by Dave Smith
There’s a time to pine for the good ‘ol days, and there’s a time to load up the bird dogs and go hunting. The upcoming season falls into the latter category.
Upland gamebird populations are on the upswing across vast swaths of the country thanks to a nice run of favorable weather conditions – mild winters, abundant spring/summer moisture, and timely weather events – over the last couple of years. Pheasants are on the rise in the nation’s heartland, bobwhites are abuzz in Texas and Oklahoma, and it could be a near-epic year for Gambel’s and scaled quail in the desert. Throw in dramatically improved prospects for sharptails, prairie chickens, Huns, and sage grouse in many states, and you have the makeup of a memorable upland gamebird season!
The good news comes on the heels of a horrendous combination of harsh winters, cold and wet springs, and drought that had hammered upland bird populations, resulting in populations essentially bottoming out in some states from 2011-2013. Those kinds of population fluctuations aren’t reversed overnight, but upland gamebirds can reproduce at staggering levels when conditions are right – and conditions have truly been right over the last 12 months.
For starters, the winter of 2014-2015 was exceedingly mild. Spring weather was then optimal for upland bird recruitment in many locations, in some cases better than what triggered population spikes last year. Overall, it looks like it will be a very good year to hunt birds. In some places, for some species, it may be the best in recent memory.
Here’s an overview of what was known at press time in mid-July. As always, the upland gamebird specialists infused a fair bit of anecdotal evidence into their projections due to the fact that some of their most important surveys – e.g. those that measure annual recruitment – had not yet been completed. PDJ will follow up with an electronic update once the results of the August roadside surveys and other key surveys is released by the state fish and wildlife agencies later in the summer. (If PDJ doesn’t have your e-mail address yet, send it with your name and mailing address to:jillian.lacross@vpdcs.com)
