PA. Pheasant allocation

[Marshmallow]

anybody gone up to Pa for their "wild" release season?

We've heard good things about it and since Montana couldn't happen this year we're headed out with the rv Friday afternoon and will hunt opening day Saturday. Sounds like we're going to one of the sgl's in sommerset county.

Weather looks beautiful, and I'll have plenty of pictures.

 

[sykesville]

Look forward to hearing how your hunt goes

 

[Marshmallow]

Got back this afternoon. Had a pretty good time. We made a mistake and went after the morning crowds, and most of the birds had been pushed to un huntable cover. My lab that's never been upland hunting, did flush out a rooster about 15 yards in front of me. I put it down unfortunately in some heavy brush. My dog was having a hard time getting in to find it but my father in laws spaniel got in and sat down with it lol

Fought my way in on my hands and knees, and was able to get my bird.

We were working a field with some guys about 250-300 yards up hill from us. They flushed a bird and missed it, and it started gliding right down hill to us. Probably the easiest shot Randy has ever had lol.

In all we bagged two. Saw probably 10 all day between birds flushing out of range and other hunters flushing birds. If we can keep work under control we're going out to iowa where I have some family to hunt wild birds. And possibly back up to pa for another stocking. It was good practice for the dogs.

I'll post pictures tomorrow.

 

[wilcam47]

congrats!

There arent many pheasants around here...I did see a rooster with about 10 hens which is the most Ive seen in a while.

 

[foxtrapper]

It's a shame that the true wild pheasants that used to be all over the countryside 30 years ago, reproducing on their own, are all but gone in MD. They disappeared about 1990or so in northern Balto co. Many blame the use of Furidan on fields, others say overpopulation of predators ( foxes, raccoons, possums) did them in. Nobody trapping anymore. Irony is I am trying to find places to trap right now and finding that it's me 0, fussy goofy landowners 4. I can understand the orchard if mice are a problem and they want foxes around, but the other 3? I guess everyone likes less wild turkeys, dead poultry, no wild upland game birds, hates cottontails, hates FREE predator removal...

 

[sxs]

I don't know how accurate this is, but a naturalist friend of mine claims that an even greater impact on game birds (and many song birds as well...especially ground nesting birds) than the change in farming practices and increase in natural predators is an explosion in the feral cat populations. His claim is that animal populations studies over the last 20 years show a feral cat problem we have had for a while has exploded. Then given changes in farming practices, increase in coyote populations etc have conspired to decimate the game bird populations. I know that 30 years ago thre were a bunch of places on the shore to hunt wild quail. In addition, you could find small coverys in almost any significant patch of woods. All but gone now.

 

[oupa]

Wish there were some easy solution. Everybody seems to have a different favorite boogyman. I know predators were probably as plentiful in the early 70's as they are today. Late 70's early 80's when fur prices (and trappers) peaked, upland game were already declining. There are more coons today but foxes? not so sure. Coyotes range much farther, and so don't have the impact themselves as fox as well as eating foxes and pushing them out of places. Raptors ARE much more plentiful today.
Farming practices are totally changed. Chemicals are the first tool in the box for everything imaginable. Today every square foot is farmed without the edges and brush that used to be present along every field. Even rock-brakes are dug out and covered over.
Even the plants used are different. The preference of fescue, which grows in lawn-like mats instead of the bunches of traditional grasses, have been blamed. The switch in priority to deer hunting has reduced importance of small game to the wildlife agencies.

In the end I believe it's all these things together. What's known is that large expanses of traditional habitat is successful. Small, fragmented ones are nearly as useless as none at all.

 

[Marshmallow]

Chemicals poison the birds, and farming practices that eliminate grassy cover ruined our chance at birds. Grouse is making a slow painful comeback out in western maryland. Same issue with the quail that used to be all over the state.

I have family out in iowa that have found ways to manage good hunting land for upland bird, and great farming. They're not all about the money and would rather have a place our family can enjoy. Sad the rest of the country won't follow suit.

Just got in from working. I'll get the pictures up soon.

 

[ironcity]

Went today up on the game land off of US15. Saw a total of 6 pheasants bagged one. Very few hunters out today.

 

[Marshmallow]

Go next weekend. They're releasing more birds Thursday and Friday.

 

[Afrikeber]

I remember as a teenager up in PA during the 70's walking through the fields and along the tree lines finding plenty of pheasants and getting startled by them all the time. Anyone who hunts pheasants knows what I mean by that. They stay hidden until you damn near step on them most of the time. Is it illegal to raise and release them in MD?

 

[foxtrapper]

I don't recall any feral cats whatsoever in the area I was in in the late 80's, but the habitat was disappearing with new farming practices and with development. Buttloads of foxes at the time though. My parents kept a lot of good brushy stuff going on the land that pheasants would have liked, but they just went poof anyway. When they first bought it in early 1987, there were pheasants all around the area, and the land. Every time we went for a walk we bust up at least 1 bird, and every day there we heard the roosters making their cawk-cawk-cawk sound. They were all over the place. I recall hearing quail too, but not sure if neighbors raised and released. I would hear them, then not hear any for months. Stopped hearing them as the pheasants disappeared. At some point after the pheasants went away, the skunks went AWOL. And weasels. Used to be weasels all over too, now I know of one farm in New Freedom where a few still survive. Incidentally it's also a skunk haven. Now due to coyotes, the red foxes have all but disappeared in that area.

An animal that has been declining since fur prices went down is the muskrat. Old timers have told me how they used to inhabit every watery ditch and trickle stream, and the large amount of trappers ( often farmboys) didn't seem to affect their populations at all. Today you can find a few scattered about in certain ponds and creeks, and anywhere beavers have dammed a stream up. The main differences between now and then are 1) lots of mink, 2) buttloads of hawks and owls- and trees for them to roost in that overlook waterways. Back then mink were scarce ( and a farmboy would be elated to catch one when 'rat trapping, as mink were worth a lot more money than a muskrat), and hawks/owls had bounties on them and farmboys and men shot them all the time. However mink and raptors are in abundance in areas of the Midwest and north that still hold large #'s of muskrats. Muskrats reproduce like- rats, so predators shouldn't have too much impact on them. I can add that I NEVER caught any young muskrats. I always caught big mature ones. In plentiful muskrat filled areas, the trappers catch a good # of smaller ones along with mature ones.

 

[sxs]

Went today up on the game land off of US15. Saw a total of 6 pheasants bagged one. Very few hunters out today.

Many years ago I used to hunt near Taneytown just inside the MD border. We would kick brush all day (we were young....no money and no hunting dogs) for the chance to take a pheasant.

 

[BearArms]

I'm leaving for a month of hunting (!) soon, 2 weeks of it are solid Grouse and Pheasant outings for me with my pup in tow. We do pretty well on Pheasant on SGL86 now that the dogs know the score. Grouse is a good way to make you humble in that area.

They do a pretty good job up near Warren, PA of putting down plantings in the right areas of the right things, but I don't think I've seen a wintered over Pheasant up there in years.

 

[oupa]

Foxtrapper, In the 70's I was mainly a water trapper. Wish we'd taken pictures but everybody didn't carry a camera (phone) everywhere with them back then. I'm talking using a wheel barrow to haul them from the truck to the shed. THAT kind of lots of rats.
Anyway, yes, there were rats everywhere. Yes, mink were becoming more plentiful but they were ALWAYS around if you knew where and how to catch them.
Rat's, like all rodents, are cyclical in their populations. Several other factors combined at a crash cycle that made recovery slower than usual around 1985ish. I also began encountering muskrats with bloated abdomens containing rice-like looking parasites. Don't know what they were and the DNR fur-bearer guy at the time wasn't interested. Prices crashed about that time and after having to talk my local buyer into taking a bundle of hides (for free!) that would have brought $100's the previous season, I threw in the towel and went duck hunting for the next twenty years as an excuse to still be out there on the water.
Trapping still holds a place for me but often it's become very difficult just to get permission. Throw in high costs, especially fuel, tougher (carcass) disposal requirements, volatile and uncertain prices, etc., etc. and I just can't justify it. It's not something you decide to do one day. It's like farming, a trapper makes a commitment that HAS to be addressed. But you know that already.
I truly believe that raptors have had THE largest impact on all "small" game locally. Maybe this - like the wolf issue out west - is the true "normal" but I honestly believe raptors are actually artificially high due to the abundance of man-made or at least manipulated habitat in their favor COMBINED with their unwarranted total protection.

Phew! Didn't mean to run on but this is a subject near to my heart.

Good luck Saturday.