Once the pheasant populations on these lands were well established, hunters were allowed in on a limited basis. A pre-season drawing determines who gets to go, but it's still long odds for the hunter. Last year, over 5,200 applications were received for approximately 250 hunts.

With the price of commodities driving up land rental costs, the leased acres in this program were eating up the majority of the budget. When hunting license fees were raised a few years ago, the bird stamp fee was left at $6.75. Do the math. A 40-acre tract costs about $150 per acre to lease for a year or a total rent of $6,000.

That's not including management and maintenance fees. Add those in and you'll understand that 1,000 people have to purchase a bird stamp each year to fund one of these properties. In reality, fewer than 50 people each year enjoy the opportunity to hunt one of these areas. It's a good deal for the 50 hunters who get to hunt, a poor deal for the other 950 individuals.

Because of this, most of the leased areas were dropped in 2008. The money saved will still go toward the pheasant program, but the money will be spent to purchase land, not rent it. The initial cost will be much greater, but once the DNR buys those acres, it's forever. The downside is the number of applicants for these hunts will be stable or increase, but the number of available hunts will decrease.

DNR PAY HUNTS
The DNR has long realized the supply of pheasants and pheasant hunting areas can't be met and will never be met in Indiana. To better satisfy the demand, they turn a portion of six FWAs and one Division of Parks and Reservoirs property into "preserve style" areas for nine days in November each year.

The way the pay hunts, often called put-and-take hunts, work is simple. The DNR purchases pheasants from private game farms, stocks them daily in hunting areas at the rate of two pheasants per hunter and allows a specific number of hunters into the area to harvest the stocked birds. The cost is $15 per hunter, enough to recoup the purchase price of the pheasants and the limit is two pheasants per day. Both hens and cock birds are legal, as both hens and roosters are released.

Years ago, the DNR pay hunts earned a bad reputation for convenience, safety and quality. There was no mechanism in place to limit the number of people who would show up. The result was overcrowded hunting areas contributing to unsafe conditions and poor quality hunts. Hunters would often be forced to arrive in the wee hours of the morning in order to claim the best spots and to be processed in time for the opening gun. The program lasted only as long as pheasants were available. Some years the game went for less than a week, other years, well over that.