# Bismarck Trib.



## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

Jun 04, 2009 - 04:06:37 CDT
By BRIAN GEHRING 
Bismarck Tribune

The numbers won't be out for a while yet, but at least early on it looks as though the state's rooster pheasant population came through the winter better than some had feared.

On the fisheries side of things, the paddlefish season that just wrapped up may have been a disappointment to some anglers, but it wasn't because of a lack of fish.

Pheasant numbers better than feared?

Game and Fish Department crews are in the process of wrapping up their spring crowing count surveys across the state.

Stan Kohn, upland game supervisor for the department, said it's too early to make any definitive statements, but preliminary indications are the brutal winter that was could have been much worse.

The crowing counts will wrap up statewide Wednesday, Kohn said.

"Right now things don't look too bad,"Kohn said. "I'm a little surprised."

He said this spring he hasn't received any calls about dead pheasants being piled up in shelter belts after the snow banks receded.

That may not be an accurate indication however, as predators like coyotes, fox and others may have been eating very well for a change.

All that said, Kohn said he is still more than a little uneasy about the overall numbers - especially hen pheasants.

In early surveys, Kohn said crews are not seeing the hen-to-rooster ratios they have seen in years past.

Ideally, Kohn said there would be three to five hens for every rooster.

This year, he said, it's more like one to three hens for every rooster.

Statewide, Kohn said he expects to see pockets where the numbers of birds will be down as much as 30 percent over the previous year.

He said the southwestern portion of the state near New England and areas of Grant and Morton counties may be where winter affected the numbers the most.

"In the southwest so far we are seeing numbers that are consistently down," Kohn said.

If what Kohn suspects about the hen numbers is true, the real story won't unfold until the end of the summer.

Fewer hens means more roosters competing for mating rights and that could further stress what hens are out there coming off a difficult winter.

Kohn said the hens will have likely come into the spring with a lower than normal body weight and ultimately it could mean fewer eggs on the nest.

Kohn said going back to back to spring of 1997, North Dakota didn't have the pheasant numbers we have had in recent years so it's difficult to make comparisons.

But South Dakota had the numbers then, and Kohn said even with good habitat, production was down that spring.

In 1997, fewer birds resulted in the state adopting a two-bird limit, Kohn said.

So while the numbers aren't in yet, any discussion of change in the bag limit for this fall won't come until July, Kohn said.


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