# Pheasant Numbers Out West



## bretts (Feb 24, 2004)

I was in the Mott, Regent area this weekend hunting pheasants and you could defiently tell that the pheasant numbers were down quite a bit. I think that the Game and fish defiently had sufficient evidence ahead of time to predict that the numbers wouldn't be good. I thought that it would have been a good year to the lower the limits to 2 birds a piece. I don't know, just seemed like there was about 1 rooster to about every 15-20 hens. Just an idea?


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## Anas Strepera (Nov 10, 2004)

Lowering the limit to 2 roosters wouldn't have done anything. One rooster will breed a lot of hens. All it will take is one good year and the numbers will bounce back.


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

1 rooster to 15-20 hens; that's really about all you need. A good reproduction can still occur next year if the ratio is around 1 rooster to every 10 hens. In fact, roosters are capable of fertilizing up to 20 hens before they're done mating (take that Viagra!)

I think with a decent winter, and a better spring and summer than last year, we'll see a good hatch and have good hunting for another year.

I did notice that the numbers across the board were down around my grandma's place. Of course, we hit that area pretty hard, and so do a lot of others in the Watford City region, but we did see tons of birds in the thick cattail sloughs which we couldn't managably walk. So there are still good numbers, I haven't seen a lot of juvies taken though, lots of adult birds. Which makes me think a) whatever juvies hatched were taken early, and b) there wasn't much of a hatch.


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## Remmi_&amp;_I (Dec 2, 2003)

njsimonson, do you know the zubke's?


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

There's sooooo many of them


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## drjongy (Oct 13, 2003)

To have lower rooster numbers heading into winter is actually a good thing (not too low, of course), because there will be less competition with the hens for food. As stated above, one rooster can mate with many hens come spring.

I've heard stats that the average ND rooster survival is only around 15% given environmental and hunting factors. Hen survival is around 50%, basically all environmental factors (winter) contributing to this stat. 15% for roosters sounds really low, however, does anyone know if this is correct?


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

From what I've heard...you cannot hunt the roosters down to less than 30 per 100 hens.The GNF says 1 rooster per 10 hens is sufficient.


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## DJRooster (Nov 4, 2002)

And if you have to work all day to find a rooster or two they call it hunting but I think that some people have spoiled by the experience called killing with all the birds in the SW part of North Dakota. I sleep a lot harder after a day of hunting vs. a day of killing. Nothing better than having to out fox and work for a bird or two. Plenty of birds in North Dakota for a 3 bird limit.


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## pheasantslayer (May 13, 2004)

I was just curious to ask you one question bretts. Were you hunting on private land or public land. It seems to me that when all the public land down there gets pounded like it always does, the roosters will move to private land due to less competition by hunters. I know what you mean by the hens though. It seems like when you hunt down there all the birds that you kick up are either mostly hens, or mostly roosters. Was out by that area 2 weeks ago and boy are the birds really grouping up, should definitely be a fun christmas break when i go back to the area.


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## bretts (Feb 24, 2004)

I was hunting mainly public land. Lots of plots. We hunted some private land but plots with good crp really held a lot of birds. We got our fair share of birds but defiently nothing like past years. One thing I did notice is the coyote population out there is defiently up. Saw coyotes all throughout the day. Defiently going out west again except this time with some calls and the 22-250.


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