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October 30, 2011

Cross: Pheasant hunting prospects in Iowa are looking lean

By John Cross Free Press Staff Writer

— If there was one thing there was plenty of on Saturday, the opener of Iowa’s 2011 pheasant hunting season, it was parking places.

There was no problem finding a spot to park at the Ventura grade school where the volunteer fire department was serving up stacks of fresh, steaming pancakes.

And following Tim Ackarman of nearby Miller, Iowa, to our hunting spot north of town, there were plenty of parking places left at the public hunting areas we passed.

What a difference 10 years makes.

A decade ago, the parking lot at the school was clogged with pickups with kennels of whining bird dogs. And public areas were clogged with trucks containing hunters awaiting the 8 a.m. shooting time.

Another thing there was plenty of back then were birds.

But there has since been a gradual decline in prime pheasant habitat in the form of Conservation Reserve Program acres.

But even more significantly, as has been the case across much of the Upper Midwest pheasant range, nature has dealt an unkind hand to Iowa’s pheasant population the past two years.

Severe back-to-back winters along with cold, wet springs have exacted a toll. This year, Iowa’s pheasant population is predicted to be down by more than 50 percent.

And frankly, 2010 numbers were hardly stellar as hunters bagged less than 200,000 birds.

In a state where harvest figures not all that long ago flirted with the magic million-bird mark, it is indeed a sad state of affairs for upland bird enthusiasts.

So it was with lowered expectations that Ackarman and I followed our dogs Saturday into arguably some of the best pheasant habitat to be found in the county.

He was more optimistic about our prospects than I was.

“I’m seeing about the same number of birds around as I did last year,” he said.

After several unproductive hunts thus far in Minnesota where I have seen a grand total of three hens, this was good news.

Last year at day’s end, we each had a bird in the bag. On the next day, we both bagged our three-bird-limits.

A half-hour into our hunt, my springer spaniel grew intense. Moments later, a rooster clattered into the sky. My first shot only tickled it; a second shot caused it to drop a leg.

I watched as it sailed across the grass to settle onto a grassy hillside a quarter-mile distant.

Marking the spot, we decided to go after it right away. Ten minutes later, a young rooster hefted nicely in my game bag.

A half-hour later, Ackarman dumped a young rooster that his Labrador nosed into the air.

My springer spaniel, Sampson, put up one more rooster from the edge of a nearly dry wetland that gave me a nice crossing shot.

Another 90 minutes of hunting put up only two more hens.

After more than three hours of solid hunting, given the circumstances, three birds in the bag on opening day exceeded our expectations.

But troubling in this is that for all of the prime area we covered with two experienced dogs, we only put up a total of five birds.

In past years, scarce opening day flushes could be blamed on standing cornfields where birds could find refuge. As fields were harvested, hunting would only get better as birds settled into remaining cover.

But this fall, the harvest is virtually buttoned up in northern Iowa. There wasn’t a standing cornfield to be found for miles.

In another words, this year’s Iowa opener is about as good as it is going to get.



John Cross is a Free Press staff writer. Contact him at 344-6376 or by email at jcross@mankatofreepress.com.     

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