My thoughts exactly.

South Central and South Eastern PA was considered the Pheasant Capital of the east coast of the US in the 1960's and 70's People would plan their vacation time around when the pheasant season was open I knew of a group of 5 out of state pheasant hunter that would hunt every day of the opening week of the season . And all the local people would get together in groups of 4 or 5 hunters and hunt all day long if they needed to so they could get their limit of roosters only Opening day starting time was 9:00 Am .And it was non stop shooting for at least a few hours I grew up hunting pheasants .While I did not take it for granted I thought it would always be available. But in the early 1980's farming practices changed drastically And those changes lead to the end of wild birds in PA .And it happened so quickly that they where gone before anyone knew it was a problem.

When I worked for the state of s.d. I would see average of 50 a day along the roads in my truck. I actually kicked up flocks of them trapping on wpa"s

Its not legal to shoot hens here

Beautiful birds!

Hens are only allowed to be shot on preserves here. Preserve hunting to me, would equate to shooting a barnyard chicken. Entirely different animal from the wild version. Everyone that enjoys hunting should experience chasing late season wild pheasants. Chasing being the operative word.. lol. I love every bit of it to my core. Where I live, we will lose nearly all our birds from this last storm. 14-24” of fresh snow on top of our previous accumulations have most food plots and CRP completely buried. Without good cover and wind blown fields to scratch for feed they are gone. Very sad, they are cyclic, but I’m coming to the chilling realization that I only have a cycle or two left in ME…. The way of Mother Nature.

This was my limit this year some years I don’t shoot any but we had a bunch hanging around the place and I took these to MO for a feed at deer camp.

In the boom years it was nothing to kick up waves of birds after the fields had been cut when pushing the lower creeks hundreds in a wave, now if you only see 3 in a good year like I did IL that’s tough to comprehend for many. LOL In those days I’d pull into the local grainy with my truck and fill up the bed with cracked corn then buy a half dozen bags of cheap bird seed for grit and spread it in the open spots.


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Shooting hens in PA has only been allowed in the last 10 years or so .The PA Game Commission has a stocking program that includes the stocking of hens and roosters .It is more cost effective that way .When they started legalizing the shooting of hens it was the admission that they had no answer to bringing back pheasant in the wild in PA . TC1 I strongly agree with you that hunting preserve birds is a poor substitute for hunting wild birds. The pen raised bird is not as skittish or, wary, it is a poor flyer and or runner . It has no wild instincts that amount to very much .But if you enjoy hunting birds over dogs .And you like the experience of hunting with family or friends .And wild birds simply do not exist it is what we are left to do .I have 2 dogs that love to hunt .And I doubt they know the difference between wild birds and pen raised .And on the outside chance that they do .They will still enjoy hunting either .If you have wild birds to hunt do every thing in your power to hunt them as much as possible . I and many others across the US have BECOME FORMER PHESANT HUNTERS because wild birds no longer live where they lived just a few years ago.

I've seen good numbers of butterballs scratching down to the waste grain in the various harvested corn fields around here. The Big Sioux valley east of Soo Foo is loaded with turkey and SD GFP really doesn't know what to do, hard to raise number of lottery tags in a peri-urban area. To compound things, Excel energy owns not only its parcel that abuts the river but all the ag parcels the touch it and they don't allow hunting. At least not to the common Joe, I'm sure their executives and some of their "friends" get to archery hunt deer in the fall and shotgun butterballs in the spring. It's good to be "king" ...

They sure are delicious too. (pheasants) Around here it seems that they just run ahead of you till you reach a road or disked up field or something that ends the cover. About the time you think there were no birds they start thundering up all around you.

w side rd 151, right here where I live we never had pheasants. Had quail and prairie chickens though. For whatever reason we have very few now so I don't hunt them here. 40 years ago any hedge row or growed up strip of weeds along a ditch or something you would find at least one covey. Now you have to cover a lot of ground to find one. We would sit in the evening different places to shoot chickens when they fly over but I rarely see one now.

Predation of ground nesting animals is unbearable in most places. Yes, there has been habitat degradation. But even in areas of good habitat, ground nesting animals have declined. In areas of mediocre habitat, they are gone. Our quail, rabbits, turkeys, cotton rats, snakes, even salamanders are almost gone - even in areas of good habitat. We have a thriving coon, coyote, bobcat, bear, hawk, and gator population. I dont believe upland game populations will ever recover in our area.

Here by my house they are farming to the water around the sloughs. If there is a strip of grass is is narrow and mowed in the fall so it will not catch and hold snow. The last time we had a good number of birds, it was a wet spring and they could not plant to the waters edge. It was really something how many birds there were that year. My Dad and I could walk from the house and shoot a limit of pheasants every day. My dog turned one that Aug and we shot 117 birds over him that year. Mostly pheasants and a few Hun and sharp-tails mixed in.

Hitting with the car does not count as a true hit.
Even if the passenger gets them with the swinging door trick,

I was invited to go to southwestern Iowa to hunt pheasants in 1997. The guy that invited me to go was in the process of buying the farm we hunted when we where there It was more of typical farm that was the normal habitat and cover and crop rotation of the 70 's and 80's Smaller fields more variety of cover and some reverting pasture back to brush and small trees.. Several times he mentioned to me and another friend that also went that the property had quail but he was not going to shot at them .WE BOTH FELT HE WAS SAYING HE WOULD RATHER NOT HAVE US SHOOTING AT ANY QUAIL WE MIGHT FLUSH .We hunted 2.5 days and flushed 3 coveys and did not shoot at any quail As far as the pheasant hunting it was mid Nov . and the birds had been hunted for several weeks before we arrived .The birds would sometimes flush several hundred yards ahead just from the sound of us talking Others ran ahead and flushed wild Some would just move out in front keeping their distance and try to use the cover to escape . And when they decided to fly they left the ground and already had it in full on let's get out of here gear for the very start It was tough hunting You had to work for them .But that is the best kind of hunting there is. And that end of the day we knew we ha got what we earned .Pheasants need undisturbed nesting cover (GRASS/HAY fields that are not mowed until most nesting is complete .THAT IS GENEALLY ABOUT JULY 15TH. ) Food They eat all kinds of grain weed seed etc through the year and winter cover The pheasant is native to China And they can and do thrive in areas that are much colder then what most of the US has during a normal winter .But they need some areas to get out of the wind and keep warm enough during the worst of the winter weather that happens at times. And ground nesting predators take a toll on the eggs and often the hens that are hatching the eggs . .The pheasant does best in areas of mixed habitat You willl sometimes find them doing well in laces that ar e predominantly grass lands .But the mixed agri areas usually are the best places to hunt them .As far as a nation wide recovery it would require a massive change in farming practices to return the pheasant population back to the days of the 60's and 70's For example if the use of switchgrass would be use to create bio fuel AND IT WOUD BE PROFITABLE for farmers to rise it as a cash crop there would be a huge increase in the amount of nesting cover for birds to start their life cycle . But it is not very likely that the conditions that allowed the pheasant to do so well 40 or 50 years ago will be duplicated in the near future . As far as the pheasant being a non native I get it . But on the other hand the beef ,pork ,chicken and so on is not the same product you would have purchased at the local butcher shop in the 50 ' and 60's either .I good pheasant prepared correctly can join me on my table anytime it wants to And I PROMISE YOU I WILL NOT complain that the pheasant is not native to America . .

I don’t get it. I don’t think any state has or has ever had pheasants listed as an invasive species have they? I know they were purposely introduced but never heard them called invasive before.

That's exactly the point, they never call them invasive but they are. They were introduced from china into Oregon in the 1880s. They are just as invasive as zebra mussels or gobies or any invasive plants we spend millions of dollars trying to eradicate.

For years I load up the dog and any of the kids that can make it for the trip to my brothers in SD. We head out the day after Christmas. We hunt hard and drive home New Year’s Day. It’s called the Christmas run. We shot a lot of birds this year but it was kind of sad seeing how many are starving. Not many are going to survive the conditions up there this year. Storms drifted all cover on from different directions so there is No leeward or protected side of any cover, it’s all buried. The day after we would walk a spot the birds would be roosting and or attempting to feed in our tracks.

There are a lot of animals in the US that are not native, but also not invasive.

Awesome- all our shooting is game farm- I have a membership for 60 birds a year and we're allowed to shoot scratch birds, we shot 92 last year. I enjoy pointers but hunting over a good lab on a flush is hard to beat (especially a Red one).

Great pic! I got a thing for the red ones too. This is her 2nd season and she’s doing good. Hunted Chesapeakes for years before her.