YUMA — It’s hard to keep a good thing secret, and so it was on Saturday’s opening morning of the pheasant hunting season.
“It seems to be a little busier than we’ve seen the past few years,” Jerry Thompson noted, motioning toward a line of hunters already moving through a patch of heavy ground cover that all but had a flashing “Pheasants Live Here” sign posted next to it.
“People are out a little earlier than usual, but that’s OK. We have plenty of other spots to hunt.”
Indeed, motel parking areas and coffee shops had been bustling with activity well before sunrise, and a steady stream of SUVs and pickup trucks moved along the highways and byways of northeastern Colorado as legal shooting time drew near.
By all reports, pheasant numbers were the best in recent memory. The fall corn harvest was essentially complete, and if added incentive was needed, entry to properties in the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s Walk-In Access Program no longer required buying a special permit.
Not to worry. Thompson, an avid hunter and the departing president of the Yuma chapter of Pheasants Forever, also checks natural gas meters for Rosetta Resources. His daily routine entails driving some 130 miles through prime ringneck country.
He likely knows the turf as well as anyone, and soon enough our group was at the corner of a giant field of old wheat stubble, grown in with Russian thistle and other weeds.
“Doesn’t get any better than this,” someone remarked about the cover.
Maybe not. Pheasants began flushing almost immediately. Many were well out of range, an indication they already were on the run, rather than holding tight in the cover. Possibly 60 pheasants, both roosters and hens, had taken flight before a swing through the corner was completed.
“There’s no such thing as dumb, opening-day pheasants anymore,” said Bob Hix, regional director of Pheasants Forever. “Did you see how far ahead they were running?”
Forays through other parts of the field produced many additional birds, ample shooting opportunities and a near-limit by noon for our little group of hunters and pointing dogs. A fairly steady sound of shotgun blasts from nearby fields, including at least one walk-in property, suggested others also were seeing plenty of birds.
Such trends were subsequently confirmed.
“We seemed to have more hunters than in the past, and hunter success was up,” said Tom Kroening, manager of the DOW’s Brush Area.
“Most of the reports from hunters indicate they were real pleased. Even if they didn’t have any birds, they’d had shots at birds or at least scared some up.”
Kroening further reported “lots of good use and lots of success” on the walk-in properties. Hunters venturing onto private lands without permission had posed the only notable law-enforcement concerns.
“We had lots and lots of hunters getting into lots and lots of birds,” added Ed Gorman, the DOW’s small-game manager. “We even had several large groups close to limiting out, and that’s kind of unusual.”
Generally good hunting also was reported in Kit Carson County, and some pockets of good shooting were reported in the state’s southeast corner, where recent drought years took a toll on the pheasant population.
“It’s improved over the past couple of years but not as good as in the northeast,” Gorman said.
With the opening-weekend rush concluded, hunters still have plenty of opportunities to bag a pheasant dinner. The season in eastern Colorado runs through Jan. 31.
“Sometimes it’s better later, when things have settled down a little,” Thompson said. “But you never know from one day to the next what the pheasants will do. Today they were in the wheat stubble; tomorrow they might be somewhere else. About the time you think you have them figured out, they’ll change their routine and leave you guessing.”
Pheasant and quail seasons
Pheasants: Through Jan. 31 east of I-25; through Jan. 2 west of I-25. Daily limit, three roosters; possession limit nine roosters.
Quail: Through Jan. 2 east of I-25 and north of I-70 from I-25 east to Byers and U.S. 36 from Byers to Kansas; through Jan. 31 east of I-25 and south of I-70 to Byers and U.S. 36 to Kansas, and in the portions of Pueblo, Fremont Huerfano and Las Animas counties west of I-25; through Jan. 2 west of I-25 except in Pueblo, Fremont, Huerfano and Las Animas counties. Daily limit, eight of each quail species; possession limit 24 of each species (scaled, northern bobwhite and Gambel’s).
