With the pheasant season not too far away, hunters are wondering what the season is looking like?

There are quite a few factors that deal with a successful pheasant opener, these include; weather, vegetation, bug development, and the number of roosters carried over from last season.

Some hunters seem to believe that they have three hatches, when in fact, pheasants  only have a single  hatch.  Hens will attempt to nest multiple times, only when their whole brood or nest fails.  If one chick is successful, she will stay with it until maturity, around two months.

The hatching begins when pheasant hens begin to build nest, ending when the successful brood of one or more chicks is at least two months old, when they mainly eat bugs.  Their nest building and egg laying takes about fifteen days with incubation about thirty days, the entire hatching period will last forty-five days, and sixty days to raise the brood.

For a total of three and a half months to raise pheasants naturally.

The peak hatch generally is around June 10^th, indicating a strong 2025 pheasant season.

Because we had record bird numbers last year, with a good carryover of mature roosters last year until this year and because of a very mild, dry and open winter, with good rains that started things growing and to start bug production.

The weather so far and the rains that we’ve had with decent temperatures will keep the vegetation growing and the bug production at a high rate.

Crop planting was ahead of schedule and early crop harvest will benefit early season hunters.

Even if the hatch is not optimal, the game changer will be the number of mature roosters  remaining from last season.