Help on a special kind of wild pheasant.

B

Bob Peters

Well-known member
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.
 
Bob Peters said:
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.
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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.
 
Bob Peters said:
This was the pheasant I got on Sunday. I'm really thinking with global warming the Kansas blue back strain has migrated north. This was southern MN Waseca county and there are no chicken farms nearby. View attachment 9723
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Has that photo been colored? It looks like the neck has blue in the ring too.

As for a true kansas blue back, I could be wrong, but I thought it was just another strain. I didn't think they got *that* blue though. Any nuclear plants nearby? Check for 3 eyed fish in the streams and ponds.
 
Golden Hour said:
You've gotta toss that KBB on the wall. I've been hunting 30+ years and have yet to shoot a KBB or a melly.
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Are Mellys real? I shot one several years back, thought maybe a local sportsman club chucked it out, I’ve seen 2 more since, one was a giant he flushed wild with a bunch of winter birds
 

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PTM said:
Are Mellys real? I shot one several years back, thought maybe a local sportsman club chucked it out, I’ve seen 2 more since, one was a giant he flushed wild with a bunch of winter birds
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I saw a black,black, black melly in SW MN the end of November. He flushed silently out of some standing corn I was walking on a WMA that should have had a bunch of birds and had almost none. He was too far to get once I saw him. If it was SD, I would have assumed he was pen raised. Since it was MN, must have been a natural mutant. ;)

I've shot some over the years at a game farm some guys and I get together at once a year. Cool looking birds.
 
I've been around & have studied pheasants my whole life. I've seen many, many thousands of them shot, flying, walking/standing around, or otherwise doing what truly wild pheasants do. I've never seen a single one with any sort of blackness or dark greenness to it, or anything remotely like that in the wild. Not one. I'm 100% confident saying they do not occur like that naturally, in the wild, in SD, & that if someone shoots one remotely like that in SD, it was a pen reared bird. I very strongly suspect that holds true in every other state with a wild ringneck pheasant population.
 
Wouldn’t a pen raised bird have a flared nare or clipped toe? I wouldn’t doubt that a uniquely colored bird started out in a pen somewhere…but once it gets out and reproduces, a new color variant is introduced. And, wouldn’t any subsequent offspring be considered “wild”?
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
I've been around & have studied pheasants my whole life. I've seen many, many thousands of them shot, flying, walking/standing around, or otherwise doing what truly wild pheasants do. I've never seen a single one with any sort of blackness or dark greenness to it, or anything remotely like that in the wild. Not one. I'm 100% confident saying they do not occur like that naturally, in the wild, in SD, & that if someone shoots one remotely like that in SD, it was a pen reared bird. I very strongly suspect that holds true in every other state with a wild ringneck pheasant population.
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My theory was at the time a local sportsman’s club kicked some out and they either survived or bred into the gene pool. Does the one in my pick have the nostril “thing”? I don’t even know what they look like. My buddies kid mounted one, I haven’t seen any the past few seasons. He ran after the shot and a dog pursuit ensued. I remember his whole tail got ripped out.
 
I held a bird shot in Iowa by a friend that had the body coloration of a tan hen and the neck and head coloration of a typical rooster. Long tail and spurs.
Mutants do occur naturally.
 
My buddy shot a lighter colored (blondish) rooster last season. The legs were more yellowish and just a callous like bump where the spurs would have been. I am guessing a hermorphadit. I might have even posted a pic of it here.
Edit: it had one spur...
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PTM said:
Are Mellys real? I shot one several years back, thought maybe a local sportsman club chucked it out, I’ve seen 2 more since, one was a giant he flushed wild with a bunch of winter birds
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Of the four birds I shot last weekend, one was a melly. Three had great coloration and the other was dark nearly all over. you could see variations in the feathers but the coloring overall was all nearly chocolate brown. All shot same general area. Didn't really take note until I was cleaning them yesterday.
 
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