This weekend, Oct. 17, at noon,
Wisconsin pheasant season opens on all state public hunting grounds and private lands.
This year, there should be good pheasant hunting, according to Krista McGinley, the Department of Natural Resources' acting upland wildlife ecologist. The pheasant upswing should give upland gamebird hunters some excellent pheasant hunting opportunities for the state’s stocked pheasants, the wild or native pheasants, and pheasants that are raised by conservation clubs through the Day-old Chick Program for release on public lands and private land open to public hunting.
Pheasant broods and production saw an increase this year over the past few seasons, which is good news to bird hunters.
According to McGinley, “the number of pheasant broods seen this year during the 10-week brood survey was up 67 percent from last year, and pheasant production was up in both the primary and secondary range.”
Several other upland gamebird seasons are also opening Oct. 17, including bobwhite quail, ruffed grouse in Zone B, and Hungarian partridge. The opening of the bobwhite quail season and Hungarian partridge is at noo while the ruffed grouse season opens at the start of legal shooting hours.
I suggest hunters read over the Wisconsin Small Game Hunting Regulations booklet for the complete rules, regulations, and season structures. For an in-depth look at this year’s fall gamebird hunting seasons, be sure to check out the DNR’s 2015 Fall Hunting and Trapping forecast on their website at
http://www.dnr.wi.gov.
Pheasants are one of the most prized gamebirds in the Midwest and Plains states, and pheasants tend to survive much better in the agricultural lands of southern Wisconsin as long as there is good habitat to meet their food and cover needs.
Hunters looking for wild or native pheasants should look for cover that includes a mixture of grasses, idle ground, fence rows, wetlands, and shrubs that give cover and food for the winter months.
According to the DNR, 46,855 hunters’ hunted pheasants last year with 294,483 ring-necked pheasants harvested. The top Wisconsin counties for pheasant hunting are Fond du Lac, Kenosha, and Jefferson counties in the southern third of the state.
This weekend, the season opens at noon with a daily bag limit of one rooster or cock pheasant per day with a possession limit of two pheasants. The remainder of the season (Oct. 19 to Dec. 31), the daily bag limit is two cock pheasants, with a possession of four roosters.
There are some public hunting grounds that allow both hen and rooster hunting and some state lands have a 2 p.m. closing time from Oct. 20 to Nov. 2. You can only shoot one bird opening weekend and two birds the remainder of the season with the possession limit twice the daily bag limit on hen/rooster lands.
To hunt pheasants in Wisconsin, one must have a small game hunting license and a 2015 Wisconsin State Pheasant Stamp. Hunters who dress their birds in the field must remember to keep the head, a feathered wing, or an entire leg must be attached to the bird’s carcass while in the field or transporting the game.
This is the seventh year of the Mentored Hunting Program, which allows hunters 10 years old or older, born on or after Jan. 1, 1973, to buy a hunting license without a Hunter Education Certificate. Participants must have a mentor and follow all the program’s rules which can be found online or in the Small Game Hunting booklet.
This year, the DNR has raised about 75,000 pheasants to be released on the state’s 89 properties. Hunters can go to a new online mapping application, the Fields and Forest Lands Interactive Gamebird Hunting Tool, which gives hunters of pheasants, grouse, doves, and woodcock an easy way to explore suitable hunting habitat across the state, including those properties stocked with pheasants. Go to the site dnr.wi.gov and the key word FFLIGHT for this information. Stocking information is available here and will tell you the number of stocked birds stocked on the state’s 89 properties. Be sure to use the DNR website because it can greatly improve your hunting and where to hunt.
Some of the good public hunting grounds in the southern third of the state are; Pine Island and Mud Lake in Columbia County, Badfish Creek, Mazomanie Wildlife Area, and Lodi Marsh in Dane County, and Brooklyn and Albany Wildlife Areas in Green County.
So, be sure to check out the DNR website, have your license and pheasant stamp, and be safe in the outdoors this weekend while chasing the magnificent ring-necked pheasant.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/sports/recreation/outdoors/gary-engberg-pheasant-season-on-horizon-in-wisconsin/article_cba8317a-025b-54d5-a3b9-9fe12823f0ff.html
