Another wet cold spring for the pheasants...

[lawdog]

Hope the nesting isn't as unsuccesful around here this cold wet spring as it was last year. There are lots of pheasants around after a week winter and I was pretty excited about things until the weather went south on us the last week or ten days.

Good luck with your nests little hens!!!!!

[cmoredrakes]

One of our buddie's land just had about half of his land wiped out by a fire . That really can't help the huntin' up there with the fire happenig and all this cold weather goin' on. But, what do ya do?? I'm just hopin' that all of the pheasants nested on the other half that didn't get torched.

[abens1078]

Iowa is looking good, its only rained twice. Once for 6 days and then again for 5 days

I hear you loud and clear. This winter was a dandy for birds as the snow was never to deep and down here we never got much over 5" in one storm. I had some high hopes after the winter but we'll be lucky to be average I think.

[BLACKJACK]

People are seeing lots of baby geese, and now a few ducks. Hopefully the pheasants can get it done in the cold and rain too. About three weeks ago I saw TEN hens on the gravel road so I know theres lots of brood stock around after two mild winters.

[charliepete2]

The nice thing about pheasants is that they'll re-nest if the chicks die off. In one of the areas I was hunting in the Dakotas last year I came across quite a few real young birds. After talking with the locals I found that there were some really heavy storms early in the nesting season that probably killed off quite a few chicks. Then hens got back in the saddle, but many of the young roosters were just starting to show their color in mid October.

[fishingmike0770]

shot quite a few young birds last year and 2 yrs ago, the only way to tell roosters in flight were if they cackled.

heres a nicer one

[fivebucks]

I heard a guy from Pheasants Forever on Fan Outdoors last week and he said the rain and cold so far will not have any effect on the pheasants chicks. He said they have not hatched yet and the last half of June is the critical time period. He said if they get a nest destroyed by preditors they will re-nest many times but once the chicks hatch they typically do not re-nest. That's why the cold and rain once they hatch are so critical. So, according to Pheasants Forever, let's hope for a nice second half of June.

[BLACKJACK]

I agree with fivebucks, I've always heard that pheasants and ducks will renest if their eggs/nest are destroyed, but once they've hatched, and if the young chicks/ducklings die, they won't renest that year, they've fulfilled their biological need to reproduce. If you're seeing real young pheasants at the pheasant opener, its because the hens first nest was destroyed, for example because of farmers cutting their hay crop.