Pheasant numbers in Iowa look to be going up

The drought of 2023 has provided favorable nesting and brooding conditions for pheasants, boding well for improved hunting and harvests this fall.

The recent August pheasant population survey recorded the highest statewide counts since 2015 — a statewide average of nearly 23 birds per 30-mile route, a 15 percent increase over last year.

  Buy Photo

Last year with a statewide roadside count of 18.9 birds per route, 61,400 hunters harvested an estimated 357,000 roosters. If hunter turnout matches that of recent years, Iowa hunters can expect to harvest around 400,000 roosters, said Todd Bogenschutz, upland wildlife biologist with the Department of Natural Resources.

The mild winter increased hen survival and the dry spring increased nest success and chick survival, Bogenschutz said.

Based on a computer model that factors in winter and spring weather conditions, Bogenschutz predicted the uptick in pheasant numbers.

The roadside counts confirmed that “the model was pretty much on the mark,” he said.

  Buy Photo

While the drought boosted pheasant production, it also contributed to at least a short term loss of critical pheasant habitat, he said.

Drought conditions in about two-thirds of Iowa counties have triggered emergency haying and grazing provisions of the 2018 farm bill.

In accordance with those provisions much of the grass in Conservation Reserve Program fields has been cut and baled for livestock forage, depleting the principal habitat for pheasants and other ground-nesting birds.

  Buy Photo

The loss of that habitat will leave fewer fields and buffer strips for Iowa hunters to pursue their quarry and deprive pheasants of the cover they need to avoid predators and survive hostile winter weather, Bogenschutz said.

The ongoing drought also has hastened the maturation of corn and soybeans, setting the table for an exceptionally early harvest, which already is underway in many parts of the state.

With continued dry weather, most of the corn should be out of the fields when the pheasant season opens on Oct. 28. Without the refuge of standing corn, opening day pheasants will be especially vulnerable to the dogs and hunters who pursue them.

In northeast Iowa, where I do most of my pheasant hunting, DNR personnel counted 26.9 birds per 30-mile route, a 61 percent increase over the previous year’s 16.7 birds and the highest index since 1998, according to Bogenschutz.

Those numbers heighten the opening day anticipation I’ve felt for the past 58 years, tempered only slightly by the inevitable effects of aging.

Though my reflexes have dulled, muscle memory helps old hunters hit fleeing pheasants, just as it helped 43-year-old Hank Aaron hit 10 homers in his 23rd and final season.

Now if my leg muscles could just remember how to carry boots, shells and a 7-pound shotgun all day through dense, cloying cover.