Chapter News Update

Presidents Report

The 2023 Habitat Day or Adopt-a-WMA day was held on April 22 (See details below). Our goal is to really put an effort into the public lands we already own and improve them. We had two groups of about 40 young adults and adults working on two separate WMAs. We hope all that helped found it rewarding and your community service efforts were appreciated.

MN Outdoor Youth Day will take place again on July 15, 2023. It will be held at the Nicollet Conservation Club (See details below). We are a key supporter and sponsor of this event. We hope your kids or grandkids can attend.

We are planning for September 23, 2023 a Dog Training & Mentored Youth Pheasant Hunt. We are trying to get kids from 11-15 that have never hunted before to learn how to pheasant hunt (See details below). This will be a great opportunity for a mentored pheasant hunt.

The 2024 BCPF Annual Banquet will be March 23, 2024 held at the Sleepy Eye Event Center. We hope you mark your calendars early for this event and you can attend and supports us. All of the money raised will be put to good use in Brown County. Some of these efforts are: support the high school trap teams; improve the WMAs with food plots, plantings, parking areas and signage.

A new general CRP signup period has commenced. If you have lands to enroll in CRP or other programs, please talk to us for help. Additionally, we are always looking to acquired habitat lands that will be part of a future WMA.

Brown County Pheasants Forever has just acquired a new piece of land that will become public in the near future. More on this in future updates.

BCPF won a brand new Polaris ATV as part of our Polaris Habitat Award Submission this year. We want to thank Polaris for this donation. We are currently deciding what to do with the ATV we won. Stay tuned....

With sad news, if you haven't heard we lost our past banquet auctioneer Glenn Berkner. He was present for quite a few banquets. We will miss him and we send our prayers to the family. In his honor, we will be doing some plantings on a WMA in the spring at our next habitat day.

Adopt-a-WMA Habitat Day

We held our Habitat Day (Earth Day) on April 22 this year. We consider this give-back day. We had two groups of nearly 40 people. Many of the volunteers were from the Sleepy Eye and New Ulm High School trap teams. We completed the following tasks:

Wood Lake WMA

Planted 300 new American Plum shrubs
Removed 100's on noxious or invasive trees

Bashaw WMA

Removed over 1/2 mile of barb wire fencing
Cleaned and removed a lot of trash

At the conclusion of the event we hosted a BBQ lunch for all. We hope to see you there next year in April for BCPF Habitat Day.

We will continue to build out this summer more parking areas and better signage on WMAs. We have planted with the DNR over 40 acres of food plots. Some of these are new. We are actively looking to build better food sources and wintering habitat. This is a much better use of our funds than supplying emergency feed for pheasants. If you want to help or participate in these efforts, reach out Tim to discuss.

Landowners there are a number of active programs you should be aware of:

CRP (Conservation Reserve Program). Sign-ups are currently on-going.

In exchange for a yearly rental payment, farmers enrolled in the program agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and to plant species that will improve environmental health and quality. The program’s long-term goal is to re-establish valuable land cover to improve water quality, prevent soil erosion, and reduce loss of wildlife habitat. Contracts for land enrolled in CRP are 10-15 years in length.

Under continuous CRP signup, environmentally sensitive land devoted to certain conservation practices can be enrolled in CRP at any time. Offers for continuous enrollment are not subject to competitive bidding during specific periods. Instead they are automatically accepted provided the land and producer meet certain eligibility requirements and the enrollment levels do not exceed the statutory cap.

For more information, including a list of acceptable practices, contact your USDA Service Center at visit fsa.usda.gov/crp. or reach out to Nate Fore - Brown County PF Biologist to inquiry. His contact details are below.

For the first time in many years on September 23, 2023, we are going to try and have a Dog Training & Mentored Youth Pheasant Hunt. This is event will be focused on youth's ages 11-15 that have never hunted before. (Note: Must have firearm safety completed prior to this date of this event to participate). To find a firearm safety class, visit the MN DNR website at: DNR Safety Training Classes

This will be an active, in the field event with real dogs and pheasants. For someone who has never hunted before this will be the perfect event for them. We will have a safety briefing, smalls groups with each youth being paired with an adult mentor.

We will be limiting this event to no more than 25 youths. Note: A Liability Waiver Must be Signed by the Parent Prior to Attending the Event. Parents are welcome to be part of the mentor group and can acquire more details from the Youth Coordinators Ben or Brandon.

If you are interested in attending this event please contact Ben Cunningham or Brandon Kral for more details. They contact information is listed below.

July 15, 2023 – MN Youth Day

September 1, 2023 – MN Dove Season Opens

September 2-17, 2023 - MN Goose Season

September 2-6, 2023 - MN Teal Season

September 9-10, 2023 - MN Youth Waterfowl Season

September 23, 2023 - BCPF Youth Dog Training and Pheasant Hunt

September 23, 2023 - MN Waterfowl Season Opens

September 30 - October 29, 2023 - MN Fall Turkey Season

October 14, 2023 – MN Pheasant Opener

October 19-22, 2023 - MN Youth Deer Season

November 4-12, 2023 - MN Deer Firearm Season

November 25, 2023 – MN Muzzleloader Deer Opener

January 1, 2024 – MN Pheasant Season Closes

The monies we receive through donations, fund raising, and membership are critical to us enhancing or purchasing lands for all the public to enjoy. We encourage everyone to renew their membership to Pheasants Forever or upgrade to a Lifetime membership.

Pheasants Forever is the only national organization with a model of chapters keeping 100% of the funds they raise. While belonging to a larger national organization that has a voice on federal and state conservation policies, chapters are tasked with finding projects for their funds. Minnesota takes full advantage of this model using funds raised for projects locally as well as other areas in the state of Minnesota.

Go to https://www.pheasantsforever.org/Participate/Why-Participate.aspx

andhttps://www.pheasantsforever.org/getdoc/91f8dfad-47ad-46d6-af54-5649db42671f/Membership.aspx help us grow!

BROWN COUNTY PHEASANT’S FOREVER ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
FOUNDED 32 YEARS AGO and SPENT OVER $4 MILLION in Brown County for HABITAT.
OVER 300 HABITAT PROJECTS benefiting OVER 3000 ACRES on PRIVATE land.
PRESERVED OVER 2500 ACRES for PUBLIC ENJOYMENT & HUNTING. Brown County has OVER 28 WMA/WPAs encompassing OVER 4600 ACRES.
PARTICPATED in OVER 2000 ACRES in Brown County land ACQUISITIONS that are now WMA/WPAs.
HOSTS AND PARTICIPATES IN ANNUAL MENTORED YOUTH HUNTS with more than 50 KIDS PARTIPATING
SUPPORT our LOCAL TRAP SHOOTING TEAMS.
PARTICIPATE in MN DNR Adopt-a-WMA program