# Pheasant outlook still good



## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

Snow not a problem for opening weekend
By RICHARD HINTON 
Bismarck Tribune 
When the pheasant season opens a half-hour before the sun cracks the horizon on Saturday, expect to find bunches of birds in the field.

As for hunters, upwards of 50,000 should be out trying to walk up a brightly colored ringneck.

"And that's not counting people out waterfowl hunting," said Randy Kreil, chief of the wildlife division for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department.

Pheasant season is the second busiest opening weekend, trailing only the deer opener, Kreil added.

Birds are abundant, or at least comparable to last year, in all regions of the state, according to NDGFD brood observations done well before the midweek snow storm scythed across portions of the state.

"If pheasants are close to any kind of cover, and if tomorrow shapes up, my gut instinct is it shouldn't be a big deal," said Stan Kohn, a NDGFD upland bird biologist.

"But we will be a lot smarter next week after the opening weekend and see what hunters are experiencing."

The brood observations point to areas south of Interstate 94 from Minnesota to Montana as holding the best opportunities for filling a three-rooster daily bag limit.

There were reports of more than a foot of snow in the Dickinson area about midday Wednesday.

In the southwest, an estimated 10 inches of snow fell in the Mott area, said Mark Wiegand, a co-owner of the Tailfeather Inn in Mott, which is booked "almost to capacity" through the first two weekends of the pheasant season.

"Pheasants are abundant, excellent," he said. "Whatever Game and Fish says, multiply it by two."

Over in the southeast corner of the state, Oakes was "dreary and rainy," Lori Salberg, owner of the Pizza Ranch, said Wednesday.

She already has added extra help to handle the influx of hunters, some of whom already had arrived in town.

So far, business looks about the same as last year, but "we're getting them earlier. That's good," she said.

Almost $3-a-gallon gas doesn't seem to be slowing hunter numbers, either.

"I don't think higher gas prices are a big deal, not for avid hunters," Salberg said.

Neither does Wiegand, who said he attracts most of his clientele through advertising in "high-grade (outdoor) magazines."

Wiegand said he saw probably 1,000 pheasants north of Mott one recent evening when he was sharp-tailed grouse hunting.

A lot of the pheasants were young, "about the size of a quail or smaller," he said as he wondered how they would fare in the snowy weather that settled in on Mott.

Kohn thinks they'll be OK.

"They might be wet, but if it's not overly cold at night, and they still are brooding up with females at night, they should be OK."

The National Weather Service is predicting highs in the 60s on Saturday and upper 50s on Sunday in the Mott area. Highs in the 50s all weekend are forecast for the Oakes area, and highs in the 50s should be the norm throughout the state.

The moisture is likely to have more impact on lowering the fire danger index than on the pheasant population, Kreil said.

"It's not that cold, and they all are in good health at this point," he said.

But some roads and trails may be muddy, and Kreil urged people to use good judgment on minimum maintenance roads.

"It will be interesting to see how it goes. Pheasants are scattered across the whole lower two-thirds of the state, " Kreil said. "There are plenty of opportunities for people."

(Reach reporter Richard Hinton at 701-250-8256 or [email protected];bismarcktribune.com.)


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