Don’t believe the reports – there’s still plenty of pheasants in the field

Cora on point in the Denton, MT area

Most upland bird hunters in Montana (and across most the northern states) spent a lot of time worrying about bird numbers throughout the summer and early fall months due to a harsh winter and a horrible spring. I distinctly remember June 15th – the peak of the pheasant hatch, and we had a cold front push through with rain – cold rain. The hatch conditions were absolutely horrible. The poor spring hatch conditions, coupled with the harsh winter had many bird hunters in despair.

When grouse season opened on September 1st, my fears were fueled. The sharptail grouse and Hungarian partridge numbers in my normal haunts were gone – it was tough sledding trying to find some birds. While I’m an eternal optimist, I developing serious heartburn over the the upcoming pheasant season. The pheasant opener is usually a sacred weekend – there are very few things that can trump that special day for me. Unfortunately for me, my daughter (Emma) who is on the freshman volleyball team here in Bozeman, had an away game in Billings the pheasant opener Saturday. Despite my love for the opener, I’m a father first – so I went to Billings and attended the volleyball match. Emma’s team won in 5 games – very good and close games – and Emma played well.

While I did attend the volleyball match, I left early enough in the morning to hunt a few public lands around Billings before and after the volleyball match. The Billings area definitely wouldn’t have been my first (or last) choice destination to hunt, but my situation was what it was, so I made the best of it. The first state land section that I hunted had some standing corn and looked promising. Sure enough, there were birds in there – on a dead sprint a hundred yards in front of me It was a fairly hopeless situation as a lone hunter with no wing men or blockers. But I saw birds – I was encouraged.

I hunted a few other pieces of state land that morning and my dogs pointed a covey of huns. Not the target bird of the day, but I never pass up an opportunity for huns. After the match, I hunted another area just off the interstate west of Billings. It looked good, but I figured it must have been hammered earlier in the day (given the ease of access and proximity to the city). I had another lone hunter in the distance working towards me, and between the two of us, we did kick up one rooster – that flew in the other hunter’s direction, and he made a good shot. Still – another bird in an area I wouldn’t have thought would produce much.

In the weeks after the opener, I made a couple trips up to the Denton, MT area. I found plenty of birds yet again – visually seeing more birds than I saw last year, which was considered a pretty decent year for birds. I also stopped by a friends place just south of Denton. He owns approx. 800 acres that he has managed for the past 20 years specifically for upland habitat – he always has birds. He also tracks closely how many roosters are taken off his land. 3 weeks into the season, he and others had taken 100 roosters – which he said was right on par with prior years. He knew for certain that the concerns about lower bird numbers were unfounded. I put in a bit of work on these trips to Denton, and the last time up was in some tough, very windy conditions, but I still managed to find and bag several birds.

I also talked with another friend of mine who went deer hunting around Wolf Point, MT and ended up on a pheasant hunt. The deer were scarce, so they traded out rifles for shotguns and got their limit each day – relatively easy – without dogs. He’s not a big bird hunter, but he said he’d never seen so many pheasants. I’ve also had reports out of eastern Montana (typically the best pheasant hunting in the state), and while they report there are fewer birds, they say there are still plenty enough to get your limit in short order.

Bottom line – the birds are out there. Get out and go find some – it’s not as hard as some would lead you to believe -JT