Pheasant Hunting

Pheasant Fest 2009

2009-02-17T11:31:00.000-08:00

Pheasants Forever's National Pheasant Fest 2009 ended today, drawing over 20,000 people to Exhibition Hall at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin. National Pheasant Fest 2009 was the fifth such event, and the first one ever held in WI.
The show opened on Friday afternoon with nearly 1,000 in attendance for the show's grand opening cermony, a Bird Dog Parade of over 34 different sporting dog breeds including English Setters. The excitement carried into the weekend, as 20,255 turned out to see over 600 exhibit booths, hundreds of bird dogs and dozens of educational seminars. The attendance total includes over 1,100 new PF members who joined over the three-day weekend.
National Pheasant Fest 2009 will also leave a conservation legacy across Wisconsin and the upper Midwest. Over 500 landowners took advantage of the Fest's Landowner Habitat Help Room, and an estimated 20,000 habitat acres were evaluated for management recommendations.
National Pheasant Fest was home to the first-ever Renewable Energy & Wildlife Habitat Forum presented by Alliant Energy, which examined the future of renewable energy and the opportunities for wildlife habitat. Wisconsin DNR Secretary Matt Frank took part in a roundtable discussion Saturday at the Forum which was moderated by Dave Nomsen, PF's Vice President of Government Affairs. Dave White, Acting Chief, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) was also in attendance to deliver the keynote address at the National Pheasant Fest banquet on Saturday night.
Additionally, Pheasants Forever announced over the weekend that next year the event will be held in neighboring Iowa. National Pheasant Fest 2010 will be held at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines on February 26, 27 & 28, 2010.
"We want to thank Ultimate Gifts for presenting our National Pheasant Fest 2009. They've helped make this a tremendous event for everyone that passed through the gates," said Howard Vincent, PF President and CEO, "We also have to thank Pheasants Forever's 30 chapters and over 7,300 members in Wisconsin who helped host a fantastic weekend."
National Pheasant Fest combines a national consumer show, habitat seminar series, and family event complete with puppies, tractors, shotguns, and art. In fact, the Fest is the country's largest event for upland hunters, sport dog owners, and wildlife habitat conservationists. For more information, log onto www.PheasantFest.org.
Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever are non-profit conservation organizations dedicated to the protection and enhancement of pheasant, quail, and other wildlife populations in North America through habitat improvement, land management, public awareness, and education. PF/QF has more than 130,000 members in 700 local chapters across the continent.

UltimateGifts.com

Pheasants Daily Habits

2009-02-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

Pheasants Daily Habits
Hunters can greatly improve their success by understanding the ring neck's daily movement pattern. Cover that typically holds lots of pheasants in morning and evening, for instance, may hold only a straggler or two in midday. Although movement patterns vary in different habitat types, they’re fairly consistent in a given area, barring bad weather or exceptionally heavy hunting pressure. The most common scenario is as follows:
Just after sunrise, pheasants fly or walk out of their roosting cover, stopping to pick up gravel on the way to their morning feeding area, which is usually some type of crop field. After feeding for an hour or two, they move to loafing cover, such as the grassy fringe of a crop field, or they return to their roosting cover. They go out to feed again about an hour before sunset, then settle back into roosting cover for the night.
In most cases, daily movements take place within a surprisingly small area, usually no more than one-half mile in diameter. In some habitats, however, ring necks move even less than that. For instance, they may stay in a "dirty" (weedy) cornfield all day, because there’s plenty of food and ground cover. Similarly, they may stay in their roosting area all day, if there are enough weed seeds to provide adequate food.
A period of extreme cold or a heavy snow may keep the birds holding tight in dense cover for several days. Heavy dew, however, will keep birds out of the grass. On a warm winter day, they often stay out all day long, scratching for food. When hunting pressure is very heavy, they spend more time in thick cover than they otherwise would.

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Pheasant Hunting in Pennsylvania

2008-06-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

I am unfortunately old enough to remember the days when pheasants were all over southeast Pennsylvania, but not old enough to have hunted them in their heyday in the 1970s.

As a kid growing up in Chester County, I recall pheasants as these big chickens that would scare the heck out of me by flushing in my face when I walked through the field behind my parents' house.

I remember there being so many of them that I used to stalk them with my toy bow-and-arrow. (I think I once even got off a shot at one.)

Having hunted pheasants a few times now as an adult, I look back on my youth and think, "Man, I wish I was hunting back then."

In other words, it's easy for me to understand the cravings of an entire generation of hunters, now in their 50s and 60s, who yearn for the old days of pheasant hunting in Pennsylvania.

With ever-increasing development and changing land uses and farming practices, those days are gone for good, it's sad to say.

But the Pennsylvania Game Commission has committed to doing what it can to insure the early-morning cackle of a flushing cockbird does not entirely disappear from our state.

"We hear from sportsmen all the time who want to see that pheasant hunting in Pennsylvania continues," said agency spokesman Jerry Feaser.

The Game Commission recently released its draft Ring-necked Pheasant Management Plan for Pennsylvania, 2008-2017.

This ambitious, 118-page blueprint for pheasant management and hunting over the next decade calls for, among other things:

• Restoring self-sustaining, huntable populations of pheasants to wild pheasant restoration areas on 1 million acres of potential pheasant habitat by stocking those areas with wild-trapped pheasants.

• Creating a farmland habitat incentive program that would annually pay out $2 million to farmers and other landowners to establish and maintain pheasant habitat.

• Boosting annual production of pen-raised pheasants from 100,000 to 250,000 for stocking on publicly-accessible hunting lands.

• Seeking legislation to create a special pheasant hunting license to support pheasant propagation.

• Seeking legislation to provide $1 million annually to support recovery of pheasants and other farmland species in decline.

As I stated previously, this is an ambitious plan.

It calls for large swaths of contiguous, undeveloped farmland, millions of dollars and help from the Legislature.

"We certainly recognize there are some enormous obstacles to restoring wild, self-sustaining populations of pheasants," Feaser said. "But that doesn't mean we're going to just give up on them."

According to the draft management plan, pheasant numbers peaked in Pennsylvania between 1961 and 1974. Studies estimate the population of birds in their primary range, which included Lancaster and surrounding counties, was about 1 pheasant for every 2-7 acres.

During that period, there were millions of acres of contiguous farmland — about 10 percent of which was left fallow under government set-aside programs.

The plan states that pheasant numbers declined after the 1970s due to a number of factors, including changing farming practices, the spraying of chemicals on croplands, increasing predator populations and — most significantly — increased development, which led to a fragmentation of pheasant habitat.

"We believe that predation is the leading cause of mortality, but is not the primary reason for declining pheasant populations in Pennsylvania," the plan states.

"The loss of secure nesting cover, secure winter cover and fragmented remaining habitats have resulted in lower survivorship and nest success of hen pheasants on farm landscapes.

"Until these habitat factors are corrected over a large landscape, pheasant populations will not recover, regardless of predator population densities."

According to the plan, pheasants need a minimum of 15,000 acres of contiguous grassland/farmland/small woodlot habitat to be self-sustaining.

The Game Commission will seek out such places to be designated as wild pheasant restoration areas.

Habitat work will be done to make sure pheasants have the required cover and feeding areas they need.

And wild-trapped birds will be released to repopulate those areas, which will be open to hunting — but not to hen hunting.

The Game Commission won't be starting all this from scratch.

There already is more than 200,000 acres of cropland statewide enrolled in federal and state set-aside programs designed to create grassland habitat.

And two wild pheasant restoration projects have been on the ground since 2002. One is on 30,000 acres in Washington County and the other is on 30,000 acres in Montour County.

In both areas, the habitat is about as good as we have in Pennsylvania for pheasants. Some habitat work has been done to make it even better.

Wild pheasants trapped in the Midwest were released in both areas and the populations have been slowly building.

So the Game Commission has proof that, under the right conditions, wild pheasants can sustain themselves in Pennsylvania. We just need more good habitat.

But the plan and Feaser both note that pheasants can't sustain themselves everywhere in Pennsylvania.

The suitable habitat is just too fragmented.

The only way to bring pheasant hunting to areas where wild pheasants can't be sustained is by stocking pen-raised birds, which the Game Commission has been doing for decades.

From 1983 through 2004, about 200,000 birds were raised and released each year. Budget cutbacks in 2005 reduced that number to its current level of 100,000.

The pheasant management plan calls for production to be boosted to 250,000 birds per year.

A pheasant license should be created — at a price that is not specified in the plan — to pay the estimated $4 million it will cost each year for the pheasant-rearing program, according to the plan.

The pheasant management plan can be viewed in its entirety on the Game Commission's Web site at www.pgc.state.pa.us.

Pheasants Forever Reaches Historic Milestone in Illinois

2008-06-13T10:12:00.001-07:00

Pheasants Forever (PF) has announced that chapters in Illinois have spent more than $10.5 million dollars on local wildlife habitat and education programs since the first chapter was formed in the state in 1985. The funds have produced more than 261,000 acres of habitat benefits as a result.

“Breaking the $10 million dollar mark is a big milestone for the state of Illinois,” said Aaron Kuehl, PF’s Director of Conservation for Illinois. “It shows there has been a lot of team work and an exceptional amount of ground work taking place as well.”

Ford County’s Pioneer Chapter of PF became Illinois’ first chapter in 1985 and statewide support of PF has grown exponentially since then. Illinois currently contains 45 PF chapters that account for more than 8,000 active members. There are also 17 new Quail Forever chapters and 1,000 QF members in the state.

Historically, Illinois PF chapters have accomplished 11,673 food plot projects, 13 land acquisitions, 1,207 nesting projects and 1,314 controlled burns. This is also in addition to working on 196 wetland projects and planting over 2.4 million trees in winter cover areas ranging all across the state. In total, Illinois chapters have positively impacted more than 261,000 acres of habitat through the allocation of more than $10.5 million in locally fundraised-dollars.

“The work is clearly not over,” explained Kuehl, “it is going to be a great challenge to not only raise and spend another $10 Million, but to accomplish this faster than before. To do more, we need all people concerned about wildlife in Illinois to join our cause.”

Illinois PF is presently working to build upon its capacity for land acquisition as it recently implemented PF’s Build a Wildlife Area campaign. This campaign is intended to increase funds for the acquisition of land that is critical as wildlife habitat. These land acquisitions become new Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) and are opened to public hunting. To participate in the Build a Wildlife Area campaign, please go to http://pheasantsforever.org/page/1/ilBAWA.jsp.

For more information about PF in Illinois, to start a chapter or join one of the state's existing chapters, contact Aaron Kuehl at (217) 635-5207 or via e-mail at akuehl@pheasantsforever.org. You may also contact PF’s Matt Bradshaw at (217)386-4324 in northern Illinois or Tim Caughran at (618)467-2586 in southern Illinois.

PF and its quail division, Quail Forever, are the only national non-profit conservation organizations that empower local chapters with the responsibility to determine how 100 percent of their locally raised conservation funds will be spent. This local control allows members to see the fruits of their chapter efforts in their own communities, while belonging to a national organization with a voice on federal and state conservation policy. PF/QF has more than 127,000 members in 700 local chapters across the continent.

Pheasant Hunting in Illinois

2008-02-06T14:16:00.000-08:00

Hunters in the Prairie State can expect to bag about 200,000 roosters this year, according to John Cole, upland wildlife manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The state's population has remained relatively stable during the decade. This year's pheasant call counts were up 3% from last year, while brood surveys were virtually unchanged. In Illinois, pheasant abundance is severely limited by the amount of available nest and brood cover, but the tide could turn with the enrollment of partial fields, filter strips and field borders in CRP and the establishment of additional grass cover through the Roadsides for Wildlife program. The best places to hunt pheasants are the north-central and east-central parts of the state. Hunters can apply for permits to hunt public State Pheasant Habitat Areas at http://dnr.state.il.us.