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Youth pheasant season this weekend

ROOSTER PHEASANT PHOTO BY GARRY BRANDENBURG/TRAIL CAMERA IMAGE OF ELK FURNISHED — Each year, on the weekend prior to the general opener for pheasant season, young guys or gals have the opportunity to have most fields to themselves and their mentor partners. This special time slot is for Oct. 19-20 only. It is restricted for youth ages 15 or younger to hunt for rooster pheasants without the need for a hunting license. However, the person accompanying the youth must be age 18 or more and have a hunting license with habitat fee. The mentor may not shoot at pheasants. However, if other game seasons are open, he or she may take or attempt to take gray partridge, rabbit, ruffed grouse, or squirrels. The very remote and surprising possibility exists for hunters from this point onward to see an elk. Yes, an elk. Today's special trail camera image is proof that a bull elk with small antlers passed along a public wildlife area in Marshall County on Sept. 28 at 53 minutes past midnight. Nature is full of special events.

The big season opener for pheasants is coming up next weekend, Oct. 26. Rooster pheasants will be legal to take, up to three per day, with a possession limit of 12 on the fourth day.

This very popular upland game bird hunting activity will run through Jan. 10, 2025. Hunting

times are specific from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. daily. These dates and times are located in the DNR hunting regulations booklet on page 7. Do check it out for other game critters.

I have been asked several times of late if I have observed pheasants during my out and about travels. The answer is yes, and a surprising footnote is that some of those gravel roadway passes I made were well away from what one might say is prime grassland habitats.

And further down the road, I was rewarded by another sighting of a single rooster pheasant jumping out of one side of the road ditch before I arrived. I watched it gain speed and glide straight toward the opposite ditch of tall grasses and an unpicked corn field across the fence.

Today’s image of a rooster pheasant was made a few years ago. I still remember the circumstances as my truck moved slowly along Knapp Avenue, the roadway near the Marietta Sand Prairie.

My long lens camera was at the ready so I placed the lens barrel on my window ledge, and was able to capture about eight quick frames before the bird took flight. It was a lucky thing for me at that time.

Those colorful brown and golden body feathers, green head, white collar ring and long tail feathers are classic identification items for rooster pheasants. For the 2024 pheasant season, Iowa DNR biologists noted in a news release that although the roadside count was down slightly from one year ago, mainly due to spring rains that were a bit too plentiful in some locations, bird numbers are still adequate for hunters willing to put on the miles of trekking and boot leather wear.

The Iowa tradition of pheasant season opening day is a big deal. Family outings are made routinely to hunt roosters, a tradition that began in Iowa in 1924, a full on hundred years ago.

Celebrations and special activities about bird hunting will be offered for the first century of pheasant hunting in the Hawkeye State. A special DNR new website has been created to take note of the 100-year anniversary. It is https://infor.gooutdoorsiowa/100-year-pheasant-anniversary/. Updates will be made periodically throughout this fall and into next year.

Biologists use models of trendlines to help estimate game bird populations. It is science, not a perfect exact science, but is a very good indicator of overall populations.

Last year, 2023, had an increase in rooster takings, about 590,000 statewide, the most since 2007, thanks to about 20,000 more bird hunters in the fields. 2023 hunters numbered 83,600 from within Iowa plus all our surrounding states. A few hunters came from Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Alabama.

For 2024, if hunter numbers increase a tad more, expectations are that bird harvests could be in the range of 350,000-400,000. This number is well within the capability of the population to sustain itself.

Another fact to note is that within the first nine days of the season opener, about one-third of the total harvest will have happened. Additional spikes take place during Thanksgiving time or even Christmas.

Weather events, good or bad, sometimes help hunters. A nice light first snow works well to help hold birds.

Iowa has about 680,000 acres of public hunting land owned by the state, county or federal government. You can find maps to all these sites on the Iowa Atlas, an online tool to use. Private lands are never to be overlooked. Knowing where to find birds and asking permission prior to the hunt is always an option.

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Pheasant history that ringnecks were introduced into North America in 1881. By 1900, there were birds brought to Iowa. A game farm penned area near Cedar Falls had about 2,000 pheasants when a severe wind storm broke the fencing.

The birds escaped. Iowa Conservation Commission game farms added more birds by stocking in 1910. For the next 20 years, pheasants were moved to all areas of Iowa. Farming practices typically in place in the 1930s and ’40s were small operations with lots of fence rows, weedy field edges, and lots of corn, hay, oats and other small grain crops. It was a perfect recipe for bird survival.

History has shown that small farms ultimately gave way to larger and larger field sizes, less fence rows, to some extent less livestock. Conservation Reserve land programs added grasslands within the state during the 1970s through mid 1980s. The DNR sought out and established standard survey routes all across the state, each being 30 miles long.

They total over 6,000 miles of gravel roads. With standard routes staying the same, the only things that change are adjacent land use patterns.

Young pheasant chicks at hatching tip the scales at about one-half ounce. They eat bugs of all kinds to get their start and protein diet going.

At 10 weeks of age, all young resemble their mother with light brown feather coloring. However, young roosters soon start to get the green head and ring neck at 16 weeks of age.

It is day lengths getting longer in the spring that signals the need to nest build and incubation beginning. Hens can lay fertile eggs for up to three weeks after a single mating. One male pheasant can breed up to 50 hens.

They do not form pair bonds. Nesting is usually from mid-April onward. Peak incubation is in May. Peak hatching is from early June to mid June.

Young hatchling pheasants are precocial and can leave the nest in a few hours to follow the hen on her wandering searches for food. Ten to 12 eggs per nest is typical.

Habitat for pheasants is key. They like hayfields, oat fields, pastures with a mix of herbaceous and grassy areas for nesting because of a wide variety of insect life. Some dense ground cover helps the birds stay concealed and out of most weather events. Light snow is not a big deal.

Wet heavy snow is a big deal. Blizzard winds are a big deal and ice storms in the winter can be deadly if the nasal passages on the beak freeze over. Heavy grass and forbs planting is a good escape from most severe weather happenings.

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You can support pheasant habitat land programs and projects by attending the 2024 Marshall/Tama County fundraising banquet on Nov. 9, 2024. The venue will be held at Midnight Garden, 1501 S. 17th Ave., Marshalltown. Doors open at 4 p.m. with games and raffles until 6 p.m. Dinner will be from 6 to 7 p.m. with food served by Smokin’ G’s BBQ.

From 7:30 until 9 p.m. there will be live and silent auction time. Tickets can be obtained from Shannon Jelken, 1201 W. Main St., Marshalltown.

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Elk in Iowa? Yes, we have a few, a very few, and every year a random sighting takes place somewhere within our borders.

On television news Channel 8 on Wednesday morning this past week, the station posted a photo of an adult bull elk with large antlers. The image appears to have been made from inside a residence looking out a window. I did not get a specific location from the news report. Still, it was interesting.

Another trail camera image was provided to me in late September by Jeremiah Manken, maintenance supervisor and park ranger with the Marshall County Conservation Board. His camera was set up on a fence line west of Albion at the Stanley Mill Mitigation Area.

The elk happened to pass close enough to the camera to get its likeness of head, neck and small antlers set within the frame. Its antlers are not large but are for sure a typical growth for a yearling or two year old bull.

There is no way to know where it came from, where it went, or where it is now. Numerous corn field “jungles” are certainly providing cover as are the forest lands along the Iowa River. Elk are a protected species of the deer family in Iowa.

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Our white-tailed deer are well known and plentiful. Archery season began on Oct. 1. At that time, the statewide taking of deer numbered 2,385 from earlier youth hunts. Now that almost three weeks of the season are history, hunters are sending in hunt reports (as required by law). As of last Wednesday, deer statewide tally shows 7,394 deer from hunting. At this point, about 4,000 are female deer, and about 3,000 plus are male deer.

By Jan. 10 of next year, over 100,000 deer will be removed from the population. This is a number well within the ability of the herd to adapt to.

Deer rut time, or breeding time, peaks in late October and into the first two weeks of November. Deer will be moving a lot. Crop fields will have been harvested or tilled. Night time vehicle drivers need to be cautious at all times in all places where deer try to cross roadways.

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A call for volunteers to help plant trees at Green Castle Recreation Area, primarily in and around the new campground sites, will take place on Monday, Oct. 21. Meet at about 9:30 a.m.

A Consumers Energy crew will use drilling rigs to dig holes just to make starting the process a bit easier. Each tree will have to have its site custom dug or finished for the root system of the new trees. One hundred thirty six trees will be planted.

The more people, the faster the process will go. Work on day one will go until 4 p.m. If needed, any remaining trees will get into the ground on Tuesday, the 22nd. Help complete phase one of the Green Castle campground.

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Garry Brandenburg is the retired director of the Marshall County Conservation Board. He is a graduate of Iowa State University with a BS degree in Fish & Wildlife Biology.

Contact him at:

P.O. Box 96

Albion, IA 50005

Starting at $4.38/week.

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