West Michigan pheasant preserves offer plentyBy Aaron Ogg, The Grand Rapids Press, found at MLive.com
December 27, 2009
Mark Chase of Holland shoots at a pheasant while hunting with his German Shorthaird
Pointer, Libby, at Pine Hill Big Prairie Farm in Belding. (Jon M. Brouwer, The Grand Rapids Press)
BELDING -- Mark Chase quietly crept around corn stalks as his German Shorthaired Pointer sniffed out a cluster of pheasants.
"See how she's stiff-legged walking?" said Justin McGrail, a guide and dog trainer for Pine Hill game bird preserves. "She's definitely got a nose full."
Five-year-old Libby flushed three birds. Chase raised his Ithaca Model 37 20-gauge, squeezed the trigger and knocked a rooster out of the sky. He sent his excited pooch to dig it out of the cover.
"She's got a little bit more of a mind of her own, but she usually takes me to birds, so I don't try to control her too much," he said at Pine Hill's 160-acre Big Prairie Farm upland preserve.
Chase, 45, raved about Pine Hill's grounds. The Holland man typically visits for a tune-up before heading west.
"These guys have the best property, the best conditions I've ever seen short of North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas," Chase said.
Chase gives praise and a command to Libby to drop
the pheasant she flushed and retrieved. (Jon M.
Brouwer, The Grand Rapids Press)Chase is one of about 94,000 Michigan residents who seek out the state's 311 licensed game bird hunting preserves during the Aug. 15 to April 30 preserve hunting season, according to the Sterling-based Michigan Association of Game Bird Breeders and Hunting Preserves.
Another 9,000 nonresidents also come to get a taste of the offerings during that period.
"It's a plus for Michigan," said Jim Trinklein, president of the 90-member MAGBHP. He touts partnerships between farmers and preserve operators and a bolstering of the bird population as positives.
About 30 percent of the 772,000 pheasant, bobwhite quail, chukar and Hungarian partridge released each year escape hunters' blasts. Those help boost populations, Trinklein said.
"It's using agricultural land for an agricultural business," he said.
Some preserve owners say the struggling economy is hurting membership -- especially corporate accounts -- but others report a rising number of hunters electing to stay closer to home instead of visiting out-of-state destinations.
"Instead of taking that big trip out west -- the expense of all that, the time it takes -- they can come out here and hunt a lot," said Pine Hill owner Jim Rypkema, 59.
His outfit, launched in 1973, annually serves 900 to 1,200 hunters in four locations in Belding, Muir and Rockford. Pine Hill also offers dog training, seminars and private lessons.
Tim Somerville, of Haymarsh Hunt Club in Morley, said memberships stand at 240, which is down 22 percent from 2007.
"It's not attractive at all," said Somerville, whose father-in-law started the business in 1989.
Many charter members have lost their jobs, moved or have cut back on entertainment expenses, he said, adding, "That's tough to watch."
Somerville and Preston Mann, owner of Brown City-based Farmland Pheasant Hunters Inc., said a growing number of hunters are going solo instead of visiting in larger groups.
Cruddy weather doesn't help, either. Last December was especially rough, Somerville said. "It's not really entertaining to have to slog around in 16 inches of snow to get a bird to flush up," he said.
"It's just like any other agricultural pursuit. There's a whole lot of vagaries that can hurt us, and the weather doesn't help us at all."
Other factors, however, help offset dwindling business. Bird costs have dipped slightly since 2008 because of lower gas and feed prices, Somerville said.
"We suck it up," he said. "We're just trying to weather the storm."
Bird prices generally fall in the range of $12 to $30 each for hunters, with unlimited access membership, and group packages up to $2,000 or more. Some clubs require a minimum number of birds per hunt. Beginners looking to get their feet wet can rent dogs at some preserves.
Smaller operations, such as the 160-acre Rapid Wings Farm in Alpena County's Hubbard Lake, do not offer memberships. They charge per bird or for guided hunts.
Leonard Bates, 55, opened his family owned land to the public about four years ago.
His preserve attracts everyone from youngsters to seasoned retirees. While some, such as Rypkema, cultivate non-native sorghum and control vegetation with prescribed burning and herbicides, Bates allows native cover to reign supreme.
"I would rather walk in wild grasses than in an alfalfa hay field -- that's the way I look at it," Bates said.
Rapid Wings and Haymarsh are two of several state preserves offering European hunts. In this specialty hunt, birds are tossed out of a tower while participants form a circle and take their shots.
Brian Feringa, manager of Fruitridge Pheasant Farm LLC at 4020 7 Mile Road NW in Grand Rapids, said he strives to make European hunts the preserve's "bread and butter."
Brian Feringa looks over a bird at Fruitridge Pheasant
Farm in Grand Rapids. (Jon M. Brouwer, The Grand Rapids Press)Fruitridge's field can hold as many as 20 hunters at 10 stations as birds are released from a 30-foot tower. A bell mounted atop announces release.
After lunch is served in the remodeled barn clubhouse, hunters can go back out and try to mop up what they missed -- about 50 percent for good marksmen, Feringa said.
His customers include medical and financial professionals, lawyers and business owners. Blue-collar folks also frequent Fruitridge, but usually not as members, Feringa said.
Feringa said he has tended to the terrain in the preserve's four-year life to produce a lush bird cover. He finished cleaning up apple brush on the 100-year-old inactive apple farm last spring and planted about $5,000 worth of switchgrass seed. He is confident his young operation will take root.
"It takes a lot of money," Feringa said. "(But) as long as I can keep working on the fields, this business will do just fine."
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