Hi, first off , sorry Steve for calling you Mark, don't know what I was thinking. For the most part, Bob has nailed it about here in ND. The areas he stated for fee hunting is in large part due to folks from out of state. The farmers here are not the dumb rubes some folks think they are, they're smart business people. If they can make an easy buck, they will. The status of PLOTS has also changed, at one time we had a million acres in PLOTS, but no more. Raising crop prices took care of that and CRP acres as well. The only thing about PLOTS is for the most part, they were never that good. A lot were hayed and grazed down to nothing or cattle were in them and the cover was not that good. There still is some good PLOTS, but they get hit hard early to mid season. Late in the season, when most fair weather guys are done, they can pay off. WPA's can also be great, but all are non-tox shot.
What gets my goat is, this year the Game and Fish raised all the fees for fishing and hunting. A resident combo license went from $32 to $50. Why? To better habitat or so they say. The state has $$ coming out their a$$ from the oil companies, yet they won't give anything to improve the public hunting this state prides itself. Just don't understand some of the thinking.
Bird number have been down the last couple of years due to bad winters and poor nesting conditions. This winter was damn cold, but not a lot of snow and they did well. We just had a major storm come thru two days ago, high winds and a lot of snow, I hope they made it thru ok. One good thing is, it was not a mid or late spring storm, so they were not on the nest yet. Hoping for a good spring, but time will tell on that.
As Bob said, if you want to pay to hunt, go to the Mott area, if not, I'd look to places north of I-94, but not to far east of Bismarck.
Best!
Greg
