Question for long-time public land hunters in the heart of pheasant country

[Bob Peters]

In states like MN, SD, ND, and far northern Iowa, how much have specific pieces of public property changed over the years? Do you have spots you hunt that are good year in and year out? I've wondered in my limited upland career if certain spots that held birds will continue to do so over the years. I'm also curious to see how the cattails change from year to year. This year I found some too thin, some are too thick, and some are jusssst right. I realize that on DNR and also Federal land the gov't can bring in heavy equipment, do burns, etc. For the sake of my question I'm not interested in man-made changes. I've simply been wondering if good spots I found this year will tend to be good next year, or if I'll have to start from scratch.

 

[Labs]

Depends on how much agriculture access they allow. Some PLOTS in ND are straight up row crop and it's not unusual to be plowed up bare flat dirt in late October. We tend to see more of these PLOTS south of Valley City/Jamestown rather than out west. Makes me wonder why they bother making them PLOTS at all.

Out here there are some that some PLOTS that some years are left to grow up CRP (sometimes with some feed for birds planted) and a year or two later they are hayed off flat as a golf course. You don't know until mid summer what you'll have there. There's one like that a few miles from my place. In 2018 it was fantastic with cover so thick it was hard to walk through in places, listening to piles of roosters crowing in it at first light was simply amazing. I don't recall NOT limiting in that PLOTS in 2018. In 2019 they let most of it be mowed down so it came back up & was hayed off. It wasn't worth stopping at in 2019 and didn't come back yet this year. I hope they leave it alone this spring & summer.

The best are the ones they leave alone but are surrounded by private crop land and/or pheasant shooting operation land. The one noted above is surrounded by crop land every year, but since it was mowed off in 2019, there's little to no cover on it for birds to use it. in 2018 though, it provided almost guaranteed action every time...

 

[spoonbill82]

Weather also is a factor,from to much rain,drought,hail and snow can affect pheasant cover.

 

[McFarmer]

The reason birds are there now may not be the case next year. Nearby crop land for feeding is one example.

But generally I’ve found places good one year will be good the next. Food and cover, if those don’t change they will still be there. The volume depends on the nesting season. Corn and soybeans don’t allow for nesting, oats and wheat do. A late burn might reduce nesting. Heavy rains of coarse are unpredictable. Beans get sprayed with insecticide more often than corn, that will affect bug numbers.

Lots of variables.

 

[A5 Sweet 16]

In SD, privately owned Walk-In Areas & CREP land are more variable in terms of man-made (or cow-made) differences: haying/mowing, grazing, elimination from program enrollment altogether, etc. But by & large, they're the same year after year.

Federal & State land is VERY stable, except it may get grazed once every many years. The biggest weather variable is amount of water. And the biggest effect (especially lately) is either a) it's so wet you can't hunt it, or b) it's so wet it drowns out the cattails & they're no good in the winter. Walk-in & CREP land generally has less cattails so is affected less in this way. This year has been bad for drowned out cattails on WPA's. If I could pick anything to improve on State & Federal land, it'd be nesting cover. Unfortunately, it rarely changes & it's far from great, so it's nice to have some good private nesting cover nearby. That can change somewhat regularly.

So yes, as mentioned in comments above, the biggest factor is surrounding land. Both in terms of bird numbers & huntability. In SD, usually there are so many nearby private land options for pheasants to use, that they don't really NEED the public land at any given time. (not so in many places in other states) So number of birds using public land can vary quite a bit from year to year. In terms of hunting them, it's sometimes important to remember that they don't necessarily "live" on public land. You try to choose places to hunt, based on time of season & time of day, when the birds' best option is to "use" the public land, whether that be for roosting, loafing, feeding, avoiding bad weather, etc. Chances are, unless weather makes them hole up, they'll move around a lot in a day. But if I had to pick 1 variable adjacent to, or very near, public land that'll increase the odds of there being birds....it's corn. Yes, they eat beans & other things. But given a choice between easy corn & easy beans, they'll choose corn. Whether that corn is picked or standing is a whole nuther story.

In terms of raw bird numbers, if surrounding private land doesn't change much, neither does the number of birds....in the general vicinity. And this is usually the case. But the public land huntability can change a lot year to year.

Sorry, that's pretty disjointed, but I think I said my piece.

 

[Bob Peters]

Federal & State land is VERY stable, except it may get grazed once every many years. The biggest weather variable is amount of water. And the biggest effect (especially lately) is either a) it's so wet you can't hunt it, or b) it's so wet it drowns out the cattails & they're no good in the winter. Walk-in & CREP land generally has less cattails so is affected less in this way. This year has been bad for drowned out cattails on WPA's.

I realize the couple years prior were really wet, but 2020 was pretty dry in MN. I know it seemed a lot of the cattail sloughs were dried up and it made walking them easy for the most part. Was SD still overly wet in 2020? I know a couple WPA spots I tried in my late season SD trip the cattails were way too thin to hold birds.

 

[Haretrigger]

Would also add that some of the best private land walk-in spots, plots, etc often end up privately leased.....has happened a fair bit in Nodak

Moral of the story....don't get too attached and always keep looking for new spots. You can never have too many.

 

[Alaskan swamp collies]

Short answer, Every year is different. Even with WPA's . Plot's, or WIA's or Block management are even more difficult to predict. Hunting presseur, weather(hailstorm), surrounding crops, etc. all play a part. Had a WPA that I started every fall with for 15 plus years, always shot birds. It went south for no reason and has never come back no matter what. Have another WPA that can be golden or crap for no specific reason. That's hunting.

 

[Goosemaster]

Short answer, Every year is different. Even with WPA's . Plot's, or WIA's or Block management are even more difficult to predict. Hunting presseur, weather(hailstorm), surrounding crops, etc. all play a part. Had a WPA that I started every fall with for 15 plus years, always shot birds. It went south for no reason and has never come back no matter what. Have another WPA that can be golden or crap for no specific reason. That's hunting.

There is a public place by Lewistown that used to be pretty good.For some reason, it hasn't been very good the last 3 years, and I don't know why.

 

[A5 Sweet 16]

I realize the couple years prior were really wet, but 2020 was pretty dry in MN. I know it seemed a lot of the cattail sloughs were dried up and it made walking them easy for the most part. Was SD still overly wet in 2020? I know a couple WPA spots I tried in my late season SD trip the cattails were way too thin to hold birds.

Yes, parts were very, very wet, at least in terms of amount of water ON the ground, particularly slough water levels (soil conditions for farming being a different barometer). Field drain tile being more & more prevalent makes the problem even worse. High water levels kill cattails. They break off & rot under water, making ice conditions poor (another side effect). Also, because of high water, there've been very, very few cattails that contain some additional ground cover, which makes for cozier roosting and makes it a bit more difficult for birds to run like track stars.

 

[Golden Hour]

I'm in the northeastern part of SD and the public land changes very little, outside of grazing/water. A5 spells it out quite well. The biggest change this year was the edges of sloughs that held birds last year were a couple feet deep this year and destroyed the habitat. But, pheasants keep on marching on, and so will I.

 

[BRITTMAN]

The public land spots definitely change over time, both year to year and over the decades. Wet, average and dry years dictate much of the wetland cover, the hatch and brood survival.

Many Federal WPAs and some state management areas are land managed. Grass is grazed or burned to promote renewal. I have seen many WPAs in ND and a few in MN where they farmed (beans mostly and some corn) the land. These were not food plots! Fine if it just part and fine if it just one year deal, but I am seeing a few that have been farmed now 2-3 years ... in an area where duck and pheasant nesting grass cover is pretty few and far between. Don't get that.

Once you get out of MN's prime pheasant range, I have found that many of the state WMAs are a tangled and unmanaged mess. Many were originally acquired as abandoned and/or tax forfeited "swamp" land. While they are difficult to hunt (except some edges), they do provide excellent winter habitat for deer and other wildlife. The MN WMAs in the prairie chicken range were getting pretty unmanaged with lots of rogue cedars popping up across the upland habitat. This fall I found that many of these areas had been improved dramatically. Assumed burned a few years ago.

The newer PF assisted acquistions seem to be better suited for hunting whether they are picking up new areas or adding to existing WMAs.

The WIA program is great because it adds public hunting areas that would never be permanently turned over to the government. The land management is on the landowner. Some great ones, some good ones, and some not so good ones (when hayed via drought emergency declaration for example or CRP contract expired).

ND PLOTs can be more hit or miss now than say 20 years ago when CRP acres were much higher in ND. I think the ND G&F takes on more crop land as a default ... especially in watefowl country. It would be nice if those areas had scattered sloughs and creeks or some other diverse habitat. That is what makes private land so special ... crop land intermixed with cover.