In southwest Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Walz will hunt, pheasants benefit from passion

In Minnesota's pheasant hunting heyday, WCCO radio would broadcast live from the state's hinterlands on opening day, reveling in an event — in effect a state holiday — that was as much about community spirit as it was about the splendor, and magic, of roosters flushing into cobalt skies on October mornings.

This was in the 1950s and '60s, when pheasants, which exploded in Minnesota after World War II, gave Twin Cities residents opportunities — excuses, really — to hunt, and to celebrate, while returning to the farms and small towns where they grew up.

It helped that pheasants were wildly abundant.

In 1958, for example, more than 1.5 million roosters fell to Minnesota wingshooters, the continuation of a harvest bonanza that began as early as 1931, when 1 million pheasants were tallied during a state season that lasted only 10 days.

The multitudinous birds were byproducts of small farms surrounded by plentiful woodlots, intact marshes and weedy fence lines, at a time when crop fields were nurtured without the copious chemicals that are applied to the same lands today.

Opening-day wingdings a half-century ago even extended to American Legion posts, whose "shell committees" distributed ammunition to 25 Minnesota towns with a goal of killing 2,500 pheasants on opening weekend to feed 3,800 veterans.

"Shoot a pheasant for a vet!" exclaimed one sign at the Montevideo Legion in 1960.

Fast forward to 2022.

Minnesota's farmlands have changed dramatically, and pheasants today are fewer. A good day afield when the season opens next Saturday might yield a hunter and his or her dog a two-rooster limit, and the state's ringneck tally when the season concludes might touch 275,000 birds, give or take.

What hasn't changed, however — and if you doubt this you should visit Worthington, Minn., Friday and Saturday — is the enthusiasm that pheasants can generate.

"I can tell you the community support for an event of this type is palpable," said Scott Rall. "It invigorates the community unbelievably."

Rall was referring to the Governor's Pheasant Opener, a celebration begun in 2011 by Gov. Mark Dayton and that Worthington previously hosted in 2014.

This year's affair in Worthington, beginning Friday, will be smaller because it wasn't announced by Gov. Tim Walz until early July. Perhaps the delay was prompted by politics, perhaps by the pandemic, perhaps by bureaucratic indecision.

No matter, said Rall, the event chair who is also the longtime Nobles County Pheasants Forever (PF) chapter president.

"It'll be great!" he said. "We will have had about 100 days to put this celebration together when people start showing up on Friday, and we'll get it done."

Lisa Havelka of Explore Minnesota — the state's tourism arm, which together with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Worthington Area Chamber of Commerce and other local civic groups is organizing the event — said numerous southern Minnesota communities competed to host this year's governor's opener.

Walz, in fact, while in Worthington, is expected to announce the site of next year's governor's pheasant shindig, again choosing, Havelka said, from multiple communities that wanted it.

This contrasts sharply from Walz's delayed decision to hold an abbreviated Governor's Fishing Opener last spring, when his spokespeople said no communities could be found to pay the costs and organize the volunteers needed.

In fact, Havelka said, the Governor's Pheasant Opener usually makes money for host communities, while also earning considerable public-relations and tourism payback, thanks to extensive media coverage.

Whichever community plays host to next year's pheasant-opener gala, it will have a new format to consider.

That's because, due to time constraints, an invitation-only sit-down banquet with speeches won't be held Friday evening, as has been customary. Instead, a Friday evening gathering at a new downtown Worthington pavilion will feature a "Food Truck Flocking,'' and all are welcome.

"We hope to see everyone in the community there,'' Rall said. "And we'll have a beer truck.''

Another difference this year is that media members will hunt on their own, on public land. Walz and his crew, meanwhile, will be guided on private property.

Based on DNR August roadside surveys, pheasant numbers statewide are up 18% from last year, and higher by the same amount over the 10-year average.

The same surveys say Nobles County might not be the ringneck hotbed this season it has been in recent years. (Rall said not to worry, there are plenty of birds.) Yet no section of the state can boast the conservation track record Nobles County can, thanks to a host of local wildlife groups, led by the PF chapter.

Consider:

• Nobles County PF made the national organization's first public land acquisition in 1986. Among PF's more than 700 chapters nationwide, Nobles County, with its 250 members (60 are life members) has been No. 1 in habitat acquisition and development in 2010, 2014 and 2021.

• The chapter has spent, alone and through partnerships, $14 million to restore habitat and to acquire 43 parcels for public use totaling 3,306 acres — almost half of the county's 6,676 acres of public land.

• The chapter's most recent acquisition, covering 296 acres (39 tilled; the remainder in CRP), was purchased from the Willie and Henrietta Elsing family. Since January, local PF members have contributed 1,064 volunteer hours restoring the tract, and brome grass is being replaced with native plants by the hundreds of acres.

• The new parcel, added to the existing Ransom Ridge Wildlife Management Area (WMA) will be dedicated at 4:30 Friday afternoon, a highlight of which will be the seeding of 3 acres by hand of pollinator plants by members of the local FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter, which, with Nobles County PF, is a co-adopter of the WMA.

• Two other tours also are planned Friday, one at Worthington Wells WMA — a unique project that conserves and cleans subsurface water while providing wildlife habitat — and the other at Schwessinger WMA/Bloom Waterfowl Production Area, a 1,021-acre spread with 18 restored wetlands that will be shown off Friday by Ducks Unlimited (DU). With Pheasants Forever, DU led the purchase and restoration of the massive prairie wetland habitat complex.

All of which — the land dedication, habitat tours, food trucks and opening morning hunts featuring the governor — are different indeed from distributing free ammunition to "shoot a pheasant for a vet.''

But the community spirit that organized one a half-century ago remains alive and well today, as Nobles County residents can attest.

All thanks to the splendor, and magic, of a rooster pheasant flushing into a cobalt sky on an October morning.