Iowa’s eight year high in pheasant population is likely the reason that Todd Bogenschutz’s phone mail is filled with messages from hunters looking for more information ahead of the opening of pheasant season on Oct. 31.
Bogenschutz is Iowa’s upland game biologist in charge of monitoring pheasants including coordinating the August roadside survey that gave hunters across Iowa a jolt with the 37 percent increase in number of birds counted.
Adding to the excitement is that the corn harvest is running ahead of last year and will likely be 80 percent finished by the time the season begins.
“With the crops mostly out, birds will be concentrated in areas with good cover and as long as we have good weather we’re going to have a pretty good opener,” Bogenschutz said.
Areas with higher pheasant counts can be found in a band of counties stretching from northwest to southeast, but good numbers can be found in other parts of the state with better habitat.
The highest pheasant counts were 44 birds per route in the northwest region followed by 38 birds per route in central and 27 birds per route in southeast Iowa and should offer good hunting this fall. Lower counts came in southwest, south central and northeast regions.
“If you hunted an area that had birds last year, it should have more birds this year. If it had decent birds last year, should be better this year,” Bogenschutz said. “The marginal areas will be better too. We are trending in the right direction.”
That positive trend is fueling the speculation that more hunters will be in the fields this fall.
“If hunter excitement leads to more hunters in the field, our pheasant harvest could reach 500,000 birds, and who would have thought that a few years ago,” Bogenschutz said.
Hunters are allowed three roosters per day with a possession limit of 12. Shooting hours are 8 am to 4:30 pm daily. Hunters must wear a hat, cap, vest, coat, jacket, sweatshirt, shirt or coveralls externally that is at least 50 percent solid blaze orange. The season closes Jan. 10, 2016.
