The IDNR, USDA and Pheasants Forever are working to restore grasslands for pheasant habitat and hunting. Photo by Windigo Images.

If you were pleased with pheasant hunting success in Illinois last year, you should only be mildly disappointed in the coming season. A brutal winter and cold, wet spring has had a devastating effect on pheasant populations all across the Midwest.

The multi-colored birds in the Prairie State held their own in areas with good overwinter habitat. But in areas with marginal habitat -- few shelter belts, grassy waterways, switch grass fields or residual acreage in the dwindling Conservation Reserve Program -- the likely result of an afternoon afield may be little more than exercise.

“Last winter was bad," Illinois Department of Natural Resources communications manager Chris McCloud said. “Our spring call count routes only averaged 2.52 calls per stop. This is down 25 percent from last year."

McCloud said ideal nesting conditions in the spring with an average summer would have meant hunting results similar to last year, “but when you see snow showers in late April and it feels good to wear a sweatshirt in early June, conditions simply aren't conducive to pheasant production. We can probably anticipate a statewide harvest of 100,000 to 200,000 pheasants."

The median number in this estimate would be close to the rooster harvest five years ago -- 158,304 birds. But an honest look at long-term trends when coupled with the double weather whammy last season probably means about 100,000 birds will go home in hunters' game bags this autumn.

Compare that with the mid-1960s when Illinois hunters shot more than a million pheasants.

A series of rough winters at the end of that decade ushered in the Conservation Reserve Program and the founding of Pheasants Forever. Today, there are 45 PF chapters with nearly 8,000 members in Illinois alone. These people and the work they have done are the major reason we still have the opportunity to hunt wild pheasants.

Because of the impact of CRP and the stewardship of Pheasants Forever, pheasant hunting enjoyed a renaissance throughout most of the 1990s with several harvests numbering nearly half a million birds.