# These are the good ol' days NOW!



## Rick Acker (Sep 26, 2002)

I hope everybody is enjoying their pheasant season. I've noticed I'm already getting spoiled. N.D. will will most likely harvest over a million birds...Which would be a modern day record and put us only behind S.D. in total harvest in the entire country. Is good as that sounds, could big changes be on the near horizon?

CRP is very much in question! At least a couple of the farmers land that I hunt will have their CRP expire next year and are not being renewed.

Crop prices are very high right now! I'm very happy for my farmers, that they will get the prices they deserve. However, this will translate into more sloughs & cover going "bye bye" if they can be farmed! I witnessed a slough that I have been hunting for years, completely gone over the weekend. No sign it was ever there...and I'm talking a big track of land.

Drought is creaping across the state making plowing up sloughs very easy!

I guess we all know habitat is the key for maintaining a long term pheasant population. This as we know it, may be changing!

Just want everybody to enjoy what we got now. We may never see days like this for a very long time!


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## woodcanoeguy (Oct 8, 2005)

The democrats have always been pretty friendly to wildlife habitat...so let's hope the new congress and senate support the CRP, WRP and other habitat programs. And let's remind our elected officials that we want their help on wildlife issues!


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## prairie hunter (Mar 13, 2002)

Let's see, the battle is

CRP

vs

Increasing crop prices = less $ efficiency on CRP payments 
Cargill
ADM
ethanol plants
bio diesel

and political pressure to reduce dependency on foreign crude

not a very even fight. Sportsman will need to unite behind PF and other groups to lobby aggressive on CRP. This battle will be toughest one yet.


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## hunt4P&amp;Y (Sep 23, 2004)

I have seen alot of people plowing under sloughs. Infact I along with my dad watched one farmer burn a slough and then he disked it under with his nice new John Deer tractor.

My dad is an insurance adjuster and two days later he got a claim in that area of a tractor that burned up. When he went to adjust it. Woulden't you know it was the farmer we saw disking up one of our favorite hunting sloughs. They investigated the fire, but they ended up having to pay for the tractor, because he didn't start the fire his hired man did. I don't kno how that works, but oh well. I just thought the whole situation was ironic. Someone above was looking down on that farmer and said enough is enough. 
The worst part about the whole deal is we saw him doing the same thing this weekend. With a brand new tractor. Hopefully it burns up also.


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## TuJays (Oct 30, 2006)

Everywhere that I have been in SD and ND this fall it is the same story.......The Ethanol boys are makeing it known that they will pay top dollar for corn and they are trying to lock in as much acreage as possible for the coming growing season. Unfortuanatly they have caught the CRP folks with their pants down and I am afraid that by the time they wake up and institute enough program changes to perserve the CRP thats left, wildlife and the fine folks of the Dakotas will suffer far more losses down the road then what is gained by this short term Ethanol frenzie.
Ethanol production also requires extremely large quantities of water, which can only be aquired from rivers and or deep wells; in a already drought stricken Dakotas you should expect your water table to be hammered right along with the wildlife cover.
It all boils down to $$$$$$.
Lets stick together to preserve as much habitat as possible, it may end up being a grass roots effort but we have done it before!

John M


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## TuJays (Oct 30, 2006)

woodcanoeguy said:


> The democrats have always been pretty friendly to wildlife habitat...so let's hope the new congress and senate support the CRP, WRP and other habitat programs. And let's remind our elected officials that we want their help on wildlife issues!


Yes they have been friendly towards wildlife and wildlife habitat.... lets just make sure that they don,t get so friendly as to take our guns and right to hunt away in the name of protecting wildlife.
John M


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## DJRooster (Nov 4, 2002)

This is why we need to get a good harvest each and every year because with pheasants you never know what next year may bring. It makes no sense to carry over a bunch of roosters because it is about impossible to overharvest this bird. Enjoy the resource! Agriculture is a much bigger business than hunting to almost every farm operation in North Dakota so when it comes to economics....well it is pretty much a no brainer.


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