Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game Pa Pheasant hunt....

Pa had a stocking, so the phones started ringing. Four of us got eight in around 4 hours of hunting. Dogs did excellent work in some thick cover......Not the real deal, but still a good hunt.

Good deal. I’d trade for your weather right now.

Good deal that's awesome. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have is always good advice. I guess we're going to try it today, we'll see how it works out. I think poorly but we're trying it.

Good deal !!!

How "wild" do the birds act now as opposed to 20 or 25 years ago ??

Back then, I was balls-out pheasant guy with my Britt. A day or two in the weeds and the stocked birds acted pretty wild........running away from a point.......flushing hard and flying strong after they held......... Been a lot of years since. Just wondered if they still put out a quality bird ??

If they have some time out they can give a challenge.

Unless one goes into the cattails in SD, for the most part Pa’s multi flora jaggers and other brush covers are a harder walk.

Good friends, good dogs, and beautiful birds. Great way to spend a day.

Question, though. Does Pennsylvania have any wild birds? I ask because it looks like a hen in there.

Few…very few.

Great day my friend!

I asked because the states I've hunted only allow roosters, even when they supplement with released birds. Maybe they only release roosters. Idk.

Either way, looks like a fun day.

How are your birds doing with all the snow you've been getting?

'


They have one additional stocking scheduled....I suspect it will be a Hen Pallooza.



Pa at one time had great Wild Pheasant hunting and even better Ruffed Grouse hunting. The GC has managed to screw up both. Along with becoming more anti-rifle---over 45% of the Bucks are killed with sticks before the two week rifle season arrives----with extended bow seasons and allowing cross bows. The GC much prefers the silent killers. In addition to being the husbandry keeper of Eagles and all Raptors. Then they release Fishers which may even be worse for other small game animals.

The Pa GC is increasingly becoming a left wing anti-hunting arm of the liberal Pa politicians. Not even close to their historic roots of being a Game Commission for hunters.

And while QDM has improved the quality of Bucks we kill, the dirty side of the coin is the majority of private land being posted. Most kids today just can't get in the car and go hunt without it being a hassle. And the adults have themselves to blame for that. But hey, that Buck is on my little piece of this earth and I'm going to do my best to not let you hunt it. Along with great Upland Bird hunting, the Pa rifle Deer hunting tradition is a thing of the past. After the first day most are done. With the exception of going out and sitting in a tree after work.

Long way to say Upland Bird hunting in Pa isn't even close to what it used to be.

Looks like fun to me!

Believe it or not I see similar things in TX.

I guess nothing stays the same. We have many times the deer now than during the time of my youth, but like in PA, 95+% is on private ground. Turkeys are also everywhere there are at least two trees together; they were virtually nonexistent when I was young. However, hunting on private ground was much more lax way back then; if you were courteous, didn’t leave gates open, didn’t litter and wreck stuff, most farmers were amenable, especially if you dropped a bird or two off back at the house. Now, some may call the law and you might end up with a court date.

Land value, thus use, in NW Iowa is so high and intensely cultivated, that a high school Contemporary who went fairly high up in the MN DNR, called NW Iowa a biological desert. While deserts are not sterile, I’m sure you get the idea.

My impression is, back in the day, most game wardens and their higher up bureaucrats we’re the hunting and fishing inclined, or at least loved some aspect of the sporting life. Now, they may be “Mother Earthers” and much more ideology driven. They have followed similar paths as the famous L.L. Bean and Abercrombie & Fitch businesses.

Bk, hope you got into some birds. Another winter storm watch here for tomorrow and Tuesday.

Happy New year to all you old field trampers.

I'll be shooting put and take pheasants in a couple months after the doc gives me to OK to go back into the fields. Sucks breaking a leg mid-October. There isn't any shame chasing those birds, any that survive a week will have far more experience avoiding hunters than a wild bird will see in a season or more. I'll usually take a less experienced dog and hunt scratch birds first but have a pair of birds I'll plant myself if the dog seems to need a refresher. Training never stops.


That is the key point, courtesy. People asked permission before entering someone else's property. Land wasn't posted because one did not need to be reminded to ask permission. It was also a given that those using someone else's property would treat it with respect and not do what you described and even worse.

That others have entered my property causing damage and taking time and money from me, I post my properties and will prosecute trespass. I posted about an incident I had last spring which was the worst I had in decades. There is no reason to trespass these days, finding the legal owner and contacting them to get permission is a very simple process though many states make the process even easier by requiring the phone number of the posting party to be added to the signage. With the proliferation of cell phones and the coverage available, the only reason one cannot make the attempt to gain permission is because they don't want to. I have no problem having a citation being awarded to them.


[/=George_De_Vries_3rd]Land value, thus use, in NW Iowa is so high and intensely cultivated, that a high school Contemporary who went fairly high up in the MN DNR, called NW Iowa a biological desert. While deserts are not sterile, I’m sure you get the idea.[/quote]

It did not help when AG Secretary Earl Butz tried to make America the Middle East of the food arena. Soil and Water Bank programs were ended, draining of low lands, tearing out of fence rows, shelter belts, and putting other marginal land under the plow was encouraged. Herbicide use and effectiveness increased exponentially; up to the mid-1970s one could find a fair number of weeds in a cornfield but after that time weeds in a field soon became unheard of. Today, the only weeds I see in crops are my food plots.


Even the Mother Earthers would be preferable to some I've seen. The MEs might be misguided in their views but at least they want to provide wild spaces. What has become most concerning are those who enter government wildlife fields just to "have a job". They have no real passion for the outdoors in any way and too often believe a good model to follow would be a city park. Now, those are scary people.

Good morning everyone. There were/are birds around but no way to hunt them. No way to get out to where they were, we got two pickups stuck tight trying. And no way to get within shotgun range once one got out there. We had a good thaw yesterday but more snow on the way or so they say. I did get close to a couple of prairie chickens but didn't take a shot.

"People asked permission." LOL there's way less trespassing than there was back in the day. Land is posted because landowners can monetize the public's game and fowl.

Thank you and yes there is much less. For a couple reasons...How many times does one have to ask and be told no....politely and not always. Less young hunters are playing the game. Less hunters...Pa has gone from 1million to around 700,000. Less population living in rural hunting areas, means less hunting by the locals. Posted land has increased dramatically, hunting is on the decline, hunting ethic is now emphasized to new young hunters. Which has had a positive outcome. Yet some are continually hassled by trespass????

Have a little piece that i got back that was my Grandparents farm. Rarely hunted it, but never posted it for 50 years. This year gave up because the entire county is practically posted, so went there. Couple guys pulled up and started a conversation. Started out nice, but then went to where are you two hunting. I said my 56 acres back in there. "You own that?" "Yes I do, and I can prove it." "Well, we hunt sometimes back there, and you don't mind?" "Nope." "Ahhhhh, well we own approximately 180 acres that surround you. So you can hunt it also, but we don't want too many. If you understand." "I understand, but I'm still not going to post mine, I'm only here because it has essentially turned into my Alamo." In 50 years I have not had a single issue that would have made me want to post it.

Amazing that a couple generations pervious could handle trespass when it was worse, and still keep their land essentially open. Yet most of their kids can't get past I got mine. That and the Big Buck Syndrome....

it will be what it will be I guess. Feels like it was better back then but I do think game populations have trended upward and the two phenomena could be connected...

In some cases I agree....However, there used to be a friend of my Parents who went to SD back in the 60's to hunt Pheasants. He would show the old film movies at a church dinner. Bunches of guys walking thru cornfields owned by some farmer. The Birds were flying everywhere by the hundreds. They seemed to get up in waves. I'm sure they reimbursed the farmer in some way, but it seemed like it was one big event that all were happy to be involved with.

You tube videos of some of the high end SD stocked preserves come close to showing the same....close, but no the cigar...

Eh IDK. Maybe. For what its worth, I hunt places like that and know lots more places that have birds like that. If we had more CRP, we'd have even more pheasants. The way to have pheasant hunting like that, here anyway, is to keep people out of places/spots for a week at a time. If you post your land and don't let everyone hunt every time they ask, any amount of cover at all will have pheasants like that. Which is why we only hunt once a week. Same thing was true in the 50s/60's. You can't let just anyone go through multiple times a week and expect pheasants to hang around like that. They won't stand the pressure.

From hearing the old timers talk, lots of those trips were centered on a couple of guys who'd been in the Army/Navy together. Bring a few of their buddies from home/cousins and you've got a group on an annual basis. 'tis generally a good thing we don't have 15 million people in the Army to form those kinds of relationships any more, but there is a loss of camaraderie as a result I suppose.

We don't see the big field hunting. Hunting mostly public, we are mostly hunting two tracks, ditches, WPA, CREP or other public....even then it is not odd to see 100 plus...and sometimes more in a day. There is a farmer, who is one special person, who lets us hunt his land or some others he knows. Can't say I've ever seen them get up in waves, but then again I would much rather hunt alone or with a couple friends and hunt the small spots. The big fields with blockers, pushers and flankers isn't how I would prefer to hunt. Too much going on along with keeping all organized.

Merlot looks quite satisfied with himself. Didn’t see Higgy at first, against the backdrop of the truck. Glad the boys got some work in.

Oh its all fun, whether alone or with a group of friends

The season is over and Merlot is in fighting condition....Crossed path with a guy and a Brit and he looked at The Hyg ripping up some cover and said something along the line of: "What kind of Dog is that? I replied English Cocker and he said, "He can't keep that up." I replied, well he is into two hours and he hasn't quit yet. The guy just smiled and kept watching him.

It’s all good. Our group of old sots needs the next eight months to recoup, rehab, and retool (more after market parts) before the next season comes, if we are in fact, given it.

It looks as this winter might be a challenging one for the birds. The old Farmers Almanac predicted a cold but dry winter. To this point, it’s been cold, but anything but dry.

This is the time of the year, the birds need the cover. The best being CRP, shelter belts, grassed in line fences, and the like. Again, there are conflicting interests as to land use, but cover determines survival.

We didn't need this last snow, from a survive the winter perspective. We might have needed it from a survive the summer angle however. One never knows. The next 30 days will tell the story, and the next two weeks look pretty darn good once this clears out.

What do you do in the “off-season” BK?

Work and fish

The quail are gone too.

The anti trapping crowd killed more Wildlife in the last 30 years than hunters. But they are too stupid to figure it out.

Harry, sure you remember the large wild pheasant populations that existed in PA in the 70’s. We hunted wild birds in Berks, Lehigh and Union counties with great success. A long time ago, but it just all went away.

Ted,

We mostly hunted Westmoreland and Washington Counties.

Some in today’s GC don’t believe we had a significant Wild Pheasant population. Not sure what they considered significant, but we could put up 20 plus Birds a day.

Pheasants went first and then the Grouse….and they watched it happen and did nothing. They were told Grouse were disappearing and replied it was habitat. Then they were led by the hand into great covers that barely had a few Birds.

But they can be the voice for the Eagles. Hawks and Owls.

You can say that again!!! I trap HEAVY locally here for all kinds of nest predators including coon, possum, fox and now coyote and often feel like I am looked down at by even "hardcore" hunters. I have personally seen a huge difference here on my smaller property in the 12 years Ive been here. When I got the place a rabbit was a rare sight, now they are very common. A neighbor releases 50 or so pheasants yearly in the fall for his family and dogs to get after around the holidays and there have been more and more surviving through the years to where pheasants can be heard and sometimes seen year round. Round figure in these 12 years I have trapped or hunted at least 200 coon, 75 fox, 50 possums and 8 coyotes on 115 acres combined between the neighbors and mine.

Good job!!!!