Veteran pheasant hunter Lee Rupp (left) and hunting companion Steve Ferris showing off their take of longtails. Rupp's been hunting ringnecks since he was 9. Photo courtesy of Lee Rupp.

"In 1999 I did an interview with Jon Farrar for a magazine article. In his story it was mentioned that I had shot 123 pheasants the season before.

"The first crack of the bat that next year after the article came out, I went to ask permission to hunt at this old farmer's house near home. 'Looks like you got plenty of hunting places already,' the guy told me, as a copy of the magazine sat on the table behind him.

"I thought: 'Damn Farrar!'"

Thus began my conversation with Lee Rupp, former Nebraska Game and Parks fisheries biologist, Nebraska state senator, and longtime resident of Monroe County. Oh, yes -- and he's been a pheasant hunter for the last 60 years.

As is demonstrated above, Rupp knows how to tell a story, so you might take him for the kind of fellow who'll spin pheasant yarns for as long as you care to sit and listen. He's not. Owing to his background in biology and common-sense approach to hunting, his talk leans more to instruction than to mere entertainment.

"In 1972 I started keeping a journal," he said, "and have kept one ever since. And it just doesn't count numbers -- it lets me know a bit more about how things have changed through the years. And have they changed!"

Rupp began to thumb through his entries. "Week before Christmas in 1983, coldest in 113 years. Minus 24, minus 18, minus 22 . . . . I killed 17 roosters that year. The next year, I killed 11, which has been my lowest in 35 years. It was three years before they came back to respectable numbers. I hate hearing, 'Oh, we had a cold, wet spring this year and a poor hatch.' We haven't had a cold, wet spring in 10 years or a hard winter in 20. Plus, that pheasant is a tough bird.

"When people are looking at pheasant numbers, I think they look for a knee-jerk reaction to the current pheasant population dilemma. There are no silver-bullet answers. There are, however, several factors. What pheasants do need is brooding grass. And they don't have it."

The grasses that ringnecks need to survive are being eliminated by much "cleaner" farming methods. And it shouldn't be forgotten that the welfare of pheasant populations has a financial dimension. "$4 corn is going to cause farmers to plant -- myself included -- fencerow to fencerow," Rupp noted.

Other factors too exert an influence on pheasant populations. "There's a night shift of possums, skunks, and coons, plus groundhogs and foxes, both of which we didn't use to have when I was growing up," Rupp said. "Eggs are a perfect food for possums and skunks. But people ask, 'What about the increasing turkey population?' Those turkey hens are big enough to ward off predators on the nest and then they eventually nest in trees. It's different when everything a bird does is on the ground.

"Plus, I was talking to a farmer this spring. He says, 'Is it unusual to see 25 or 30 hawks all at one time?' Now, I don't want people to go and think I'm saying to shoot a hawk or owl when you see it. But all these predators are a factor."

Yet when you look at Rupp's journal, there's not a hint of a decline of pheasant success. The yearly totals of 57, 61, 76, 79, and 81 cover Rupp's last five hunting seasons. And like most people who are successful at their craft, Rupp, 69, has a long list of dos and don'ts he abides by.

"First off, avoid that opening week like the plague. If you go toward Lincoln or Omaha, you're going to be beating your head against the wall. People should get away from crowds if they can, and if all possible, have someone point you in the right direction; someone that knows the land in an area. Even the way I know pheasants, it's really a crapshoot if I go to the middle of nowhere if I don't know the area."

Rupp sometimes spends more time looking for landowners instead of hunting, but it's become a necessary practice for him, one that is more manageable as the pheasant season carries on.

"It's best after the holidays," he said. "Everyone is usually done by then. And in January, not a lot of people will renew their license and you'll find access is going to be a whole lot easier."