Guess what is America's favorite game bird. No, it's not the mourning dove, though doves top the harvest list each year. Still, they don't engender the passion among hunters to make them No. 1. Bobwhite quail are certainly popular, but legions of quail hunters don't gear up and head out for bobs come opening day. Grouse are the favorites of some, but they're not widely available. Other gunners might pick wild turkeys or other lesser species, such as Hungarian partridge or sharptails. But none of these game birds can compare with the popularity of the ring-necked pheasant.

Now that you are thinking about ringnecks, where would you go if you had an itch to bag a few pheasants? Iowa is good. Nebraska is probably better. South Dakota has topped the list for harvest numbers the past few years, but don't overlook Kansas, parts of Minnesota or North Dakota.

Notice, our own state of Indiana wasn't one of the places that popped out as a "pheasant destination." Pheasants seem to be picky about where they will live and even pickier about where they won't. That means there are "have" states, and "have-not" states, and unfortunately, Indiana is in the latter category.

There's another side to this story, however, and it's the story that though Indiana is a "have-not" pheasant state, Hoosier hunters heading afield in many locations across Hoosierland still manage to bag a bounty of pheasants.

There are even wild ringnecks to be found, for sure. Not in the abundance of the Dakotas or Kansas, but isolated spots can produce well. In addition to these, however, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) holds both paid and free hunts for stocked pheasants on select fish and wildlife area (FWAs) properties in each region of the state. Last, but not least, dozens of entrepreneurs provide pheasant hunting opportunities on private shooting preserves around Indiana.

WILD THINGS
Ring-necked pheasants are not native to North America; rather they are immigrants from Asia. The first transplants to arrive in the Pacific Northwest were stocked on farms in the Willamette Valley where they prospered. Soon, individuals, groups and state conservation agencies imported more or reared pheasants in game farms or captured wild pheasants in one area and released them in others. I doubt there are many counties in the entire country that haven't had some sort of pheasant stocking program conducted in it at some point in history.

Most places the birds didn't prosper. In some areas, they disappeared nearly as fast as the crates could be opened. In other areas, they appeared to take root but slowly faded away. There were obvious habitat problems in some locations; poachers got the blame in others, as did predators. By comparing the areas where the birds prospered well with the areas pheasant stockings fizzled, game biologists eventually discovered one major factor that would predict the outcome of a pheasant-stocking program.