The long-tailed birds are back.
When pheasant season returns to the central plains, beginning with the Oct. 29 Nebraska opener, hunters again will have an opportunity to waddle through grain fields with their jackets bulging.
While no one remotely suggests a resurrection of the glory days of more than two decades ago, pheasant populations in Kansas, Nebraska and parts of Colorado have rebounded from the depths of the recent drought.
“We’re excited,” declared Randy Rodgers, upland game bird guru with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. “We’re looking at the best prospects we’ve seen in a long time.”
What has Rodgers’ heart racing is a survey showing a 40 to 45 percent boost in western Kansas, a part of the prairie dear to the hearts of many visitors from Colorado.
Southwest Nebraska also reflects a considerable boost, based on anecdotal evidence and a Nebraska Game and Parks Commission survey.
In Colorado, hunters can expect pheasant populations at least as good as a year ago, perhaps a little better in certain areas, particularly the southeast, where quail also are in bloom.
A bumper wheat crop, the first since the drought of 2001-03, is the catalyst.
“That provided good cover for nesting,” Rodgers said of what appears to be exceptionally strong brood success. Better still, recent rain and snow seem to have set the stage for a second straight year of tall wheat stubble.
“If we can put in two years back-to-back, we might finally have turned the corner,” Rod-
gers said of what has been a long recovery, first from the blizzard of 1997 and then the drought.
Add one more happy-face element to prospects for the fast-
approaching hunt. In sharp contrast to a year ago, when crops remained in the field deep into December, the harvest of corn and other grains has accelerated sharply across the Midlands.
The obvious benefit comes from removing large areas of sanctuary off limits to hunters, along with a more relaxed attitude by farmers.
Here’s a regional rundown:
Colorado
“There’ll be good areas and others not so good, just like any other year,” small-game supervisor Ed Gorman said of the northeast region, where the report would have been better but for a scorching heat wave.
That misfortune caused chick mortality across a narrow band extending through northern Washington, northern Yuma and southern Phillips counties, normally some of the best territory in the state.
The result, Gorman suggested, is pheasants in that area moved from dry land to irrigated crops.
“Birds will be more concentrated in a few good spots,” Gorman said.
Outside that area, expect populations as good as or better than last, particularly in southern Yuma and Kit Carson counties.
“This may be a good year to experiment down south, to try Kit Carson again and some lesser-known counties such as Logan and Sedgwick,” he said.
Heading all the way south, into the extreme southeast around Walsh and Springfield, may not be a bad idea. Biologist Jeff Yost reports a solid increase in pheasant populations, with certain hot spots where birds are thick.
* Quail: “There are more birds along the South Platte than most guys will ever know,” Gorman said of a very dense cover. “The river bottom is a jungle.”
Bobwhite thus will be tough to find early in the season, Gorman said, but keen hunters with good dogs should do well.
Yost reports glorious times for scaled quail in the southeast.
“I’m finding them in places where I’ve never seen them before, and I’ve been here eight years,” he said.
Nebraska
Although officials report just a 9 percent gain statewide, residents in the area south and west of McCook are gushing over the number of pheasants they spot along roadsides.
Scott Taylor, state game bird chief, said he believes the southwest corner has rebounded from drought conditions to reach what ranks as a normal population. The Panhandle, too, shows consistent gains.
“We’re pretty optimistic,” Taylor said.
* Quail: The southwest and south-central areas are most improved, with a slight decline elsewhere.
Kansas
The pheasant boom in western Kansas extends even to the extreme northwest, which had suffered terribly from drought. Numbers are up substantially along the line from St. Francis to Oberlin, Rodgers said, adding, “This is a welcome change.”
He expects to improve dramatically on the 2004 harvest of 685,000 birds, the best in several years but far below the benchmark of 1.56 million estimated in 1982, the season before a killer blizzard, followed by altered farming practices, sent populations spiraling downward.
* Quail: Expect a bobwhite gain of 33 percent over last year in western Kansas. The heart of quail country will be south of the Arkansas River and west of a line extending from Great Bend south through Pratt.
Listen to Charlie Meyers at 9 a.m. each Saturday on “The Fan Outdoors,” KKFN 950 AM. He can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
