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Been out scouting ducks and pheasants for spring counts. And I'm not believen here I'm Nebraska pheasants will make a come back. Looks like a full season of ducks this year for me.

Bummer about the pheasants, a full duck season sounds like the best remedy to me though.

That sucks. Not many pheasants here either anymore.

We've got so many pheasants running around here

Don't know myself, but I've been told by people that have lived through pheasants ups and pheasant downs that even after a major wipe out, a couple straight years will bring them back.

If there is habitat, the birds will return. I'm still holding hope for this year, forever optimistic.

Nebgundog wrote:Been out scouting ducks and pheasants for spring counts. And I'm not believen here I'm Nebraska pheasants will make a come back. Looks like a full season of ducks this year for me.

I believe I've asked you this before, but where the hell are you at in Nebraska?

And I would have to disagree, seen .ore pheasants and quail this year than in the last 4 years combined. Just gotta know where to look!

Most of the pheasants have dissapeared in CA, but there are still pockets that hold a ton of birds.

ducks~n~bucks wrote:Most of the pheasants have dissapeared in CA, but there are still pockets that hold a ton of birds.

What you might consider tons of birds is what an average field looked like 12 years ago. I would guess we've lost 85 to 90 percent of our wild birds. Truly a depressing situation.

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

ducks~n~bucks wrote:Most of the pheasants have dissapeared in CA, but there are still pockets that hold a ton of birds.

What you might consider tons of birds is what an average field looked like 12 years ago. I would guess we've lost 85 to 90 percent of our wild birds. Truly a depressing situation.

I know. It's the reason my dad quit breeding German Shorthaireds and really got into duck hunting. He has duck hunted since he was a kid, but he never did it a lot, maybe 3 or 4 big trips a year is what his entire season consisted of. Now we make a trip up to Alturas, CA once a year, and hunt almost every weekend.

bill herian wrote:Don't know myself, but I've been told by people that have lived through pheasants ups and pheasant downs that even after a major wipe out, a couple straight years will bring them back.

Or, they fade out in the 80s and never really come back.

sws002 wrote:

Nebgundog wrote:Been out scouting ducks and pheasants for spring counts. And I'm not believen here I'm Nebraska pheasants will make a come back. Looks like a full season of ducks this year for me.

I believe I've asked you this before, but where the hell are you at in Nebraska?

And I would have to disagree, seen .ore pheasants and quail this year than in the last 4 years combined. Just gotta know where to look!

Just southeast of Gretna

Nebgundog wrote:

sws002 wrote:

Nebgundog wrote:Been out scouting ducks and pheasants for spring counts. And I'm not believen here I'm Nebraska pheasants will make a come back. Looks like a full season of ducks this year for me.

I believe I've asked you this before, but where the hell are you at in Nebraska?

And I would have to disagree, seen .ore pheasants and quail this year than in the last 4 years combined. Just gotta know where to look!

Just southeast of Gretna

Nice! I'm in Elkhorn.

bill herian wrote:Don't know myself, but I've been told by people that have lived through pheasants ups and pheasant downs that even after a major wipe out, a couple straight years will bring them back.

Depends on what's making the down.

Hope your birds make a comeback. I stayed on where I'm at, instead of making a planed more to ND, not for the waterfowl, but because the quail and woodcock hunting was so dang good. Then bigger plows and more cows dramatically changed that for the foreseeable future.

Rick wrote:Hope your birds make a comeback. I stayed on where I'm at, instead of making a planed more to ND, not for the waterfowl, but because the quail and **** hunting was so dang good. Then bigger plows and more cows dramatically changed that for the foreseeable future.

Well here in Nebraska I hunted with some longtime bird hunters and all over the state and was very disappointed with the habitat and I'm not sure their in huntable numbers here anymore.

See the auto censor bleeped "woodcock," so I just gotta try "peacock".

Where I live at the countryside used to be dotted with small farms like English countryside with hedge rows and fencerows galore.
In the mid 70's corn got unGodly high. $7/bushel which was high back then...the hedge rows went down. Then the houses and now nobody lives in the country where each section had once had one to six or even eight farms complete with kids that went to school.

The back lots, ditches, hedge rows, and clover...gone. There is nearly nowhere for a pheasant to live but "they'll be back in a year or two" (not) .
Habitat is birds. No habitat, no birds.

Nebgundog wrote:

Rick wrote:Hope your birds make a comeback. I stayed on where I'm at, instead of making a planed more to ND, not for the waterfowl, but because the quail and **** hunting was so dang good. Then bigger plows and more cows dramatically changed that for the foreseeable future.

Well here in Nebraska I hunted with some longtime bird hunters and all over the state and was very disappointed with the habitat and I'm not sure their in huntable numbers here anymore.

They are very patchy on this side of the state, that's for sure. It's a helluva drive, but they are like rats on the opposite side of the state. Until corn prices plummet, habitat is going to be tough to come by around us for awhile.

aunt betty wrote:Where I live at the countryside used to be dotted with small farms like English countryside with hedge rows and fencerows galore.
In the mid 70's corn got unGodly high. $7/bushel which was high back then...the hedge rows went down. Then the houses and now nobody lives in the country where each section had once had one to six or even eight farms complete with kids that went to school.

The back lots, ditches, hedge rows, and clover...gone. There is nearly nowhere for a pheasant to live but "they'll be back in a year or two" (not) .
Habitat is birds. No habitat, no birds.

We have the habitat. Mosquito abatement killed our birds.

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

aunt betty wrote:Where I live at the countryside used to be dotted with small farms like English countryside with hedge rows and fencerows galore.
In the mid 70's corn got unGodly high. $7/bushel which was high back then...the hedge rows went down. Then the houses and now nobody lives in the country where each section had once had one to six or even eight farms complete with kids that went to school.

The back lots, ditches, hedge rows, and clover...gone. There is nearly nowhere for a pheasant to live but "they'll be back in a year or two" (not) .
Habitat is birds. No habitat, no birds.

We have the habitat. Mosquito abatement killed our birds.

Actually they think now that the avian flu killed the California Pheasants.

RonE wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

aunt betty wrote:Where I live at the countryside used to be dotted with small farms like English countryside with hedge rows and fencerows galore.
In the mid 70's corn got unGodly high. $7/bushel which was high back then...the hedge rows went down. Then the houses and now nobody lives in the country where each section had once had one to six or even eight farms complete with kids that went to school.

The back lots, ditches, hedge rows, and clover...gone. There is nearly nowhere for a pheasant to live but "they'll be back in a year or two" (not) .
Habitat is birds. No habitat, no birds.

We have the habitat. Mosquito abatement killed our birds.

Actually they think now that the avian flu killed the California Pheasants.

Not sure who "they" are. The pheasant population decline runs right along with the west Nile scare we had. The year they started aerial spraying for mosquitoes was the begging of the end. Populations dropped 30 to 40 percent every year since. I agree Avian flu could of taken some birds but the chickens they keep out in the marsh at Gray Lodge don't lie. They test their blood all summer for disease . They've found every thing from malaria to avian flu. But the numbers aren't even close enough to justify that being the cause of the die off. Also I have first hand knowledge by seeing it happen for myself on my property. The first years of the spraying we had adult birds but a major lack of chicks. The age of the birds got older and they started disappearing with out enough young birds to replace them. The spraying didn't just kill the targeted mosquito but also killed all the little bugs baby pheasant chicks need to survive on for the first couple of weeks of their life. The birds starved to death.

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

RonE wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

aunt betty wrote:Where I live at the countryside used to be dotted with small farms like English countryside with hedge rows and fencerows galore.
In the mid 70's corn got unGodly high. $7/bushel which was high back then...the hedge rows went down. Then the houses and now nobody lives in the country where each section had once had one to six or even eight farms complete with kids that went to school.

The back lots, ditches, hedge rows, and clover...gone. There is nearly nowhere for a pheasant to live but "they'll be back in a year or two" (not) .
Habitat is birds. No habitat, no birds.

We have the habitat. Mosquito abatement killed our birds.

Actually they think now that the avian flu killed the California Pheasants.

Not sure who "they" are. The pheasant population decline runs right along with the west Nile scare we had. The year they started aerial spraying for mosquitoes was the begging of the end. Populations dropped 30 to 40 percent every year since. I agree Avian flu could of taken some birds but the chickens they keep out in the marsh at Gray Lodge don't lie. They test their blood all summer for disease . They've found every thing from malaria to avian flu. But the numbers aren't even close enough to justify that being the cause of the die off. Also I have first hand knowledge by seeing it happen for myself on my property. The first years of the spraying we had adult birds but a major lack of chicks. The age of the birds got older and they started disappearing with out enough young birds to replace them. The spraying didn't just kill the targeted mosquito but also killed all the little bugs baby pheasant chicks need to survive on for the first couple of weeks of their life. The birds starved to death.

Maybe you didn't hear RonE the first time, he said Avian flu

AKPirate wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

RonE wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

aunt betty wrote:Where I live at the countryside used to be dotted with small farms like English countryside with hedge rows and fencerows galore.
In the mid 70's corn got unGodly high. $7/bushel which was high back then...the hedge rows went down. Then the houses and now nobody lives in the country where each section had once had one to six or even eight farms complete with kids that went to school.

The back lots, ditches, hedge rows, and clover...gone. There is nearly nowhere for a pheasant to live but "they'll be back in a year or two" (not) .
Habitat is birds. No habitat, no birds.

We have the habitat. Mosquito abatement killed our birds.

Actually they think now that the avian flu killed the California Pheasants.

Not sure who "they" are. The pheasant population decline runs right along with the west Nile scare we had. The year they started aerial spraying for mosquitoes was the begging of the end. Populations dropped 30 to 40 percent every year since. I agree Avian flu could of taken some birds but the chickens they keep out in the marsh at Gray Lodge don't lie. They test their blood all summer for disease . They've found every thing from malaria to avian flu. But the numbers aren't even close enough to justify that being the cause of the die off. Also I have first hand knowledge by seeing it happen for myself on my property. The first years of the spraying we had adult birds but a major lack of chicks. The age of the birds got older and they started disappearing with out enough young birds to replace them. The spraying didn't just kill the targeted mosquito but also killed all the little bugs baby pheasant chicks need to survive on for the first couple of weeks of their life. The birds starved to death.

Maybe you didn't hear RonE the first time, he said Avian flu

Maybe it was a vicious outbreak of herpes that killed all the birds.

GadwallGetter530 wrote:Maybe it was a vicious outbreak of herpes that killed all the birds.

I thought you guys kept a close eye on Juice Box? Is that why he was on Wild Justice?

ducks~n~bucks wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:Maybe it was a vicious outbreak of herpes that killed all the birds.

I thought you guys kept a close eye on Juice Box? Is that why he was on Wild Justice?

He's a chicken fucker

Bootlipkiller wrote:

ducks~n~bucks wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:Maybe it was a vicious outbreak of herpes that killed all the birds.

I thought you guys kept a close eye on Juice Box? Is that why he was on Wild Justice?

He's a chicken fucker

DH is the establish chicken fucker.

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

Bootlipkiller wrote:

ducks~n~bucks wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:Maybe it was a vicious outbreak of herpes that killed all the birds.

I thought you guys kept a close eye on Juice Box? Is that why he was on Wild Justice?

He's a chicken fucker

DH is the establish chicken fucker.

Fine then, he's a rooster fucker

Bootlipkiller wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:

Bootlipkiller wrote:

ducks~n~bucks wrote:

GadwallGetter530 wrote:Maybe it was a vicious outbreak of herpes that killed all the birds.

I thought you guys kept a close eye on Juice Box? Is that why he was on Wild Justice?

He's a chicken fucker

DH is the establish chicken fucker.

Fine then, he's a rooster fucker

either way they gave herpes to our pheasants.

I'm glad there is someone else saying the bug killers are hurting wild bird populations. Good luck getting that realized by those with money flowing into their coffers from the big businesses tho