Tony Peterson and his bird dog, Sadie, hit the cattail sloughs of Minnesota in search of pheasants. These public-land birds have been pressured for weeks, so Tony ventures deep into the thick wetlands bordering nearby farms, where the birds have found refuge. With the whitetail rut winding down, it’s time for Tony and Sadie to scratch that public-land rooster itch. Presented by @scheels #fueledbynature #meateater
We’d already pushed through a big, grassy swale that looked birdy enough, but only produced a lone rooster. After huddling over an onX map, our small orange army decided to head for the shelter belt on the far north edge of the field. With two hunters set as blockers, the dogs worked the trees while the rest of us walked the edges.
Midway through three roosters flushed wild, rocketing up and out of shotgun range to the other side of the property. A dog whined, begging to go after them, but we resisted the faraway temptation. It was late December and those cagey birds weren’t likely to hold for long.
Besides, we had other places to go — more than 44,000 acres of private yet huntable land on the prairies of western Nebraska. And we’d get plenty more shots on wild birds, both pheasants and prairie chickens. All this acreage had recently been enrolled in the Nebraska Community Access Partnership, which is part of a new public-access initiative led by Pheasants Forever, with support from onX, Nebraska Environmental Trust, and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
The NCAP builds on the state’s successful Open Fields and Water program, which pays willing landowners to allow public walk-in hunting access. At $25 per acre for high-quality CRP, and $10 per acre for rangelands and grasslands, PF’s new program offers these landowners an even bigger incentive to enroll their lands in OFW under a five-year contract. (These one-time incentives are on top of the annual OFW payments of 50 cents to $15 per acre that private landowners receive from the state.) As part of that contract, and to maintain high-quality habitat, participating landowners can’t graze or hay the acreage during those five years. The only exception to the rule is limited management of grasslands.
Since it was established in 2024, the NCAP has focused mainly on properties in a six-county region around Ogallala. The area is already a tourist hub in the summer months, and PF’s Nebraska state coordinator Kelsi Wehrman says the local community has welcomed the prospect of bringing in more hunters during the fall and winter months.
The NCAP is also part of a much larger initiative that PF calls the Public Access to Habitat Program. It started in South Dakota, where it’s helped open nearly 70,000 acres of private land to public hunters. PF is also adding acreage in North Dakota, Michigan, and Oklahoma.
At a time when federal funding for walk-in hunting programs is limited to non-existent, new programs like these are even more important for hunters and local landowners. They’re also a major benefit for the surrounding communities and small businesses that benefit from the economic boost hunters bring.
“It definitely brings a lot to an area where we have more landowners who are interested in enrolling [in walk-in access] than we have federal funding available,” says Wehrman. “And just in these first two years, the landowner response has been incredible.”
Wehrman explains that so far, they’ve enrolled roughly 57,000 acres in Keith, Arthur, Garden, Deuel, and Perkins counties. More than 20,000 of those acres have been added since January.
“Initially, the effort has been around getting as many acres available to hunters as possible, and I feel like we’ve met that … Our original goal was 25,000 acres over three years, so it’s even more than we expected,” says Wehrman, noting that last year’s enrollment included some large tracts of grassland that’s home to prairie chickens and sharpies.. “This year, we focused more on smaller properties where you’d find pheasants, like pivot corners and traditional CRP.”
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) is gearing up for the opening of pheasant season on Saturday, Oct. 11, with a significant release of pheasants across the state.
This fall, FWP plans to release nearly 18,000 birds on wildlife management areas, fishing access sites, and some school trust lands.
This week alone, almost 2,000 pheasants will be released at various sites.
The initiative is part of the fourth year of the annual pheasant release program, which was approved by the Fish and Wildlife Commission in 2022 to release up to 50,000 pheasants annually through 2026.
The program, authorized by the Legislature in 2021, allows for spending up to $1 million each year.
The following was sent out by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks:
The purpose of the pheasant release program is to give new hunters an opportunity to experience hunting success, encouraging their future participation in conservation around the state. In Montana, like other states, fish and wildlife conservation is fundedprimarily through license dollars. Hunting and fishing are an active way to support wildlife management, habitat protection and conservation efforts.
To see a map of the release sites, go to fwp.mt.gov/hunt/roosters-for-recruitment. For more information on hunting pheasants and other upland game birds, go to fwp.mt.gov/hunt/regulations/upland-game-bird. To read the upland game bird forecast, click here. As hunters head into the field, they should keepbear safetyin mind and remember the potential forfire danger.
Read the full NBC Montana article
Join Pheasants Forever's Tom Carpenter and onX's Ben Brettingen to learn how to scout and hunt pheasants more effectively.
“Surveys conducted this spring looked promising entering the breeding season, and with good habitat conditions, good production is expected,” said Bryan O’Connor, upland game program manager for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
Pheasant
Statewide pheasant counts during this year’s April rural mail carrier survey increased 83% compared to 2024 and saw increases in all six pheasant management regions. However, statewide during our July rural mail carrier survey we calculated a 12% drop in comparison to 2024, and mixed results were observed at the management region scale.
According to surveys, the Panhandle and Southwest pheasant management regions should support some of the higher pheasant densities this fall. The Central, Northeast, and Sandhills management regions all saw increases this year compared to 2024. The Central management region also exceeded the 5-year and 10-year averages, while the Northeast exceeded the 10-year average. Pheasant habitat within these regions are relatively isolated, but where quality cover exists, hunters should find good pheasant hunting opportunities.
Read the full Nebraska’s Upland Game Bird Hunting Outlook
Kansas 2025 spring Pheasant crowing count RESULTS
Range-wide
The 2024 PCSI was 10.61 crows per stop across all 64 surveyed routes. Among the 57 comparable routes (sampled both years by same observer), there was a significant increase (P < 0.001) in the statewide meanfrom 2024 (49%). The PCSI decreased on 15 of the comparable routes and increased or remained the same on the remaining 42 comparable routes relative to 2024 (Table 1).
Flint Hills: All 7 of the established routes were completed. The regional PCSI was 3.95, indicating no significant change from 2024 (P = 0.328). Glaciated Plains: All 6 of the established routes were completed. The regional PCSI was 1.45, indicating no significant change from 2024 (P = 0.220).
Northern High Plains: All 12 established routes were completed. The regional PCSI was 18.62, indicating a significant increase from 2024 (P = 0.079). Smoky Hills: All 21 of the established routes were completed, the regional PCSI was 9.93, indicating a significant increase from 2024 (P = 0.005).
Southern High Plains: All 7 of the established survey routes were completed in this region. The regional PCSI was 19.65, indicating a significant increase from 2024 (P = 0.0). South-
Central Prairies: Of the 12 established routes 11 were completed this year. The regional PCSI was 8.52, indicating no significant change from 2024 (P = 0.201)
Read the full KS Outdoors Report
The numbers are in, and North Dakota pheasant numbers are similar to last year, the Game and Fish Department said Monday, Sept. 8, in reporting results from its annual roadside surveys conducted in late July and August.
Total pheasants observed (91.6 per 100 miles) are down 3% from last year, and broods (11.4 per 100 miles) are down 1%, the department said. The average brood size (5.1) is down 6%. Despite the slight declines, the statewide number of pheasants observed per 100 miles is 48% above the 10-year average, Game and Fish said. The final summary is based on 285 survey runs made along 100 brood routes across North Dakota.
Here’s a look at pheasant numbers by region:
The southwest and northwest districts also had the highest pheasant numbers in spring crowing count surveys, which were up 6% from 2024 across the state’s primary pheasant range, the Game and Fish Department reported in late June. Observers tallied 31.1 crows per stop in the southwest during the spring survey, up from 28.8 in 2024; and 21.3 crows per stop in the northwest, down from 21.5 in 2024.
Read the full Grad Forks Herald article
Tom Kirschenmann predicted that hunters would harvest more pheasants in South Dakota this season than they did last year.
“I would not be surprised to see 1.5 million birds harvested this year,” Kirschenmann told state Game, Fish and Parks Commission members during their meeting in Rapid City.
He added, “It’s hard to drive anywhere in South Dakota right now and not see upland birds, whether it’s pheasant or grouse.”
Hunters took an estimated 1.3 million wild pheasants and an estimated 99,000 sharptailed grouse and prairie chickens in South Dakota during 2024.
The 2025 grouse hunting season opens on Saturday, September 20.
Pheasant hunting opens gradually. First comes a youth-only season September 27 through October 5, open on public and private land. Next is a residents-only season, limited to public lands, that runs October 11-13. Then comes the full season opener on Saturday, October 18, running through January 31, 2026.
Alex Solem is the upland game biologist for the Wildlife Division that’s part of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department. He told the commission on Friday that the estimated harvest of 1.3 million pheasants during the 2024 season was based on surveys of 15,000 residents and 15,000 nonresidents and doesn’t include the approximately 400,000 pen-raised birds that hunters took at shooting preserves.
Read the full KELO article
