On Friday, Nov. 7, I was out at Mud Lake Wildlife Management Area looking for some owls when I noticed an Idaho Department of Fish and Game truck stop near a small field of corn. The driver grabbed a crate full of pheasant cocks and released them. Two of the pheasants flew directly toward me, landing in some tall sagebrush near the shore of Mud Lake. From the next crate, three cocks flew over me, landing in the thick willows at the water's edge.
I was not the only individual watching the pheasants being "stocked" but three hunters dressed in orange quickly exited their trucks and released their dogs. When they were halfway down the row of corn, two roosters flushed and two of the hunters filled half of their daily limit of two birds.
The driver of the pheasant - wagon was making his third stop near the road I was on, so after he had released the birds, I slowly moved to that area. I am not a pheasant hunter, but I put on my orange hat and walked out into the tall stocks of corn. Not 20 yards into the corn, a beautiful rooster walked toward me, stopping about 10 feet away from me before heading between two rows of corn. Another rooster wandered out from behind some weeds, walked past me but stopped for a portrait before heading through the field of corn.
These stocked birds had been raised by humans and had no fear of me - but add a dog to the mix and they run and hide and then flush when pushed. Over the last three weeks I have watched hunters using their dogs to hunt these pen-raised birds and have visited with several of them about hunting them.
"The key is the dog, you have to work them, they are what makes hunting pheasants fun," one told me. "Without a dog, the birds will let you get too close to them and many of them will not flush."
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game expanded the pheasant stocking program in 2020 to 24 sites across the state. These areas are on wildlife management areas and other access agreement properties with four of them located in the Upper Snake River Valley region. These are located at the BLM Lewisville Knolls, Cartier Slough WMA near Rexburg, Market Lake WMA and Mud Lake WMA.
Hunters at these areas must purchase an Upland Game Bird Permit for hunters 18 and over, which allows the harvest of six male pheasants with a daily limit of two birds. After a hunter harvests six birds they may purchase another permit for six more birds. When a pheasant is harvested, the date and unit must be recorded on the permit.
Hunter Orange must be worn while hunting in these areas.
The four stocking areas of the Upper Snake River Valley will be stocked once or twice each week and the days of the stocking will not be posted, but the number of stocked birds is usually between 110 to 170 birds. Stocking usually happens in the mornings as hunters cannot hunt until 10:00 a.m.
The estimated birds to be released for Thanksgiving week has already been published with 84 at the Lewisville Knolls, 144 at Cartier Slough and 170 at Mud Lake and Market Lake each. The pheasant season for this year will end on November 30.
The stocking program of pheasants appears to be a popular and needed program because of the lack of pheasants in Idaho. It gives a lot of older hunters who loves dogs and scatter gunning an excuse to enjoy the great outdoors and to get much needed exercise. But if you see an old man walking the WMA cornfields in an orange hat, dogless and gunless, packing a camera, he is saving the birds for you to harvest.
I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving and pray for ice so I can begin ice fishing. I am and will be thankful for the kokanee stocking program on Ririe Reservoir.