To follow up on yesterday’s post, here are some good deets on the South Dakota count/forecast from an article at ArgusLeader.com. Highlights: > The decline from the 10-year average is 41 percent. But Travis Runia, GF&P senior upland game biologist, who prepared the report, noted that the past 10 years have been epic in the […]
…Hunting Will Still Be Good? The official South Dakota pheasant count is in, and it ain’t prettty: a 46% decline in brood numbers from last year. Before going any further, here’s our standard disclaimer about counts and forecasts: > Use them more of an indicator than as the final word. > Because you’re Serious, you’re […]
Typically manufacturers of hunting and fishing gear roll out a bunch of new stuff before the season. Happens every year and truth be told…we love it. Seeing, checking out, testing, using new gear, it’s fun. Even when it doesn’t work out, we’re always learning. So where’s the new upland stuff? We don’t have a whole […]
…Habitat Story Like Quail North Dakota won’t have a sage grouse season for the fourth year in a row. Maybe not the worst thing in the world, but the story there and elsewhere is one of increasingly fragmented habitat, the same problem faced by bobwhite quail. We’re not getting fewer Americans with fewer needs/wants, so […]
If you’ve perused any photos of South Dakota, no doubt you’ve tripped over at least one of the world’s largest pheasant, all 22 tons of it. It’s in Huron along Highway 14, right by the Dakota Inn. (Yes we do want to stay there one day and hopefully tip back a Rooster Lager for a […]
Dismal. That’s the word Star Tribune writer Doug Smith starts off with in a blog post about what this year’s pheasant season might look like for Minnesotans – those Minnesotans who don’t already head for points west during pheasant season, that is. Highlights (if you can call them that) of the post below: > Dismal. […]
Lakes states newspapers have been reporting that the grousing will be off the charts in MN and WI (though we did get an anecdotal report that WI may not be all that in some areas), and now comes a recent report that Michigan may be similarly stellar. Time for a “Yooper” invasion! Some highlights of […]
We’d like to see Pheasants Forever (PF) take over the world – the upland bird world. Much as we like the Ruffed Grouse Society, no one’s got it going on as well as PF…which we say as folks who have talked to PF and seen their folks operate up close and personal. In light of […]
Good article at gundogmag.com, worth a full read. Here are a few highlights that stood out for us, either paraphrased or quoted. > In training, your dog works harder than you do. So watch out when the temp gets 65 degrees for pointers, and 70 for retrievers. Be especially careful if a dog is out […]
If you read our first book, you know that when we wrote it we admitted we didn’t wear glasses in the grouse woods, that it was stupid and that we were on the hunt for glasses that fit the bill. Or really that fit the bill for all types o’ birdin’. To that end, last […]
…this year, anyway. Last weekend the Nevada Wildlife Commission discussed banning this year’s sage grouse season in an effort to prevent the bird as being listed as endangered, but decided to allow the hunt to happen. Here’s some background from the Reno Gazette newspaper: > Commissioner Henry Vogler said he intends to press for the […]
Anecdotal reports make it sound like California is shaping up for an off-the-charts-good bird season – awesome if true. Sometimes anecdotal reports indicate reality, sometimes not, either way Serious bird hunters will be out there. Reports also are anecdotal because apparently Cali Fish and Game doesn’t do bird counts. So here goes, from this article: […]
As we’ve said here many times, cutting trees is good. It’s good for forests – the whole seeing the forest, not just the trees thing – and it’s good for wildlife. And hunting. That’s just one example of sound – SOUND – management, and across the country the landscape is in dire need of it. […]
The “Glorious Twelfth,” as they say across the pond, is Aug. 12, the start of the red grouse season in northern England and Scotland. And if you make paper airplanes out of Benjamins, you’ll be enjoying it. Some excerpts from this article in the UK’s Telegraph paper below. Hmm…80 mph fliers, eh? > Next Friday […]
WTH? First, know that I (Jay) am a regular (every week) church-goer. So I get the reason (supposed) behind a Sunday ban. But as much as I enjoy our local church, I’m not going to feel at all bad if I get away for a couple Sundays – or better yet, long weekends – to […]
Ruffed grouse hunting is about as exciting as watching paint dry, grass grow or – maybe a little better – making donuts. Of course that’s not true, but apparently a lot of hunters think so, especially when compared to sitting up in a dang tree all day hoping for a deer to walk by. Now […]
In his will, a friend of ours has specified that he wants to be cremated, his ashes “loaded into shotshells and given to my duck hunting buddies, so I can keep on killing them winged bastards.” Do you love this guy or what! Well, now that’s possible with a new Alabama company named Holy Smoke. […]
The drought affecting several Midwest and Southeast states seems to be only bad news for an already hurting national quail population. We checked in with Dr. Tom Dailey, assistant director of the Northern Bobwhite Quail Initiative, to see how the quail are doing, and found out that it’s not all bad news. But first the […]
Those of us not experiencing the drought in the Midwest, Southwest and parts of the Southeast may not realize just how bad it is. Upland birds in affected regions have to be suffering to some extent. Just a quick update on Kansas, first with what we previously reported: > Western Kansas has one of the […]
Upland birds aren’t getting much love in Alberta, Canada: “…pheasant hunting could become the exclusive purview of rich people hunting on private preserves, like European nobility.” Some folks think that’s an inevitability here in the States too – hopefully not. Anyhow, here’s the situation in Alberta, excerpted from here: > In a province hungry for […]
Just read this article on hunting ruffies in MN this year. So much of it, while well-intentioned, is wrong. Here goes: > The good news is, counts were up 34 percent this spring in parts of northern Minnesota. Counts remained stable in southern Minnesota. This COULD mean that there’s more easy birds (young ones) early […]
Lessons from 2012 Maine-NH Hunt
Don’t know if we’ve fully recovered yet from our not-quite-a-week of hunting Maine and New Hampshire for ruffies and woodies. We all actually bailed 2 days early, having put in 5 consecutive days instead of our usual 7. Felt like wimps about it, but hey, we were BEAT…from 5 days of the most brutal hunting […]
No Grouse Comeback in SW Penn?
Sounds like ruffed grouse will never be as much a part of the landscape of southern Pennsylvania as they once will. “Never” sounds ominous. Permanent. But that’s the conclusion of an article by Bob Frye in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Why should you care if you don’t live or hunt in PA? Reasons: > Pennsylvania is […]
Hey: All Ruffies Drum Differently!
Did you know that? Not until now…. This info won’t help us hunting, but it’s interesting – and makes sense. Here’s more, from newscientist.com: Male ruffed grouse are the first animals known to make unique non-vocal sounds. Humans and many other animals, particularly birds, can be identified by their voices. But no one had looked […]
Ran across this quote from an article about Iowa’s pheasant count: > “I haven’t even gone pheasant hunting the last couple of years because the birds just weren’t there,†said Tim Wolf, a 61-year-old bank president who lives in Waukee. YES THEY WERE! They most definitely were there. Maybe not like this… > “But I’ve […]
Top 10 Reasons To Go to Phez Fest
Pheasants/Quail Forever’s Pheasant Fest/Quail Classic is coming up soon at KC, MO (see info in right column), and just in case you’re thinking it’s too far or whatever, here are the Top 10 – really just 10 of many – reasons to go. We’re doing it Letterman-style, 10 to 1. 10. What else are you […]
Across the Pond Bird Follies, Vids
Ah the UK, the land that gave the world 17 pieces of silverware on the table, animal rights and other questionable stuff. Okay, it wasn’t all bad – that’s where our bird hunting came from too. But it’s different here…or there, depending on your perspective. Here’s some recent bird news plus some interesting vids. Katie […]
Do Congress, Tea Party Hate Pheasants?
We make it a point to try not to get suckered by political hoo-ha, so that’s not what this is about. We ran across a blog post on the Discovery-owned treehugger.com titled “Why Does Congress Hate Pheasants?” and a related one, “Do Tea Party, Heritage Foundation Oppose Hunting?” Interesting stuff, written by the same gent, […]
Quail, the most beleaguered of our beloved gamebirds, is getting a helping hand in Kansas. Or rather, a bigger helping hand. The state just announced that it’s “launching a new quail restoration initiative aimed at making a difference in declining bobwhite quail populations at a landscape level.” Here’s more: > Includes the designation of two […]
Worms and Birds: What Else Don’t We Know?
Believe we’ve talked about this at least once, but a recent Wall Street Journal article on the plight of Texas quail got us thinking about it again. Here’s the applicable stuff: …Rolling Hills Quail Research Ranch, a 4,700-acre spread an hour west of Abilene. Last month, researchers there found that the levels of parasitic worms […]
Top 10 Reasons To Go to Phez Fest
Pheasants/Quail Forever’s Pheasant Fest/Quail Classic is coming up soon at KC, MO (see info in right column), and just in case you’re thinking it’s too far or whatever, here are the Top 10 – really just 10 of many – reasons to go. We’re doing it Letterman-style, 10 to 1. 10. What else are you […]
Lone Star Outdoor news recently carried an article on a speech given by Dr. Dale Rollins of the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch near Rotan, Texas. Seems that a major threat to quail, at least in the Lone Star state, may be an eyeball worm. News to us! Highlights: > Especially mysterious were the continued […]
