Rog's Rod & Nimrod

Two weeks ago this column suggested that the oats of days gone by might be a player in our declining pheasant population. I received as much feedback from that oats column as any column I’ve written in the past 47 years, and I feel like a panel of experts has enlightened me. Here’s what they had to say. As you will see, oats are a positive step, but not as productive as other alternatives – namely alfalfa.

Larry Fredrickson of Chamberlain referred to a nesting study done for the years 1956-1962. What was mostly “soil bank” back then produced twice as many pheasant broods as oats. Wheat also produced twice as much as oats. Larry goes on to say that we need 1.5 million acres of CRP to double our pheasant population, and suggests that funds from internet sales tax could finance this CRP. Larry also mentions that bounties on predators won’t work.

Joe Kirwan of Gregory, who has been observing pheasants for many years, related why the old “soil bank” out produces our modern CRP. He says the difference is alfalfa. Soil bank included alfalfa where CRP is seeded with native grasses. Joe goes on to say that uncut alfalfa draws hen pheasants like a magnet, and new broods love it because it is loaded with bugs. He suggested shaking alfalfa to see the number of bugs that fall out.

Tom Koehn is a habitat expert who once managed High Brass in the Chamberlain area. He mentioned that the oats of the 40’s and 50’s related to horses and chickens. In defense of oats, Tom wrote that in the absence of alfalfa, oats and winter wheat create the cover pheasants want in the spring. Being thin on the bottom and thick on the top, oats and wheat offer the complete opposite of what the dense cover biologists and Pheasants Forever people push. Oats and winter wheat produce the first cover that creates both bugs and greens for the chicks. Oats has the added benefit of its seeds being tender longer than those of wheat.

San Diego, CA reader John Cihak comes back to the Dante, SD area every year to hunt his own land. He called and talked about “industrial corn and soy beans.” He’s referring to the corn and beans with clean rows thanks to modern herbicides. I knew exactly what he was talking about as I once sought out rows that were literally choked with weeds. “Dirty” rows we called it. Regardless of what we do, the clean rows are here to stay. What John says is still important as we need to analyze what we are doing today that we didn’t do sixty years ago. Like Alfalfa, dirty corn rows protect the birds from raptors and hail.

To sum this up, we must encourage and pay farmers to leave alfalfa uncut until the broods can fend for themselves. Oats and winter wheat still appear to be a sound idea.

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In the 3/9/19 Mitchell Daily Republic LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, reader Dan Kaup took a shot at my suggesting that spawning walleyes be protected in the spring. He mentions that I’m no biologist, and that our GF&P biologists know what they’re doing. Granted, I’m no fisheries biologist. I’m aware of SDGF&P thinking as I’ve communicated with them in the past. They feel a female is female, and it makes no difference when she is caught.

No one will never convince me that a female full of eggs in the spring is no more valuable to our fisheries than a July female walleye. Dan goes on to say, “The March/April time frame is the only time bank fishermen have good chance to catch a walleye.” Wrong! During the evening daylight hours of early May, angling from the banks of Lake Francis Case with a jig and minnow is positively lethal. It is then that the post-spawn male and female walleyes go on a feeding binge.

Dan is correct in saying that our SD walleye fishing is better for the most part than Minnesota’s in spite of Minnesota’s closed season. Dan, I appreciate your letter, and I love controversy.

During the recent Mitchell Gun Show, a patron backed my thinking for the wrong reasons. He told me that if we shut down in the spring, the Minnesotans and Iowans might stay at home. Well, GF&P, not to mention merchants, would miss their money. Is it possible that money has something to do with this walleye thing? I hope not.

See you next week.