(Radio Iowa) – The 100th pheasant season in Iowa opens Saturday and D-N-R wildlife biologist Todd Bogenshutz says it is setting up to be a good one. “This past year was the fourth mildest winter in state history, like 150 years of record. So, we probably had virtually all of our hens survive from last fall,” he says. Bogenshutz says having that type of survival rate is fantastic, and those numbers make up for some loss of young birds in wet weather after the hatch. “The roadside survey showed that our chick survival wasn’t as good as last year, but it was only down a little bit, so the number of hens that were nesting more than made up for not quite as many chicks surviving. And so our counts still were up 40 percent statewide,” Bogenschutz says.

Photo courtesy of the Iowa DNR.

Some 77-thousand hunters head out to chase the ringnecks last year, and he says that number is likely to grow this season. “This year with the counts being so good, you know, Mother Nature smiled on us with good weather and we grew a lot of birds for the for the habitat we have, I would not be surprised at all if we’re over 80-thousand hunters,” he says. Bogenschutz says Iowa should stay at the top of the best states for pheasant hunting. “We’ve been the number two state in harvest for the last four years running at least, probably this will be the fifth year with this fall, only South Dakota can boast more pheasants harvested than us,” Bogenschutz says.

Bogenschutz the pheasant harvest could be in the 600 to 700-thousand range. The season runs through January 10th.