Let's start with habitat. According to Haroldson, the push for ethanol has meant less CRP for nesting cover.

"We're starting to go backward," he said. "After several years of increasing habitat, we changed directions last fall and lost 52,000 acres of CRP land. That's not so bad compared to our neighbors in the west. North Dakota lost 420,000 acres, but I think this is just the start. We've had a couple of years of high crop prices, and I don't want this to sound like we're bashing farmers, but when crop prices are high and the potential for making a living growing commodities is great, we're going to lose conservation land. The solution is to raise CRP rental rates so we don't put the farmers in an awkward position where they have to choose between economics and conservation. The economics right now are in favor of growing crops, even on marginal land.

"As the CRP contracts expire, farmers are not renewing them back and people aren't signing up at the rate they used to either.

"That means we're going backwards in our balance. That's the scariest thing -- not just in Minnesota -- it's the entire Midwest."

There is little doubt that pheasant hunters have been spoiled by the phenomenal hunting we've had in Minnesota the past few years. Not only have there been plenty of roosters, there have been plenty of places to hunt them. From early scouting results I have had, there is a noticeable decline in cover. Some of those buffers of grass near a tree line where I recently hunted are now standing corn and some of the CRP that I've been fortunate to have access to is gone. This lack of cover will not only concentrate pheasants in what is left, it will concentrate the hunters as well, and that number seems to expand right along with the pheasant numbers.

"People respond to the higher bird numbers and it shows in license sales. In the population of hunters, we have a fraction that is casual hunters that will only go out in a good year. Last year was one of those years. My records show about 129,000 hunters last year. That's darn good for Minnesota."

As far as the higher concentrations of hunters in the available cover, Haroldson said, "It hasn't been that many years ago if you had a flexible work schedule, you could go out in the middle of the week and have a piece of public land all to yourself. I don't see that anymore. There may be some areas where that might be true, but our offices are on a wildlife area and there are cars here every day."

The overall outlook is that the nesting cover will continue to decline.

"We still are in a situation where we have good conditions compared to the losses in other states," Haroldson said. "But I think every year we're going to lose CRP until those farm payments match what they can make by farming. To lose 50,000 acres out of 1.6 million acres, which is what we have in the pheasant range, isn't very bad, but it's going in the wrong direction. Minnesota has no extra habitat like they do in South Dakota."

While the lack of cover narrows a hunter's options during the season, it hurts the pheasants in the spring.