| Window | Dates | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Window 1 | 10 OCT 2026 – 03 JAN 2027 | 86d |
| Window 2 | 03 OCT – 04 OCT 2026 | 2d |
As publishedRegular: Oct 10, 2026 - Jan 3, 2027 (males only); Youth: Oct 3-4, 2026
Male pheasants only.Regular season statewide. Youth season (ages 15 and under with an adult 18+ accompanying, adult may not carry a firearm) runs separately before the regular opener.
ND Game and Fish's annual upland game brood survey (100 fixed routes, run twice each) splits the state into four regions — northwest, southwest, southeast, and northeast — and reports pheasants and broods per 100 miles for each every year. The 2025 survey (285 runs, the most recent published) put the northwest and southwest regions well ahead of the southeast, with the northeast a distant fourth — the same ranking the harvest-by-county data independently confirms. Statewide, 2025 pheasant observations were down slightly year-over-year but still 48% above the state's 10-year average.
Two years running now, North Dakota's pheasant numbers have sat well above the long-term average. The state's late-summer brood survey found 80 pheasants observed per 100 miles statewide, 57% above the 10-year average, with brood size holding at 5.3 chicks. That follows a 2025 season that came in 48% above that same average, with the Southwest region posting the best production in the state that year too. This year Southwest is again the standout, at 112 birds per 100 miles, well ahead of the other three regions. Northeast and Northwest both improved, to 43 and 85 per 100 miles. The Southeast eased off for a second straight year, down to 64. That regional pattern lines up with the spring crowing count from earlier in the year, which also came in up statewide with every region positive. Two consecutive years well above trend points to a sustained good stretch, not a one-year bump.
Two consecutive mild winters have let pheasant numbers build well past the state's long-term average, not just tick up from one year to the next.
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