Thinking back over the past autumn’s upland season and looking through the scrawls of handwriting in the stained and worn journal I removed from the compartment in the driver’s side door of my truck this weekend, I was optimistic as I recounted each day’s efforts. This was due to the fact that on every single parcel of property — public, private and PLOTS or WIA — that I walked with my lab, Ole, we put up at least a handful of pheasants. At this point in time on my hunting journey, part of that is owed to knowing what places provide roosters with refuge, and the other part of that is simply having the habitat on the landscape to do so.

It’s that latter element, beyond knowledge and experience, that sets the table for other hunters, new sportsmen and women fresh out of firearms education or those reactivating after some time on the sidelines, to have the places to go and explore in the next season and the seasons that come after. Those areas, which via a mix of grass, cattails, brush and other cover, provide the ideal areas for pheasants. And while available options to make more places for wildlife, such as the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), are in a trough, and demand for every farmable acre seems at a peak, and we await some sort of seismic shift in that duality that comes every couple of decades or so; there are green shoots and good programs in place to help preserve, protect and make more habitat, and perhaps as important, get hunters access to it.

Whether it’s through what acres remain in the highly competitive CRP enrollments each year, or via those lesser known state and local efforts available with Soil & Water Conservation Districts (SWCD), county extension offices, state wildlife management agencies, or non-governmental organizations like Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited or other sportsmen’s groups big and small, a foothold for habitat is forming. Through these avenues, conservation-minded landowners, operators, and those aligned with them, can explore options to convert marginal lands and acres of limited productivity — which take far more in inputs such as seed, spray and fertilizer, than they ever give back on a regular basis in terms of successful crops — and find a way to not only improve wildlife habitat and all the good things that go with it, but also increase their farm’s bottom line.

And those other good things beyond a rising rooster, or a fawn whitetail brought into the population of deer, should not be forgotten. While winter has pulled a bit of its punch after a bitter start across the region, we’re only a couple years removed from a season where nine feet of snow made for headlines of wildlife mortality followed by spring flooding. The more grass, sloughs, swamps, and tree claims that are in the ground, the more cover we give wildlife and the easier it is to manage soil erosion, air and water pollution, and slow drainage to prevent or even eliminate flooding in our region’s major rivers each spring.

Now, in the heart of winter, is the time not only to take stock of the habitat we still have on the ground, but also the idea that we have nowhere to go but up, when it comes to making conservation, hunting, and ultimately, when thinking downstream, even our fishing on waters that absorb annual runoff, better through the habitat programs that are available. If you own, rent, ranch, or farm land; or know someone who does, now is the time to talk about habitat. On every piece and parcel there’s likely a space for grass, cattails, trees, brush or some other sort of protective cover that benefits wildlife and people. Reach out to contacts in your area, your wildlife management agency, state and local water districts, and your local conservation groups to find the habitat options fit for those acres and the wildlife on it along with your budget. There’s always room for improvement and future seasons of full journal stories; especially now as we hold fast and await the next upswing of habitat plantings … in our outdoors.