How often to hunt a spot?

I agree. And I dont know if Ive ever had them be tough to eat. Some say their tough. My wife cooks them about once a month. Never are they tough. They are one of the best tasting birds in my opinion. Except chicken!
 
I filet breasts... to the bone. Not sloppily.

I then filet thigh meat... easiest way is the dislocate femur from hip slice off leg... then fold back thigh meat and carefully filet off femur. It's pretty easy and is a nice chunk of meat.

It keeps the tendons out too. Very tender like breast meat.
 
Gamey tastes come from what the animal eats and color of meat.

Kill bird. Filet it asap. Rinse blood and feathers. Then soak in clean water and salt a day or two. Then rinse and eat or freeze.

Easy

Cook- marinate in Italian dressing at least two hours up to 12. Grill medium rare. Boom

Easy
 
Depends on how they are cooked, but sometimes the leg/thighs can be tough. I've never had the breasts tough before though.

Last night I enjoyed a fried pheasant breast sandwich for dinner, this could honestly go down as one of my all time favorite things to eat. I usually bake them (I'm kind of a health person), but last night I decided to fry them, and boy was it delicious!

With the legs/thighs or sometimes whole birds, I often put them in a crockpot on low for the day. Cream of chicken soup, carrots, onions, potatoes, celery, corn, whatever you want to throw in really. Add some water and it can be like a pheasant soup. Keep the water out and it can be main course of pheasant with a side dish of the other stuff. Meat is never tough this way.

I've tried some different ways of baking or grilling the leg/thigh meat and it generally does end up tough for me. Bacon wrapped pheasant legs on the grill weren't great, but edible.

The all time favorite is a pheasant jalapeno popper. At my in-laws christmas, everybody brings a side dish or appetizer type thing, and we leave them out all night and everybody just eats and has fun. A few years ago I brought these pheasant poppers, and they quickly turned into a hit. Now (fortunately or unfortunately) I am required to bring them every year.
Cut Pheasant into bit size chunk. (i've realized there's really no difference between what type of meat you use).
Wrap in bacon with cream cheese and a jalapeno, put a toothpick through to hold it together. Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes, flip them halfway through.
 
+1 on the poppers. They can be a bit of work to put together but are great finger foods. Also a good way to use up Goose, as those things are damn near inedible.
 
petrey10 said:
I filet breasts... to the bone. Not sloppily.

I then filet thigh meat... easiest way is the dislocate femur from hip slice off leg... then fold back thigh meat and carefully filet off femur. It's pretty easy and is a nice chunk of meat.

It keeps the tendons out too. Very tender like breast meat.
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There is a thread on here somewhere that has a video of a guy taking the tendons out of the legs before you dress the rest of the bird. It is genius. I started doing this after I saw it. Cant remember where I saw it on here but he breaks the leg right above the spur, stands on the foot and pulls up. The main tendons come right out. I ate some this way. It does make a difference. Taking a tenderizer to them helps some too and you dont have to cook em as long when you do that.
 
Pulling pheasant tendons out

I can't find that post either, but if you Google "Dick Turpin pheasant tendons" and it will pop up

It is a very fast and easy way to remove most/all of the tendons!
 
I save up legs and thighs. My main dishes are always breast meat. When I get a bunch of legs and thighs, it's into the crockpot with celery, onion and carrot and just salt and pepper. Cover with water and cook on low until the meat just slips from the bone.

Pull them out and let them cool. When cool, pick through and get all tendons/ligaments out (which is pretty easy because the meat slides right off the bones and the tendons don't) and get any shot you missed before out of there.

Reserve the liquid for Pheasant Noodle Soup or Pheasant with Dumplings and similar dishes.

I chop the meat pretty fine and make Pheasant Salad Sandwiches with the meat. Basically use a Chicken Salad recipe. You can put it on an actual salad to if you are minimizing breads.

I have used the thighs alone to make a Hot Wing appetizer. Works pretty well too.
 
I apologize. The post went from "how often to hunt a spot" to "awesome pheasant dishes and how to prepare meat!" To the original poster, I hunt my good quail areas about 2 times a year. And there are always birds there. That usually means gotta put some miles on the tires but that's life. From my experience, pheasants move in to spots and have a much wider range than quail so you may see 2 or 100 in the same 10 acre crp field. And you cant shoot hens so I'd say you can hunt these areas a little more often.
 
Logical, very well thought out and stated. Would you share your recipe for "pheasant sticks"? I'll trade you one for breakfast sausage.
Tom
 
Thanks for the kudos on my rant.

For my sticks, I use High Mountain jerky seasonings. They have a variety of flavors (Cabela's, Sportsman's Warehouse, etc), so you can get whichever appeal to you. I like "Hickory" and "Original". The wife likes more pepper, so I get some others for her, also. (I tried using the "cure" from one of the packages, and making my own season from teriyaki or Worcestershire sauce, but that didn't work as well as the dry spices.)

I grind the boned meat (about 1 lb from each bird), then add the appropriate amount of seasoning (I add about 25% more than the recipe for whatever amount of bird I have). I put it in a jerky shooter, using the small round extruder nozzle, and extrude onto my smoker racks. No, I don't use any skins or casings.

I put them in the smoker at about 175? (at least that is what the smoker thermometer says - my meat thermometer says it is about 195?, but I want it about as low-temp as I can get) for about 2 hours. I rotate the grates in the smoker after an hour, and also rotate the sticks from the center of the rack to the outer edge, and vice versa, as my smoker is hotter along the walls.

But, I don't smoke them to a hard shell, as that would be over-done. I put them into a sealed baggie when still warm, and let them sit for a couple days, to get all the moisture evenly distributed. I then freeze what I don't think I will eat in the next week.

Good luck!
 
I use poultry shears. Pull back the skin and cut out the breast and thighs. You can bake these parts with a strip of bacon attached or make phez Nebraska(Phez mc nuggets). I still say trout and phez are highly overrated as chow :D
 
Logical said:
I have been hunting the same area for 11 seasons. I go every weekend, sometimes hunting both days of the weekend. My observations, for my area:

If you hit the same parcel two days in a row, but different times of day, you will sometimes see plenty of birds. Other times, you see nothing during one hunt.

I try to not hit the same parcel two weekends in a row, but if my guests are antsy to hunt what was productive for them in the past, and I hunted it the previous weekend, I hit it at least two hours differently than the time I hit it the previous weekend. This way, there may be different birds inhabiting it each weekend. They do move frequently, especially if there are lots of hawks flying around.

If it is a good food plot, it seems that, no matter when I hit it, even if I hit it yesterday, I find birds. They are in a different area of the food plot, but there are likely still birds.

All of the above comes with this caveat: It depends on how good the cover is, and how noisy the hunters are. If they slam doors, we see fewer birds. If they are talking in the field, birds will bail at the end of the field, out of range. Your results are often tied more to the noise emitted, than how many birds are in the field when you arrive.

I don't worry about overstaying my welcome with the landowners, because I always let them know I will be out at least every weekend, and ask if they have any problem with it. I also limit myself to no more than 4 hunters at any time. I have been calling each landowner every fall, to ask permission. Let them know your plans, and ask if they are okay with whatever frequency you plan to hunt.

Good luck!
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I'm not getting this food plot thing.Is that putting a pile of grain out?
 
Logical said:
"you are too caught up in killing"

Hmmm. I enjoy the challenge of finding the birds, and getting close enough for a good shot. That means I must read the weather, wind, cover, how many people are hunting with me (never more than 4 in our group), and where I think the birds may be at that time of day. Always a challenge.

How do I know I correctly analyzed the situation? Birds flush within 10 yards of me! Now what? If I just keep on walking without shooting, aren't I harassing wildlife? In Colorado, you get fined for that. I could carry a camera and take pictures, I suppose. But, I like seeing other people have success, also. Should I let them know I won't be taking them any more?

Hunting is a sport, which I enjoy. If you don't enjoy it, don't do it. But, don't tell someone they should not enjoy the ultimate reason for the activity. I don't give ribbons to my hunting buddies that can't hit a bird. Nor do I give out hiking merit badges. The final goal of our days in the field is meat on our table (well, in my snacks. I make pheasant sticks out of most of my birds.) The benefits of pursuing our goal includes walking, enjoying the outdoors, enjoying the ride to and from our area, and spending time with each other.

Killing is a part of our sport, but I never celebrate a kill, nor lose sight of the fact that I took a life. Most life necessitates the taking of another life, whether animals in the wild, or humans. Anyone who is not vegan takes life for sustenance, either directly or indirectly (I leave vegetables out of this discussion). We supply some of our own food through hunting. Nothing wrong with that. And, keeping a tally is not wrong, either. Many valid reasons for keeping track of your harvest.

Okay, I'll get off my soap box. :)
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Ok- I agree, everybody likes to limit out, when they hunt, but I've found that I enjoy hunting more, when I don't obsess about the number of birds I get. I used to hunt with a guy who was way overly competitive, and he was an idiot. Needless to say, I no longer hunt with that guy.
 
"I'm not getting this food plot thing.Is that putting a pile of grain out? "

No, it is where they go to feed. Sometimes it is standing grain the farmer left (sometimes they are paid by Wildlife Management to leave 20 rows uncut, sometimes they do it because they want to give the birds food over the winter), sometimes it is a smaller field that has lots of grain left in it. This year, I have some milo fields that have great cover, and lots of grain still on the ground. Many birds loaf there during the day, but many more come in, eat, and leave to nearby grassy cover.

While they do eat in the corn fields, I don't consider them "food plots", as they are too big to hunt effectively. Also, they don't offer much cover, which means I have little chance of getting close to the birds. When I use the term "food plot", it has good cover, even if the tops of the milo have been removed. There is enough cover for them to escape the view of hawks, and to keep me somewhat out of sight while I am walking the field. Not a true "food plot" (uncut grain stalks), but very near to the same cover.
 
Ok- I think that's great to leave food for them.I know they have it hard in Montana winter, with all the snow.
 
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