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MO-APE

MO-APE

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This will be a random post for Iowa Whitetail, but I saw something yesterday that has me thrilled. I was leaving my farm yesterday and saw three cock pheasants in less than a four mile drive. Very strange, it was in the middle of the day and all were in the middle of the road. I haven't seen one up there in over a year. There isn't a caged bird farm or anything near that I'm aware of. I'm only 10 miles or so from the Iowa line in North Missouri.

There just might be a huntable population again in my lifetime! Hopefully you guys are seeing more of them as well.
 
I read an article last week saying that they are predicting a 40% increase in the population this year. I can't recall where I read that tho
 
My farm is much more a deer/turkey cover type of farm than a "bird farm", but we are getting a few more pheasant each year. I see this despite very wet springs every year for the past 5 years EXCEPT for this spring, which is way too dry. :(

I have been converting my brome CRP acres over to more diverse and better grass cover AND I have been fortunate in that a couple of adjacent neighbors have converted some of their pasture ground to row crops. It really is about habitat, and if we can get some cooperative weather I can see that we should be able to see many more pheasants.
 
With the super mild winter we had coupled with this super dry spring and summer, their predictions are probably correct. I've been seeing pheasants almost everyday on my way to work. My dad says he's been seeing a few roosters on our farm in southern iowa as well. We just got approved for CRP and are putting that in next year, so I'm hoping to have some dynamite pheasant hunting in a few years.
 
I've been hearing a lot of them this year around the lakes I've been fishing and actually spotted a couple of them on the roads. Although I doubt I'll make an effort to hunt them this year, it was cool to see and hear them again. Instead this year I will be making more of an effort on shooting Yotes and Coons in hopes that I can make a dent and help the Pheasants out a lil bit..
 
We've been seeing a lot more of them this year than any year. On avg. we see 5-10 each spring/summer. We saw over 40 this year running around.
 
SCOFFIN said:
I've been hearing a lot of them this year around the lakes I've been fishing and actually spotted a couple of them on the roads. Although I doubt I'll make an effort to hunt them this year, it was cool to see and hear them again. Instead this year I will be making more of an effort on shooting Yotes and Coons in hopes that I can make a dent and help the Pheasants out a lil bit..
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Shoot, trap, kill every coon, opposum, and skunk you can. Those 3 predators are a lot harder on bird populations than most realize.
 
jmoose said:
too bad you can't kill the hawks while you're at it....
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Can't or not supposed to.. :)

I know some PF guys that don't necessarily follow that law..

I wonder how much change we'll see in the Hawk population now that fences are being torn down and fenceline trees being removed. If they don't have a place to perch and hunt pheasants, I wonder if their population will start going back down and the pheasants back up.
 
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