Photo by garykramer.net.

As fall unfolds on the Great Plains, so too does the grandest spectacle the nation’s biggest outdoor playground has to offer -- pheasant season!

For the region’s pheasant hunters, the past decade has been like a dream in which the game bags are heavy and the shells spent. On an annual basis, the fertile grasslands of the Great Plains produce more pheasants than any other location in the nation.

With expanding bird populations, improving moisture conditions, and solid gains in public access, the upcoming pheasant season in the Great Plains could be the best of the best. Here’s a closer look at what each of our states has to offer.

NORTH DAKOTA
The secret’s out: North Dakota is full of pheasants. The hunting hasn’t been this good in more than 60 years, and wingshooters are taking full advantage.

Stan Kohn, upland game biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, has 30 years of experience under his belt, and he believes that these are the best pheasant numbers he’s ever seen. “What we’ve experienced over the past several years is an expansion of the pheasant range in North Dakota,” he said. “We are seeing hunters harvest good numbers of pheasants in counties that at one time barely registered on our surveys.”

We can thank several years of mild winters for playing a large part in the expansion, and though this past winter was more “normal” than has been the case of late, Kohn reported no significant losses. “We are probably carrying over as many birds as possible into spring,” he stated.

Pheasant hunting has always been popular in North Dakota, and with added opportunities come more hunters. “Both resident and non-resident hunter numbers have been on the rise,” Kohn remarked. “We have seen a record number of over 90,000 hunters the past couple of seasons, but with more areas to hunt, and local hunters staying closer to home, pressure has actually eased in some of the traditional hunting grounds.”

This season will once again see the popular areas south of Interstate 94 holding solid numbers of birds. And those numbers are spilling over: Robust pockets exist as far as the Williston area in the northwest and to the banks of Lake Sakakawea, Lake Audubon and beyond, to the Devils Lake region.

The biggest concerns currently facing North Dakota’s pheasant population are the effects of lingering drought in the southwest and fears relating to the current farm bill and the Conservation Reserve Program. Anyone with interest in upland game numbers is aware of the current CRP situation and its value to all wildlife. Many contracts entered into in connection with this program that over the past decade has lifted pheasant numbers from the cellar to the attic across the region are due to expire in the target year of 2007, so all parties concerned are holding their breath to see what the future has in store.

“We are going to see some changes,” noted Kohn. “Time will tell where and how much. CRP has been instrumental in building the pheasant numbers we have today, and without it, numbers are going to be affected.”

The positive effects of the program have been obvious to any wingshooter. In 1990, when the program was in its infancy, approximately 47,000 hunters shot 175,000 pheasants in North Dakota; by 2005, that number shot up to 92,000 hunters harvesting a modern-day record 809,000 pheasants.

In addition to big numbers of birds, North Dakota hunters have been treated to additional gains in the popular land-access program known as PLOTS -- Private Land Open To Sportsmen -- which at last count had enrolled more than 800,000 acres, many of these lying in some of the state’s best hunting areas. Overall, PLOTS is very popular with hunters and landowners alike.