Help on a special kind of wild pheasant.

[Bob Peters]

I've never read about it in a book, and I've read most every book on pheasant hunting. But I have heard it talked and written about online. These Video guys will say, "look at this Kansas Blue Back, the prettiest pheasant around." Is the blue back rooster a special variant or subspecies of the standard ring neck rooster? Why do they only grow in Kansas, or is that where they are most prevalent? Maybe something to do with the feed they find down there or the special gravel they use on the roads? This one really has me thrown for a loop. Several years ago in Iowa, when I first started hunting, I got a bird in the final minutes of the day. He had a beautiful powder blue patch of feathers on his back. This was 255 miles from Kansas straight line distance. Do you think he migrated that far because instinct told him that northern Iowa corn tasted better than his native Kansas wheat? Any insight appreciated, I just can't figure this one out.

 

[Goosemaster]

Got away from the chicken farm.

 

[Golden Hour]

I've never read about it in a book, and I've read most every book on pheasant hunting. But I have heard it talked and written about online. These Video guys will say, "look at this Kansas Blue Back, the prettiest pheasant around." Is the blue back rooster a special variant or subspecies of the standard ring neck rooster? Why do they only grow in Kansas, or is that where they are most prevalent? Maybe something to do with the feed they find down there or the special gravel they use on the roads? This one really has me thrown for a loop. Several years ago in Iowa, when I first started hunting, I got a bird in the final minutes of the day. He had a beautiful powder blue patch of feathers on his back. This was 255 miles from Kansas straight line distance. Do you think he migrated that far because instinct told him that northern Iowa corn tasted better than his native Kansas wheat? Any insight appreciated, I just can't figure this one out.

Much like the elusive jackalope, the KBB is a notoriously sneaky creature. One that only the greatest of hunters could ever imagine to flush within gun range, let alone put in the vest. The blue back isn't feathers, it is a dazzling array of sapphires, likely from its origin near the world renowned sapphire mines in Kansas. I appreciate your interest in this most formidable of challenges, but get the notion that you'll ever encounter one out of your head. I've shot four of them so far this season.

In honesty, I think I saw the Kansas Blue Back phrase on a Facebook page years ago and imagine it's something akin to the "northern mallard". There is no such thing as a northern mallard, but a nice, mature, late season bird is simply more pleasing to the eye than the not fully plumed birds of October. And it's possible I'm wrong and there is type of pheasant that is stronger, bigger, faster and smarter than the roosters I hunt here in NESD. Or maybe Goose is correct and it's just a strain of pen raised pheasants with a cool designer name.

 

[akp]

or if you're a fisherman down this direction like the difference between a "Mississippi White" catfish and blue catfish.