Iowaqdm here is a little background on the historical pheasant population in Iowa. Back in the 60's there was a program called the soil bank program that set aside a lot of good pheasant habitat. Plus Iowa was a lot different place those days. There were brushy fencerows everywhere, many many farm groves and marshes. Remember, in the 1960's the average farmer could make a living on 160 acres. Nowadays, all those groves havve been torn down, the fences removed and much of the sections are farmed from road to road. When I first got really serious about pheasant hunting in the 70's, the population was not that great, and it was seeing the strain of the things I just mentioned. The farm bill of 1985 and the millions of acres of the new CRP program changed all that. Suddenly we were in the heyday of pheasant hunting. It was the best pheasant hunting I have ever seen and probably will ever see. High commodity prices and fewer CRP acreage is what has spelled the end of the pheasant heyday. Combine that with the wet springs, ice storms, etc. and we have a perfect storm so to speak and the lowest pheasant populations in my lifetime. They will come back, but they will never be back to the levels there were in the 80's and 90's. No matter how many coyotes you kill. The habitat isn't there for it.
Coyotes do not kill many pheasants, but they do take a toll on foxes, which raid pheasant nests. The problem really is that the numbers of furbearers being harvested is way down. Skunks, possums and coons take far more pheasants than coyotes ever will. They do it by eating the eggs. So if you take all these things into account, you can see why the pheasant population is so bad. I do not think we will ever see the amazing pheasant hunting that we had in the 80's and 90's ever again.
