The Colorado pheasant and quail season opens Saturday with the forecast for good hunting opportunities in many areas throughout the state.
Four of us traveled a week ago to South Dakota to hunt pheasants; that state’s season opened in October. We found excellent numbers and shooting there. Many Colorado hunters annually cross state lines in pursue these beautiful birds in the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, as those adjoining states boast high pheasant numbers and all but Kansas open in October.
Around 12,000 hunters are expected to try their luck in Colorado, giving a boost to business in towns such as Sterling, Holyoke, Yuma, Burlington, Walsh and Lamar, all areas that have produced good bird hunting for many years.
The Chinese ring neck pheasant, another sportsman-supported success story, will be the target for state hunters and where there is good habitat, cover and feed there should be good numbers of birds.
“Although we won’t have the 2009-2011 numbers where we had higher than normal populations, we should see good numbers in the northeast area, with the best hunting probably coming from a triangulated area running from Holyoke to Sterling and then south to Burlington,” said Ed Gorman, small-game manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “There will be pockets of good numbers of pheasants in these areas. But we’re still seeing a significant loss in habitat base primarily from the continued loss of Conservation Reserve Program lands, which affects numbers.”
This federal program pays farmers to leave their lands in natural habitat. But with the higher commodity prices, many have found it more financially beneficial to farm the land.
“The southeast area still finds pheasant numbers low and recovering from the decade-long drought, but the increased moisture this past spring should help,” Gorman said.
Burlington will host its 34th annual Rooster Roundup event, which provides participating hunters access to more than 60,000 acres of land for pheasant hunting.
Quail numbers may be somewhat of a different story; the bobwhites along the Platte were driven from their usual brood areas by the spring flood, but hopefully some late nesting made up for losses. One bright spot for quail was the return of scale quail numbers in the southeast.
Two categories of hunters will be heading out Saturday, those that have a good relationship with a Colorado farmer or landowner, with access to field cropland and brushy areas and those that will hunt public grounds or spend their time knocking on doors for permission to hunt farmland. My advice for the latter group of hunters is to use the information offered on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website, which features hunting tips, videos and, most important, information about its small-game Walk-In Access program. The popular program is free with the purchase of a small-game license, and gives bird hunters access to more than 200,000 acres of private property.
The 2015 season continues until Jan. 31, 2016, on the Eastern Plains, with regions on the Western Slope concluding Jan. 3.
There are few things more exciting, or startling, than the flush of a cackling rooster pheasant. With a waterfowl season in excess of 100 days and pheasant hunting lasting close to 80, Colorado hunters are truly fortunate to live in this state.
