9-1 SS CRP and Pheasant

9-1 SS CRP and Pheasant

 Hey fellow outdoorsmen this is David Sparks with Sportsmen’s Spotlight and in a minute I’m gonna tell you why the USDA is trying to make things better for hunting and fishing folks…whether they know it or not.

In today’s episode, you’re just gonna have to listen to a story by me!!! Sorry, but there’s a reason and a tie-in. I’ll never forget a wild pheasant hunt I got to go on in South Dakota about 10 years ago when I was working for ESPN on a show called Ultimate Outdoors. First let me confess that it’s an oxymoron to say working for ESPN while pheasant hunting. But I digress. There we were in an old corn field. It’s about 15 degrees below zero and eight of us are driving birds from one end of the cornfield to the other towards blockers.  My partner was Wayne Pearson who has worked for ESPN and the Outdoor Channel for years and he is a phenomenal guide, hunter and shot. Most of us were carrying 16-20 gauges but good old Wayne used a 410…and never missed. This wasn’t a put and take operation, they were wild pheasant on CRP land and that’s where the USDA comes in. The USDA has recently been encouraging farmers to commit land to their Conservation Reserve Program offering to pay up to 70 percent more than in previous years to put agricultural land into a federal conservation program. Here’s executive director of the FSA’s Boise office, Dick Rush: “They’ve tightened the rules this year under the 2008 Farm Bill to make it even more of a conservation program. It has to be highly erodable land, there have to be other factors loaded in like wildlife benefits.” So there you have it, USDA helping outdoorsmen.

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