I have to laugh. Game commission began pheasant restoration program and asked to stock pheasants on the farm. They came in with three $40+K stocking trucks and new sport utility vehicles. They released the birds and came back a week or so later. They asked if seeing any. I said walk with me. In two hundred yard walk we saw at least 10 piles of feathers. Within a month, you couldn't find one. I remember the one guy saying each bird costs about a 100 bucks with grounds, electric,feed, and care. In PA you have to purchase a special furtaker lic. to shoot a fox. I see fox daily cruising the fence lines.

Now they have added a $25 fee to regular lic. to shoot a pheasant and a $6 fee for the regulations book. I did not buy a pheasant stamp, the ones that survive to opening day run towards the truck thinking it's feeding time.

IT IS NOT FAIR !!!!!!! WE ARE PAYING FOR FIVE STAR MEALS FOR FOX.

I bought 125 pheasants about four years ago. Released them on 640 acres of prime habitat in Kansas. The purpose was for reproduction in the spring to help the wild population that had been decimated by drought.
The hawks got one 10 seconds out of the cage. The others did not survive as best we can tell. The predators gots some great meals.
At least the tax payers were not on the hook.

Last year I actually found breading pheasants on game lands in Centre county in June. The state also put in a parking area to gain access to this area, and retired guys flock there to wack every single bird. I don't blame them, but maybe they should have limited hunting in this tract for a while to establish breading. Anyway, I walk the dogs there all the time, and I can't find any this year. Of course they will stock it, but the hunting pressure is enormous and there won't be any left for breading. I don't have a solution, but if I hit the powerball I would raise pheasants myself. I miss my younger days of a stable pheasant population in PA. Of course now there are plenty of hawks, and coyotes to look at. They were not around in the 70s.
I go out to a preserve and hunt stocked birds. Chuckars ate 16 and pheasants are 25. I go once or twice a season with some guys, and at least we get to smack a bunch. Better yet, they even clean the birds and provide some excellent dogs.

I am glad I was able in my youth to hunt wild pheasants in Maryland and Pa and I prefer much prefer bird hunting to deer hunting. Just another lost game bird we have to tell out kids about how good the ole' days were like. Most younger hunters don't even know what a Pheasant is..at least in the east any ways.

What is the solution?

Get rid of the Ethanol Subsidies

Post of the year!

MAGA

they need to give up on the ringnecks in PA and find some other bird that ain't so fuggen stupid and expensive to raise. i caught the tail end of the pheasant hunting in PA. it was great but its a different state now. not just farming methods either. there are more birds of prey now than ever before. and most areas are overrun with coon, possums, 'yotes, etc. these big colorful bastards ain't got a chance. like putting Liberace in a biker bar.

Had a stocked bird hang around my shop. Used to follow me around, I think he wanted me to feed him.

There ain't nothing stupid about wild pheasants. There's lots of theories about what happened to the wild PA birds, but dumping pen-raised ones into the same conditions that killed off the wild flock will never restore them, anymore than putting hatchery rainbows into warm-water impoundments in the Spring and Fall will establish a breeding population.

I hunted Adams County, just North of the Maryland line, from the late '60s until 1993. For about 20 years, wild birds abounded in that area. Towards the end, they were stocking, not just on the gamelands, but on the farmlands as well. The stocked birds would hang around the dump zones in gangs until they were broken up. Any of those that survived the season and Winter were grizzled veterans by Spring. It was easy to identify the survivors by their long spurs and tails.

The fox situation is laughable. From the occasional copy of Fur-Fish-Game I pick up, the market for most fur is so bad that trapping is pretty much a hobby. Requiring a separate, expensive license for fox hunting is stupid; at most it should be a $2 tag. Old habits die hard, especially in government. Look what they did up there with wild hogs. At first it was shoot on sight, then they decided that the PGC had to "control" the population. How's that working out?

The "CRP" program was a boom to the traditional pheasant states from Kansas to North Dakota, hunter tourism was in the millions of dollars and of course that died with Ethonal and so much GRP fields becoming
corn fields. We shot so many birds in the those CRP fields in Nebraska.

Warrior mark by any chance?

X3!!!!!!!!!!

"like putting Liberace in a biker bar."

THAT, is post of the year! Holy [bleep] that was funny!

Jeff

If It costs Pennsylvania $100 each to raise and release pheasants, how does my club get by charging only $22 for each one they put out for you to hunt? BTW any that are not shot only live a day or two. Hawks.

One more time. A lot of the Crp did not disappear because of ethanol. It left like mine did because there is no funding to keep or start new programs. NO FUNDING! Pay attention people. Ed k

I've been a PA pheasant hunter since I was 14 and am now 77. I can figure what the PGC will do now. First there must be meetings, lots of meetings. Then a decision will be made to increase the Pheasant license to $50.00, then a hundred dollars per hunter. After having less than stellar success with the program they will close all the pheasant farms so no more hunting these beautiful birds here. A side benefit of this is that hawks will be given additional protection and fines will run as high as $100 for a Red Tail hawk.

It is not just the CRP. It is the wetlands, the corners,the vacant farm places,the shelter belts and the over grown fence rows that are gone. It is the Ethanol Subsidies that is keeping the corn price higher than they would be. I have been here for 47 years most of my family farms. Heck I even rent out my 1/4 for farming. But the amount of habitat lost in the last 5 yrs is staggering. Mile long shelter belts and wetlands drained so they can put up more pivots. Has left large tracts of 6 or 8 square miles with no winter cover at all. Where there is CRP there are Pheasants. But most of the smaller tracts of habitat are gone. Ethanol rapes more acres of land than Oil ever will. Not to mention the ground water level drops more every year as they water more and more acres.