There is a particular October morning the plains hunter waits all year for — cold enough for a jacket, the grass gone gold, the dog trembling with anticipation. Pheasant season has opened, and across the state hunters walk the cattail sloughs and grassy draws in hope of the explosive flush and the long cackling flight of a rooster ringneck.

A Rooster Breaks from the Grass

The pheasant is not native — it came from Asia by way of a century of stocking — but it has made the plains its own, thriving in the mix of grain fields, grassland and wetland cover the region provides. A good dog is half the hunt, quartering the cover and holding the point until the gun catches up.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• The ring-necked pheasant was introduced from Asia and thrives on the plains.
• Hunters work grassy draws and cattail sloughs with pointing dogs.
• The season opens in October when the grass has cured to gold.

The birds are wily and the walking is long, and a limit is never a sure thing, which is exactly as the hunter would have it. The almanac counts the pheasant opener among the great autumn rituals of the plains, as much a gathering of friends and dogs as a hunt for birds.