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• "Folks are starting to take a look at their calendars and making plans," he said.
• Heavy rains may have hindered the first hatch of chicks this spring in southwest North Dakota -- arguably the state's pheasant hunting hotbed -- but a second hatch in drier conditions this summer should help bird numbers, said Devon Jesterson, an avid pheasant hunter from Richardton.
• "There will definitely be some good, healthy birds but I think it's going to be down from last year," Jesterson said. He often bagged his daily three-bird limit last year with his two Labrador retrievers. "Late-season hatches are not as good as the first hatch."
• Roadside brood surveys, which begin this month, give biologists a better insight on what to expect this fall, Kohn said. Early signs point toward a strong pheasant population due to near ideal nesting habitat at present.
• "The birds are just now in the hatching process," Kohn said. A high chick survival rate -- due to dry, "super lush" nesting cover and plentiful insects for the birds to eat -- should bolster numbers, he said.
• "I think pheasant numbers could respond really quickly," he said.
• Kohn said hunting success this fall could mirror the 2011 season, when hunters bagged more than 683,000 roosters in North Dakota.
• Over the long-term, wildlife officials increasingly worry about the loss of Conservation Reserve Program land. The federal government pays landowners to take the land out of production and plant cover crops that make ideal wildlife habitat. High commodity prices have lured many farmers out of the program.
• North Dakota has lost half its CRP land since 2007, from 3.4 million acres to 1.7 million acres, said Casey Anderson, a Game and Fish private lands field operations coordinator. Another 254,000 is slated to expire this fall, he said.
• The loss of CRP means decreased nesting and brooding cover that will mean fewer pheasants, Kohn and Anderson said.
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• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota farmers have planted 4 percent fewer acres of corn than last year's record crop.
• The Agriculture Department's June acreage report estimates the state's corn crop at 5.9 million acres.
• South Dakota's soybean crop is estimated at 4.8 million acres, up 1 percent from 2012. Winter wheat acres seeded fell 9 percent over the year, to 1.2 million acres. The spring wheat planted area is estimated at 1.4 million acres, up 30 percent from

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