS before seasons open. A guy really has to do the footwork as the cover & food planted in them varies year to year. But hey, if some NR want to stay home this Fall, that's cool. More for us ND guys...
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Use to be lots more and better plots than there is now.
 
dogrunner said:
Use

Use to be lots more and better plots than there is now.
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Don't disagree with that DR. The Obama years didn't do use any favors regarding CRP. My point is there are good PLOTS, but one has to look harder for the best. One also has to hunt smarter than the next guy, and having great dogs helps. I routinely shoot birds in PLOTS that I know someone else hit a couple hours earlier...
 
I have seen at least 10 Plots areas dropped in the last ten years and no new ones to replace them. Now I put on way more miles per day driving than I used to do before the changes. It still is much better than SD.
 
bird shooter said:
I have seen at least 10 Plots areas dropped in the last ten years and no new ones to replace them. Now I put on way more miles per day driving than I used to do before the changes. It still is much better than SD.
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Yep, I could point out a bunch that were CRP and are now cornfields and not in PLOTS.
 
There is no reason why ND should not "rent" crop land and pasture for PLOTs especially land with lots of potholes, creeks and shelterbelts. The signs can close the unit until harvest is competed. Has to be a few farmer / ranchers willing to lease grazed land full of potholes ... more for ducks in that case. Most cattle are pulled from land further away from the farmstead in August and September anyways.

There was a time when NDG&F did this regularly and the PLOT maps showed the differentiation.
 
esetter said:
Being fortunate enough to have hunted lots of states with walk in access programs , id put PLOTS at the top. As stated , not perfect but really nice to have.
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Agree that increasing the amount of public access acres has been great. Growing up in ND there was no PLOTs when I was younger ... plenty of posted land, but also plenty that was not.

I have extensive ND PLOTs, MN WIA, and some KS WIHA experience. MN WIA is absolutely superb, but far less total acres.
 
pretty much a theme here, if the state wants to sell more hunting licenses, they need to actively manage and recruit quality habitat.
garbage in, garbage out.
 
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