"This is why there are no large tracts of public areas with good numbers of wild pheasants anymore," Cole said. "Sadly, the same conditions are also prevalent on private lands. Honestly, we're facing a gloomy trend in regard to Illinois' wild pheasant population, with no bright forecast on the horizon."

Further compounding the upland game situation for current and future pheasant hunters is the possibility of adequate funds being earmarked for pheasant habitat in years to come.

With fewer than 50,000 hunters paying the $28.75 resident license fee plus $5.50 for a habitat stamp, having a primary goal of trying to shoot 181,976 pheasants this fall -- an average of just over three birds per hunter all season -- an increasing number of pheasant hunters are joining private hunt clubs to shoot pen-reared "superchickens."

This trend makes a great deal of sense and is the logical progression of pheasant hunting here in the Prairie State. If you bag your fair share of the anticipated harvest this fall, the license fee alone costs approximately $11 per bird -- and you may not get to these wild roosters before the coyotes do. On a private hunting club, the birds are typically placed in the field a few minutes before the hunters load their guns. You've paid maybe $15 bucks a bird, but you know the birds are out there.

This kind of "club" hunting doesn't generate any monies for future acquisition of pheasant habitat for public use. With fewer species-specific pheasant hunters, the slice of budgetary pie pheasant manager John Cole has to work with is little more than crust, with a progression toward mere crumbs in the not too distant future.

I feel considerable remorse that my generation was the last to experience good pheasant hunting for wild birds in Illinois. As a kid growing up in the late 1950s and early '60s I can remember reading how pheasant hunting would be little more than a memory by the year 2000. This prediction was still hard to imagine as a young man in the early 1970s. But now it's clear those outdoor writers who inspired me to follow in their footsteps were true visionaries. And Sonny, I feel it is my obligation to tell you the truth in how to find the best pheasant hunting this year and in years to come.

Success on pheasants will require an investment of time and money on your part. You need to develop a relationship with the few people who still till the land, bartering labor and probably some cash for the chance to chase the few wild birds that remain in Illinois. If you aren't a blood relative to a farmer, the best way to make contact is through a group like Pheasants Forever.

Those who have stewardship over the land have to make a living. If you make it possible for them to achieve this basic goal by subsidizing the farmer's income through both labor in planting habitat like food plots and switchgrass -- and money to purchase the seed, fertilizer and equipment to put this land into pheasant production -- you may realize at least a shadow of the thrilling upland hunting that I've been privileged to experience in Illinois.

Pheasants Forever does this kind of habitat work in both word and deed. It is the essence of their mission statement. PF provided both the switchgrass seed and the planter for the couple acres on my land dedicated to the birds. Their mantra "habitat is the key" is right on target. If you don't provide habitat, there won't be birds, and you won't have a place to hunt.

You would be welcome to hunt pheasants on my place if there were more birds -- and you asked permission. As things stand now, this little bit of habitat is like Fort Apache, and coyotes are circling the stockade. But a neighbor just across the fence is putting in two large tracts of switchgrass with the help of Pheasants Forever and yours truly. This work should yield some birds in three years, with five to eight years peak production for pheasant production in CRP fields that are maintained for wildlife.