Good luck Pheasant hunters!

[Acristickid]

Pheasant season starts for me tomorrow.

God's country- Somerset Co. is calling.

There will be a few less folks out fishing tomorrow. I just wish it was not so freaking hot- I will be a sweaty mess by 9:30 am.

Good luck to all Pheasant hunters! Paul

 

[MattBoyer]

I probably won't be getting out until Monday. I have to work tomorrow. On the plus side, word on the street is there are a few "off the beaten path" places near me that a few have drifted into. Woodland pheasant hunting is surreal. It's like grouse hunting for pheasant. My buddy was taking his kids for a walk yesterday and saw 6 on a trail behind his house, which is miles from the nearest cornfield. Should be interesting.

Boyer

 

[DJB66]

can't wait to get out,nice that we have our old crew together for tomorrow,first time in about 10 years.Don't care if we get just nice to get out with the guys.And if I do get one sure could use a few tails for tying.

 

[Padraic]

I saw a pheasant out here in Harrisburg a while ago. He was hanging out near a little cemetery just off rt22.

 

[sdwlucas]

I had the dogs out yesterday and my female pointed 14 pheasants and 5 woodcocks. My dogs in no way are "excellent" hunters but they do the job. I took them out tonight and she pointed 9 cock birds I would have had my limit in less than 5 minutes. Trying to get some birds scattered before tomorrow. Good luck to all and be safe....remember there will be a million hunters and 2 million dogs so watch where you shoot. GOOD LUCK!

 

[ryanh]

After a 7 or 8 year hiatus from hunting seriously I made a decision to get back into it this year.

I read up on the internet and headed to a Westmoreland county SGL. After a few hours of nothing I decided to check somewhere else. Driving out I passed a Commissioner. I asked him if he had any recomendations. He said "follow me". So I did. 20 miles later I got out and he said "I stocked two dozen birds in this field yesterday".

I had no idea what to say to him. The field was beautiful. Didn't see a damn bird. Heard some shooting.

The officer took me to a co-op farm. He said that is where most of the birds get released. Does anyone know of a list of co-op farms? Also I was without a dog. I walked through the thickest cover thinking that they would seek refuge there if pressured. (there were some guys and dogs working the farm too).

 

[PaulG]

sdwlucas

Are they stocked birds you are talking about? I didn't think there were that many wild birds left in Pa.

Pheasant hunting was my favorte type of hunting in my younger days, I gave it up years ago, no wild birds left and the lost of hunting ground, except stocked birds on game lands.

Living in the Harrisburg area I was lucky to have some prime pheasant hunting. We did a lot of hunting in Lancaster Co. Dillsburg area and even Hershey area, but that's all going now!

PaulG

Ps, nothing like hunting with a good bird dog!

 

[jaybo41]

Had a buddy of mine get one today and after cleaning it, he hooked me up with the feathers. There are some beautiful feathers on these birds! Can't wait to put them to good use on some flys

 

[Will]

I stomped around for a few hours on Saturday and did not even see a bird (plenty of cars, though). I did hear a couple. I should stick to grouse.

 

[troutbert]

Like Paul G, I'm interested in whether there are still wild pheasants around. When I was younger there were tons of them. My understanding is that they were essentially gone. Are they making a comeback, or if you see a pheasant can you just asssume that someone drove a truck up and threw that pheasant out there?

 

[tomgamber]

Troutbert, I believe that while stocked pairs will produce eggs, there are or were no wild pheasants in Pa. These are Chinese Ringnecks...yep, originally imported from China like everything else. Don't believe me? Turn 'em over and read the label. Ok, I was kidding about that part.

 

[Will]

"Troutbert, I believe that while stocked pairs will produce eggs, there are or were no wild pheasants in Pa."

While there are no "native" pheasants in PA, there used to be quite a large number of wild ones, reproducing naturally. Survival of stocked birds is poor. There still are some wild ones, but many fewer than there used to be. There's actually a lot of interesting info on the Game Commission website if you want to poke around, including a history of pheasants in PA. The vast majority of the pheasant hunting now available in PA seems to be for stocked birds, which is what I was unsuccessfully chasing. There is a link in there somewhere to the PA breeding bird atlas that has dots to show confirmed breeding pairs of lots of species, including ringnecks.

 

[troutbert]

RE: "While there are no "native" pheasants in PA, there used to be quite a large number of wild ones, reproducing naturally."

That's right. They were imported, so they aren't native, but established thriving wild populations here. In the late 60s, and up to around the early 70s, there were tons of wild pheasants around.

I can't remember exactly when the populations crashed, but I think it was probably in the mid to late 70s?

 

[tomgamber]

Yeah, I guess I missed that whole "Native vs Wild" thing. Don't want to get that started all over again, sorry.

 

[JasonM]

I live in Shippensburg and I have been talking to some of the locals that said the birds didn't used to have to be stocked. Other hunters I have spoken with said the downfall was brought on by the advancements in farming and harvesting. The fields are used over in shorter periods of time which breaks into the nesting period from my understanding. Take a look at what little corn is left over when it's cleared of fields also. The machines don't miss much.

 

[sdwlucas]

Yeah they were most definately stocked birds, there is a preserve up here that actually had some reproduce in the wild. This is a big surprise to me due to the coyotes, hawks and other predators. I remeber growing up in Middletown and before the houses popped up all around we would always have pheasants in the backyard.

 

[troutbert]

tomgamber wrote:
Yeah, I guess I missed that whole "Native vs Wild" thing. Don't want to get that started all over again, sorry.

Not to worry, there is no "Native vs Wild" controversy. Some people know, some people don't, but that's not the same thing as a controversy.

 

[Fishidiot]

The good ole days of pheasant hunting in Pa lasted from about the 1950s until the late 70s. In the early 80s the birds were still common but by the mid-80s their population had crashed. Nobody really knows why. Theories abound - many blame "clean farming" practices and this probably has something to do with it. I blame the Avian Flu that devastated chicken farms. The pheasants disappeared right after this. It seems to me that I have seen a few more birds in the last 3 or 4 years. They could have been stocked but when you see them in the spring and summer it's a good sign. The state is currently attempting to re-establish a wild population with birds transferred from the mid-west and released in the SW corner of the state. There was also an attempt in the late 80s I think, to establish a population of Chinese sub-species called "Sechuan" pheasants that were suppossedly better suited to woodland habitat but this project failed.

 

[MattBoyer]

Another factor is that in the 70's raptors were afforded federal protection, which vastly increased their numbers. Add to this the fact that coyotes didn't make a full rebound until the 80's, as well as bobcats. Throw in a steady decline in trapping statewide, and you've got a lot of reasons why a brightly colored non-native species might have some trouble. I got out on Monday, shot a woodcock that stumbled into the thickest bramble of blackberry and wild rose that I have ever seen. After that I went walking the fields for pheasant. I probably walked for about 4 hours. I saw a few in the distance, but couldn't flush any. As I'm walking through this huge field, I see some deer running across. I grab my camera and start taking pictures. I have to be standing still for a solid 5 minutes. Next thing I know I have a pheasant flush 10 feet behind me! Man sometimes I hate those rotten birds! He was quite freshly stocked, and wouldn't have supplied me with many nymphs anyhow. His tail was like 4 inches long. At either rate, it was great to be out and watch the sun come up over a few miles of cornfield. Man, I love the fall.

Boyer

 

[NoMoreCornChuckin]

I have to agree with MattBoyer, I believe it's not so much loss of habitat, but an increase in predators, i.e. Coyotes, fox, coons (eat the eggs) Bobcats and feral cats. The reason I don't believe it's habitat is, while I was living in Korea, There are tons of Ringneck Pheasants there, they are wild, long beautiful tails, and thick bodies. They are not hunted there. They have no Natural predators other than skunks, which you rarely see, only up in the most mountainous areas. I would see nesting pairs of pheasants right in the heart of downtown seoul, anywhere there was a small patch of yard with bushes. We would hear them cackling and crowing in the morning on the way to the subway. I asked my wife (an native Korean) if these were possibly pets and she assured they are not. They would nest in people's back yards, public parks, anywhere there was the slightest cover, and believe me it is SLIGHT in Seoul. Out in the countryside and farmlands, they are EVRYWHERE. It was really nice to see them, but it was hard not to want to hunt them, but who wants to end up in a korean jail?