The golden years, the glory days, time o' plenty, birds galore

B

Bob Peters

Well-known member
As I've only been pheasant hunting for 3 seasons give or take I missed all of that. On the one hand I wish I was pheasant hunting 15 years ago and the other maybe not. I heard a podcast the other day where the interviewee stated that he hunted SD a good bit back in the early-mid 2000s and that on good days he and his hunting partners would see in excess of 1,000 pheasants. Granted a lot of them were driving around and seeing huge flocks of birds in private fields, etc. I've talked to buddies who hunted back then and they described massive flushes of birds in tree groves that sounded like a locomotive. Another buddy told me tonight that he hunted on the backside of the peak in SD and that just ditch hunting with no dog each hunter would often get 9-12 good shots on roosters each day. The reasons for the decline are probably well known to anyone on this site, CRP taken out and put into production, shelterbelts and tree groves cut down, sloughs drained, and turned into row crop. I only hope that things go in a positive direction in the future. Regardless I'll be out somewhere each fall chasing the roosters around, as long as my legs will carry me. The only reason I said maybe it's better I didn't hunt back then, is that I don't know any better! Have a great day everyone.
 
Started hunting SD in 2009, and lived there until 2013, return 2x per year since then. The few chances I've had to hunt private land with shelter belts, untouched field, etc., I've certainly seen my share of 1,000 bird flushes - however most of them have resulted in 0 birds. One thing I can compare year after year is a trip to a friends ranch in the "Golden Triangle." Few thousand acres of pasture and crop land, but they also manage a bit more than most people for pheasants. In 2009-2010, we'd get to the end of the field and would have 20-100 birds (hens and roosters) get up in the final 30 yards every time. Since then, there's been a slow decline to the point of you hope to see a bird or rooster in each field. Went from easy 10 man limits to 10 bird days.

All that said, I am primarily a public land hunter with a decent dog. I think nearly anybody (1-3 people group size) with some effort, decent dog, and hunting 10am - sunset, little luck, good shooting, can get 3-9 wild public land birds a day in SD.
 
I started hunting pheasants for about 70 years. Started carrying my own gun in 1956. There have been lots of swings in the pheasant population during that time. I grew up in SW Minnesota during the Soil Bank days and there were birds every where. No one had a dog and limits were plenty. I'm sure there were more birds per square mile back then in SW Minnesota than there are now in the best areas of South Dakota. I moved to SD in 1978. For the next ten years numbers were okay but nothing great. Especially in the late 80's when there was quite a draught. Then along came CRP and the population increased substantially. There were still some ups and downs due to weather. We hit a peak about 10-15 years ago and then started a downward trend when commodity prices went through the roof and farmers were pulling their land out of the CRP program. Not quite sure what the future holds for pheasant hunters. Times have certainly changed and pheasant hunting has turned into a big business. Difficult to find private land to hunt and the public gets hammered pretty hard. When I was growing up in SW Minnesota if land was not posted (and not much was), did not have growing crops or livestock on it you could hunt it without permission of the owner. At 75 I'm probably coming to the end of my days in the field but I sure hope pheasant hunting is available in the future for you younger guys and my grand kids.
 
I've chased pheasants since the early 70's and yes there was nothing like it from the late 80's for about 25 years. 300 bird flushes on public land was fairly common. To not shot a limit was uncommon, many days we were done within an hour, once I can remember 15 minutes, I never even got a vest on. Let the old dog out to pee in the parking lot of a WPA and he hit scent resulting in a double and a chance to reload for a late riser. This was in all the plains states not just SD. But than look on the positive side, nowadays we get to hunt all day and don't have to worry about what we would do with all the birds we shot. The loss of crp, the maturing of the remaining crp, roundup, clean farming practices, commercialized hunting, etc have led us on our present path.
 
I was born in 1980 in Spearfish, SD, moved to the family farm by Florence and have spent most of my life in this area, save a few years in Brookings. I remember the devastation that the winter and spring of 1996 and 1997 had on the area. The pheasants were nearly wiped out and that isn't an exaggeration. It took only 10 years from that point to reach the apex of my lifetime. Pheasants are survivors and prolific breeders. I have had the good fortune to be witness a handful of "once in a lifetime" flushes, where pheasants can only be counted by the hundreds. Things were pretty bleak following the removal of the CRP, but the pheasants still survive. This past year was a real good year and after the soft winter we just experienced, I believe that with the right nesting/brood rearing conditions, we'll have a pretty incredible fall. Even if we don't, there will be birds to hunt.

I know a few folks who say "There are no birds", etc., and a lot of that is based on the memory of the banner years, but it's all in your mindset. If a guy wants to find pheasants, he can. Every step of every hunt I take is in anticipation of that next rooster. Whether alone or with 200 of his brethren makes little difference to me.
 
Its not just South Dakota. Virtually every state in the traditional "pheasant range" had a lot more birds just 15 years ago. Iowa is probably the best example of failure. In the early and mid 2000's, they harvested over a million roosters. And just a few years ago, that harvest was just over 100,000.
I primarily hunt Minnesota now but I can recall in 2006 and 2007 as being the best seasons I've experienced here since I've been hunting pheasants (which is 22 years now). In 2006, between 5 of us that often hunted regularly together, we harvested 176 roosters. In 2007, it was 202. This is in east-central Minnesota too, not out west. We went on opener and were done at the first or second spot. Its no coincidence that the best seasons of my life were during the peak of CRP land. On the contrary, the low point was in 2014. I got 2 roosters all season. That was because the winter of 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 were brutal, and the summer of 2014 we received a lot of heavy rain. In June 2014, we got 17 inches of rain in just that month alone so chick reproduction was probably completely wiped out. Luckily it has bounced back some since then and I've had pretty good hunting every year since then.

Those days are gone. Long gone. Early season hunting sucks now because crops are almost always still standing and its usually quite hot out. I haven't even tried pheasant hunting before November now for 10 years. To think that we'll ever go back to the "glory days" is fool's gold. There simply isn't enough habitat to do it. And trying to battle the agriculture powers for land use is futile. They will win every single time. Take what you can get and try to enjoy it.
 
Winter carry over is the only way you get the big numbers. CRP grass does little for winter cover so what you really missing is the sloughs that are in many CRP acres that come out when they are converted to crops. Even the soil bank years can be traced to those mild winters and flooding that went unmanaged due to war time labor shortages that produced massive sloughs every where.

The more accurate equation is (mild winters) x (slough acres) = bird numbers. The mild winters go on 30 year cycles which we are coming to the end now so you should have a banner year in your lifetime, just like in the 80s. But ethanol demand on crop land has distorted the slough acres part of the equation. Sold your hunting soul to the devil politicians and their ethanol investor minions on that one.
 
PeteRevvv said:
Winter carry over is the only way you get the big numbers. CRP grass does little for winter cover so what you really missing is the sloughs that are in many CRP acres that come out when they are converted to crops. Even the soil bank years can be traced to those mild winters and flooding that went unmanaged due to war time labor shortages that produced massive sloughs every where.

The more accurate equation is (mild winters) x (slough acres) = bird numbers. The mild winters go on 30 year cycles which we are coming to the end now so you should have a banner year in your lifetime, just like in the 80s. But ethanol demand on crop land has distorted the slough acres part of the equation. Sold your hunting soul to the devil politicians and their ethanol investor minions on that one.
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Pheasants definitely need winter cover but the hens cant build nests in soggy cattails. Thats where the crp is most helpful and for bugs for the chicks.
 
Regarding SD....
Through much of the 70's, 80's & 90's, the state was home to an estimated 2-4 million wild birds. Then CRP really started to take hold, along with an improved Walk-in/CREP program, & more landowners managed their ground for wildlife. Lo & behold, numbers increased, peaking in 2007 at about 12 million. Although estimates have been a little hard to come by the last couple years, I think the best information points to a current wild population in the 7-8 million range, still a really good number that hasn't been exceeded since the early 60's.

I've been doing this 40 years & hunting the same areas of the state for 34 seasons. I hunt areas with a ton of public land, where habitat is basically "pretty good to great" year in & year out. There are anomalies, like years w/ horrible winters or devastating ice storms. But generally, bird numbers where habitat is consistently "pretty good to great" stay about the same. I'm not talking about specific hunting SPOTS. Those change year to year depending on many different variables. I'm talking about AREAS, like 20-50-100 square miles. If habitat is basically consistent in an area, so are bird numbers.

Moral of the story....habitat is king, whether it's grass, trees, sloughs, or whatever. Pheasants need it all in South Dakota. Without 1 crucial piece, they suffer in a big way. If you're hunting an AREA where habitat has declined in the past several years, & you can't do anything about it, then consider hunting different areas. Because the big picture view shows pretty damn good wild bird numbers are still there.
 
gimruis said:
Those days are gone. Long gone. To think that we'll ever go back to the "glory days" is fool's gold. There simply isn't enough habitat to do it. And trying to battle the agriculture powers for land use is futile. They will win every single time. Take what you can get and try to enjoy it.
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Yeah, I realize you are right. And my original post wasn't me thinking the future will ever get back to the past, that doesn't happen for anything. I've fished my whole life and seen lakes go from unbelievable bass fishing to piss poor fisheries. Actually I was reflecting on the fact that as I never knew really easy hunting it means I don't know what I'm missing. I've talked to some people that don't pheasant hunt "because there aren't any birds left." We all know that's not true. I definitely enjoyed the heck out of the last two years and look forward to the future. Heading south for a fishing trip last week we saw a big rooster coming down for a landing in some grass right off interstate 35 in Iowa, and then looked and saw he had a buddy rooster picking some gravel off the side of the interstate. Always a good day when you see a pheasant.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Regarding SD....
Through much of the 70's, 80's & 90's, the state was home to an estimated 2-4 million wild birds. Then CRP really started to take hold, along with an improved Walk-in/CREP program, & more landowners managed their ground for wildlife. Lo & behold, numbers increased, peaking in 2007 at about 12 million. Although estimates have been a little hard to come by the last couple years, I think the best information points to a current wild population in the 7-8 million range, still a really good number that hasn't been exceeded since the early 60's.

I've been doing this 40 years & hunting the same areas of the state for 34 seasons. I hunt areas with a ton of public land, where habitat is basically "pretty good to great" year in & year out. There are anomalies, like years w/ horrible winters or devastating ice storms. But generally, bird numbers where habitat is consistently "pretty good to great" stay about the same. I'm not talking about specific hunting SPOTS. Those change year to year depending on many different variables. I'm talking about AREAS, like 20-50-100 square miles. If habitat is basically consistent in an area, so are bird numbers.

Moral of the story....habitat is king, whether it's grass, trees, sloughs, or whatever. Pheasants need it all in South Dakota. Without 1 crucial piece, they suffer in a big way. If you're hunting an AREA where habitat has declined in the past several years, & you can't do anything about it, then consider hunting different areas. Because the big picture view shows pretty damn good wild bird numbers are still there.
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Thanks for sharing this, a great post, and love to read about your history of upland hunting and what you've seen over the years. My original post wasn't in a negative viewpoint at all. I really loved every single day I got to step into the pheasant field(or swamp) this past season :)
 
Bob Peters said:
Yeah, I realize you are right. And my original post wasn't me thinking the future will ever get back to the past, that doesn't happen for anything. I've fished my whole life and seen lakes go from unbelievable bass fishing to piss poor fisheries. Actually I was reflecting on the fact that as I never knew really easy hunting it means I don't know what I'm missing. I've talked to some people that don't pheasant hunt "because there aren't any birds left." We all know that's not true. I definitely enjoyed the heck out of the last two years and look forward to the future. Heading south for a fishing trip last week we saw a big rooster coming down for a landing in some grass right off interstate 35 in Iowa, and then looked and saw he had a buddy rooster picking some gravel off the side of the interstate. Always a good day when you see a pheasant.
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First, I think there is always reason for optimism because I know how amazing pheasants are. I don't say that to brag them up simply because I like hunting them, rather I genuinely believe that they are specially suited for life in the Midwest. I mentioned how the snow and rain in 96/97 decimated them in northeastern SD and it was a mere decade later when they hit a peak. It just takes one good Farm Bill to get that back. Even without millions of acres of CRP, there are often places for them to nest and rear broods successfully. In the meantime, there are plenty of birds to hunt and, in a lot of cases, habitat development to be done.

As for the part I bolded, there is no greater challenge in the realm of pheasant hunting than doing it solo. Even with a good dog, the pheasants are at an advantage. There is no one to cut off their escape route, no other hunters for a running pheasant to bump into when fleeing to the side, no barrage of shots as they cross the field. I would go so far to say that I have better success when there were only a few roosters in a piece of ground I am hunting, versus those places with hundreds of birds. The more birds, the more eyes, the quicker they bolt. All that to say, even when numbers were twice what they are now in my corner of South Dakota, 'easy' was never really in the equation when it came to stepping onto a half section of cattails and grass with a dog and bagging a limit of birds. In my experience, the high pheasant population equating quick limits is typically going to be when a number of hunters surround a parcel of habitat and leave the roosters few options for escape.
 
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