Holyoke – With dawn a growing promise on a clear horizon, eager hunting dogs of every stripe performed a nervous ballet on tiptoe in a motel parking lot, vibrating like tuning forks in the chill air.
In their keen anticipation, these animals obviously hadn’t received the scouting report for another slow weekend in pheasant country. Apparently, nearly everyone else had.
Despite a midweek snowfall, first since the season opened, Holyoke’s Golden Plains Motel – the largest hostelry in the town that prides itself as the state’s pheasant capital – was less than half full of hunters the previous night. Reinforcing this observation, the attendant at the town’s central convenience store allowed that only a handful had passed through.
Such is the sad state of affairs in Colorado’s pheasant heartland, where a litany of weather woes spanning six full months have conspired to frustrate hunters, perhaps even dogs.
A band of nine hunters – four each from Nebraska and Colorado and another trying to make up his mind – hopscotched among several large chunks of farmland and spotted only one other group of hunters in the field.
Hunting well-upholstered private land that bore no human footprints since that Wednesday snow, our eclectic congregation, including four dogs, saw only a scattering of roosters and bagged just three.
Little wonder that most of Colorado’s pheasant brigade seems to have packed it in for the season, many of them for keeps.
None of this is new. Colorado pheasant hunting, at least the part that involves participation, has been in a downward spiral for upward of 40 years. With bird populations at a stalemate, or worse, not even the most starry-eyed optimist can envision much of a turnaround.
From an all-time high of 99,000 in 1960, hunter numbers have dwindled to about 18,000 to 20,000, despite an all-out effort by the Colorado Division of Wildlife at reversal. As recently as 1982, the number stood as high as 67,000.
All these are estimates and Ed Gorman, DOW’s small game chief, strongly suspects the earlier figures err on the high side. But the fact remains: Far fewer people count themselves as pheasant enthusiasts, and the tally grows thinner each year.
Gorman visited Nebraska for that state’s opener, two weeks ahead of Colorado, and reported much the same.
“Nebraska is way down on hunter numbers,” he said of a state for whom pheasants licenses sales are as vital as elk to Colorado.
The greater concern is that small game hunting, particularly the upland variety, is the building block to outdoor participation, the vehicle that carries young hunters on to waterfowl and big game. Without it, the entire enterprise – including the financial and political support that protects wildlife and its environment – is doomed to shrink before our eyes.
Little of this is DOW’s fault. The agency does not control the weather that promotes the hatching and survival of chicks, nor the lands on which these pheasants are reared. Neither can it force ducks to migrate on time or force them to visit the state wildlife areas where public hunters can find them.
A half-decade ago, DOW launched a progressive walk-in program providing access for thousands of hunters. But the nuances of this venture only serves to emphasize the various problems when there are too few pheasants to go around.
If nothing else, Saturday’s hunt provided a unique bonding opportunity for Coloradans and Nebraskans whose considerable disagreement involving the gridiron needn’t carry over to the grain fields.
Just hours before their beloved Cornhuskers were to meet Oklahoma for the Big 12 football championship, a contingent from Sidney staged a quick run across the border to see what another state had to offer.
In keeping with Gorman’s observation, they found more cover than pheasants, a hopeful blend of grasses and grains that held more promise than actual birds.
The spring drought that stifled pheasant production morphed into summer downpours that grew lots of vegetation.
“The cover looks better than the bird population actually is,” Gorman said.
Gorman emphasized that various pockets where pheasants prospered do exist, scattered across Colorado’s eastern tier of counties in a sort of crazy quilt pattern.
Finding these is the challenge, an endeavor that perhaps requires more time than most are willing, or able, to commit.
As for the Nebraska contingent, they hit the road early. At least they could make it home in time for the kickoff.
Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
