Sanborn's Fish Kreek Ranch Pheasant Preserve

"Do it for your dog!"

We have been raising and hunting pheasants for several years outside of Whitehall, MT on the Jefferson River. We are open to the public and do not require private memberships. We appreciate appointments so that we can be prepared for the release of your pheasants, and so we can limit the number of hunters per day so that you are hunting land that has mostly not been hunted that day; many times we can accommodate you on the same day as you call so feel free to check for availability.

Our preserve is run somewhat different than other preserves as we strive to have pre-released and wild birds on the property at all times so that you may get additional opportunities at shooting.  We irrigate special fields and do not cut them thus they are dedicated to bird habitat.  Irrigation is done by flood and requires a substantial amount of time during the summer.  In addition, we had a food plot created this season with millet being the target seed source for the birds.  With the planting of the millet we also fertilized several of the fields to sustain excellent habitat to hold the birds. Finally, we embarked on an intensive action to minimize hounds tongue weeds, which have taken over the valley.  We pulled and sprayed over a thousand plants this year to keep the burrs down that get onto your dogs.

We limit the amount of time and shooters so that everyone has an equal opportunity at seeing extra birds.  We have dog trainers that would prefer to shoot only one or two birds and hunt for longer than a half day.  Unfortunately such intensive hunting would drive the birds off of the property and make seeing extra birds much more rare.  For this reason we require each hunter to have 4 birds released and we have a half day time limit per hunt unless someone books for a whole day and then the number of birds is 8.  This has made our preserve one of the few venues that you can see and have opportunities at additional birds if you miss or want to pass on a released bird.  We limit the number of hunters per day so everyone is hunting some fresh habitat.

The cost of feed has skyrocketed in the last few years and after November 1, we have to pay our supplier extra storage fees for feed purposes.  Our pens will hold about 250 birds and we are unable to house all birds at one time thus we must pay our supplier for timely deliveries later in the season and absorb this fee.

For the preceding reasons our pricing has escalated this year.  We are fully aware of costs and are doing our best to keep this form of hunting experience affordable for you.  Unless we cover our overhead we would be greatly jeopardizing continuing the preserve operation.  This is still much cheaper than driving long distances to wild pheasant habitat whereas fuel, food, and lodging, can be very expensive.  We would like to thank you for your understanding.