Riege: Lessons learned while pheasant hunting

Published 9:46 pm Wednesday, October 23, 2013

BY BOB AND GINNY RIEGE

With the beginning of pheasant season here in Minnesota and in North Dakota almost two weeks ago, some lessons were reintroduced to us.

The first lesson came when Governor Mark Dayton and Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr, unveiled the new Minnesota critical habitat license plate. The image of two flying rooster pheasant were featured to entice some 80,000 pheasant hunters to purchase a plate with the proceeds to go to Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM) Critical Habitat Program. Habitat bought and improved with those dollars includes grasslands, key for pheasants.

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The plate is the seventh critical habitat plate now available for motorists. These plates have raised $44 million for habitat conservation since the program began. The DNR has acquired or conserved more than 7,700 acres.

A pheasant needs a variety of cover in order to survive. The pheasant needs overhead cover in the daylight hours and needs roosting cover (off the ground) and dense cover for warmth, during the night. The hardy ringneck has adapted to a variety of habitat cover. The types of cover can be broken down into light cover, medium cover and heavy cover.

In light cover, especially in the early season, pheasants can often be found loafing in these areas picking up bugs and gravel. Some areas to look for light cover are along fence lines, irrigation ditches, grassy terraces or thin patches of grass next to standing crops like soybeans, and corn. Most of these areas have been clipped or mowed during the year and in most cases this light cover area is long and narrow. The birds tend to run rather than sit tight in this type of area.

Big grassy areas, moderately heavy wildlife management areas, some draws and waterways, are good examples of medium cover. Here birds are a little more inclined to sit. Much of this cover lies in broad blocks rather than narrow strips. CRP, and set aside land is a perfect example.

Marshes, wildlife management areas and other areas, which have cone, cattails, bulrushes, and elephant grass provide the thickest Midwest pheasant, cover. Hunters can’t move as well in this stuff, but pheasants are less inclined to run like deer here. The birds usually move slowly and prefer to sneak from one thick spot to another.

The real lesson here is that it not only improves wildlife, but also mankind. If grasslands, sloughs, marshes remain we will also improve our water supply. Especially, good clean water. We need these areas to filter our water back down to the aquifer, instead of promoting run off causing flooding and eventually polluting our streams and rivers.

The next lesson was while hunting these grasslands watch out for other critters that your dog can get into. Specifically, on opening day my male Irish Setter, Laddy Boy encountered a skunk. Laddy received a full fledge blast of skunk spray in the face and chest. It was very windy that day and everyone in our hunting party knew exactly what dog the skunk hit. After a quick field bath and removal of all items in the back of the truck except his port–a-kennel, we were off to Madelia for a bath of tomato juice and dog shampoo.

By the way that didn’t help except that he now smelled of tomato juice with lavender accents (from the shampoo) surrounded by an ever still over powering smell of skunk spray.

After driving some 8 hours to North Dakota to begin our hunt the next day, we learned the second lesson. To rid your dog of skunk spray use the following recipe.

1-quart of hydrogen peroxide

½ box of baking soda

4 drops of dawn dishwashing liquid.

Mix in bowl. Then apply to you dog in a shampoo manner. Let the formula sit on your dog for 10 minutes and then rinse. Repeat if necessary or apply to dog box blankets etc. This is a lesson well learned. The only thing that we could not rid of the odor was his plastic training collar. The odor somehow would not come out of the collar so we had to replace it with another one.

Therefore, it is very important for us to improve our habitat for wildlife and improve our drinking water. It is also important to have the right recipe to improve the quality of the air especially around your pet when they encounter a skunk.