New initiative by PF

I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want be a member of these kind of groups (if you show-up on this type of site)....but there are a few here that will bash on them (PF) everytime they get brought up.

Because they have legitimate grievances and have found their time/money better invested elsewhere for increasing pheasant habitat.

I get a lot of guys don't have the opportunities to plant trees or put in pollinator plots, etc., so I think an organization like Pheasants Forever is a good fit for them as they want to contribute and know the dollars they do contribute will go to pheasant habitat.
 
Because they have legitimate grievances and have found their time/money better invested elsewhere for increasing pheasant habitat.

I get a lot of guys don't have the opportunities to plant trees or put in pollinator plots, etc., so I think an organization like Pheasants Forever is a good fit for them as they want to contribute and know the dollars they do contribute will go to pheasant habitat.
I'm pretty sure Remy has me on ignore - but God Forbid if you bring up a valid reason PF is not a good organization and could do so much more - he just gets his panties in a wad.


The NRA is a good example of corruption - My grandpa was a huge fan but if he were around would be very disappointed in the scandal they're dealing with now - they lost me some years ago. Same thing happened with Quail Unlimited. If it wasnt for the corporate people running these orgs looking to enrich themselves and seemingly the members/those donating getting very little in return via action or any progress many wouldnt be so turned off.
 
I'm pretty sure Remy has me on ignore - but God Forbid if you bring up a valid reason PF is not a good organization and could do so much more - he just gets his panties in a wad.


The NRA is a good example of corruption - My grandpa was a huge fan but if he were around would be very disappointed in the scandal they're dealing with now - they lost me some years ago. Same thing happened with Quail Unlimited. If it wasnt for the corporate people running these orgs looking to enrich themselves and seemingly the members/those donating getting very little in return via action or any progress many wouldnt be so turned off.
You left off Rob Kleck/turkey guy (was co-located with QU in S. Carolina).

Organized groups are a two edged sword. Cheese attracts rats- whether outdoor or fundamental civil rights group (NRA), you have the same problem. But without them, you lack the much needed power of organized resources. I'm as put off as any one with repeated money begs, and being solicited (by people who are paid to much to do so) to join an organization I've been a life member of for maybe 40 years. BUT. I still think that, in general, we (here on this forum) are much better off in the long term maintaining our memberships. Unless you have incredible political reach, that I certainly do not have, these guys will generally give you a much better (if sometimes a bit flawed) megaphone that you will other wise have.

Perhaps the best solution is not to just send a little money - but to much more actively engage in the management of these organizations at all levels (local/state/Fed). Case in point: NRA. Do some serious changes need to be made, sooner rather than later, at the top end? I sure think so. But if we succeed in killing them off - I shudder to think what will happen to our most basic freedoms over the coming years.

Fix 'em. Don't kill 'em. I see where some guy named Phil Journey, who is on the Board and hails from some place named after an Indian term for
South Wind (OK, it is Kansas) is trying to do just that. If I can figure out any way to help him do it, I sure will. Even if only by bringing my loud mouth to Houston in early September.
 
#1, no idea

#2, I will go with 5 stands first answer; habitat....create more of it....incentives for private land owners (that is where the land is) to create it.....sounds like crp...blocks or filter strips. Can't get more birds without the habitat.

It would be interesting to get a half dozen local roosters with those gps units just to see their travels.
I don't think they travel more than a mile, unless they are snowed in.
 
I just read that in 2020 PF was part of the acquisition of over 6,000 acres that were put into permanently public use....what a terrible organization to support. What do they do or not do, that is so against what you fellas want? If you are upset that they assist on creating habitat on private that you don't have access to, get over that, where else should they do it? If it were only on public ground, it wouldn't be much habitat at all (there just isn't much of it), the public ground is already looking great, PF was very likely involved in the establishment of it. I hope your reasoning for your lack of support is that there is already an overabundance opportunity and birds already and you don't think the birds or yourself need any more of this kind of lame help. If you want something different, join your local chapter and volunteer (yes, they are volunteers) to be on their board, that is where the decisions are made. In my thinking, a group can make more difference than individuals. So, unload, what specifically is the issue with PF? Just trying to understand this negative attitude toward them by other pheasant enthusiasts....or maybe you are just a hunter, then I could understand easier, it is all about you, not so much the birds, but that is OK, we aren't all passionate about this.
 
I just read that in 2020 PF was part of the acquisition of over 6,000 acres that were put into permanently public use....what a terrible organization to support. What do they do or not do, that is so against what you fellas want? If you are upset that they assist on creating habitat on private that you don't have access to, get over that, where else should they do it? If it were only on public ground, it wouldn't be much habitat at all (there just isn't much of it), the public ground is already looking great, PF was very likely involved in the establishment of it. I hope your reasoning for your lack of support is that there is already an overabundance opportunity and birds already and you don't think the birds or yourself need any more of this kind of lame help. If you want something different, join your local chapter and volunteer (yes, they are volunteers) to be on their board, that is where the decisions are made. In my thinking, a group can make more difference than individuals. So, unload, what specifically is the issue with PF? Just trying to understand this negative attitude toward them by other pheasant enthusiasts....or maybe you are just a hunter, then I could understand easier, it is all about you, not so much the birds, but that is OK, we aren't all passionate about this.
Do not confuse me with an anti-PF activist (though I have, and do note the unfortunate tendency of all large organizations to be run by actual human beings who have, since the beginning of time, proven to fall short of perfection) -- but what does "part of" the acquisition of over 6,000 acres mean, exactly?

Pheasants won't matter much when we are reduced to pursing them with sling shots. It comes down to priorities. Lots of good causes out there, and only so much money to go around so my notion is - make it count. Right now the greatest existential threat to our freedom and way of life, I personally believe, is the attempt to disarm American citizens (so far) in order to make us totally dependent, submissive subjects.

So that's where my time and money goes these days.
 
For my habitat projects, I'm better served by dealing directly with the NRCS and putting in the time, treasure and sweat equity in developing habitat by myself. How anyone else chooses to spend their efforts is their prerogative. I know that some PF chapters and PF as a whole have done some great things. But it isn't a one size fits all.

At the same time, it is incredibly disingenuous to label people as selfish, envious and ignorant simply because they don't partner with PF on their habitat projects.
 
I just read that in 2020 PF was part of the acquisition of over 6,000 acres that were put into permanently public use....what a terrible organization to support. What do they do or not do, that is so against what you fellas want? If you are upset that they assist on creating habitat on private that you don't have access to, get over that, where else should they do it? If it were only on public ground, it wouldn't be much habitat at all (there just isn't much of it), the public ground is already looking great, PF was very likely involved in the establishment of it. I hope your reasoning for your lack of support is that there is already an overabundance opportunity and birds already and you don't think the birds or yourself need any more of this kind of lame help. If you want something different, join your local chapter and volunteer (yes, they are volunteers) to be on their board, that is where the decisions are made. In my thinking, a group can make more difference than individuals. So, unload, what specifically is the issue with PF? Just trying to understand this negative attitude toward them by other pheasant enthusiasts....or maybe you are just a hunter, then I could understand easier, it is all about you, not so much the birds, but that is OK, we aren't all passionate about this.

Remy - I'm pretty sure you are a member of PF Corporate or friends with someone at corporate.

My issue is with the fact that very little is done in KS - by all appearances most of the habitat projects you speak of are likely near the PF HQ -- and funny of all places -- the PF HQ is in MN? When is the last time MN has been in the tops of any list in Pheasant harvest figures -- Cold day in hell before I'd ever plan a pheasant trip to MN, you know the state is just covered up in public land opportunities for pheasants :rolleyes:

Secondly my other bias comes in from one of my dear friends dealings with Corporate -- he's a land manager for vast holdings and manages for birds -- corporates behavior leaves much to be desired - he too does not deal with them on anything and has better luck dealing with the NRCS office. It's also astounding the ways PF has to collect money -- they somehow get their fingers in the pot and collect funds off of Lesser Prairie Chicken initiative funds - no idea how - all they do is administer the payments per my elementary understanding of the process -- but seems ridiculous they have anything to do with it.

Again - I dont hunt pheasants out of state - for now no reason to and frankly I've shot enough of them to be happy here - I like quail and prairie chickens for the dogs. Ducks Unlimited has done more for upland bird habitat in the state of KS than PF could ever dream of doing. PF's management at the corporate level should all be fired and replaced and their HQ moved to a state that actually has huntable populations of pheasants in it.


Lastly the banquets I volunteered at on the QF side were just a drunk fest to get donors that really dont hunt much at all to have a schlong measuring contest and see who could throw around the most money - maybe it was just the chapter I helped with I dont know - the corporate guy was only concerned with how the funds were going and didnt show up to help for anything - not sure what he was paid for anyways. I volunteered on the board and helped with the banquets for 4 or so years and had enough plus had a child so had better things to do. There was nothing they were doing to engage younger people at all - the vast majority of attendees were 50 plus -- I was in my late 20s to 31-32 or so when I stopped helping - maybe 33 or 34 -- almost 41 now - so have been away for some time.

When I see they have an initiative to open up hunting opportunities and turn over their corporate mgmt I'll hop back on - until then I'm sitting out.


************EDIT -- Addition*****
Seriously - Kudos to the Chariman of PF for his business success -- but the chairman of PF is a big city boy running a marketing firm? -- I've dug into the leadership before - but wonder why they are out of touch with who should make up their membership or many folks like me who have turned away?

The CEO - again - living in MN - his only experience is in the non profit world

Another standout - Dax Hayden from CO -- one of the biggest proponents of commercialization of hunting via his Hayden Outdoors and his likely relative of Mike Hayden who is part demon and started the commercialization snowball that has been talked about in depth on the KS forum

Not one person of diversity -- color or minority on the board of leadership - ya know - only white people hunt :rolleyes:

one Woman -- the other is the secretary - how 1950s.

Remy - take off your rose colored glasses for once.
 
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My goodness. Tough crowd!
Carry on!
 
The PF fellas provide labor, equipment and money into your projects...for no charge or conditions. Just seems like a fair deal. But not to everyone liking it seems. As you can tell, I am a big cheer-leader for PF. They provided assistance when we first took ground out of production and put into habitat. I like those guys, had one take me up on an offer to hunt this season, he was in on a late morning hunt where we harvested 14 roosters, those fellas are welcome to come out any weekend with me. I am not on the board, but that day will come I am thinking. My passion runs deep when pheasants are involved, sorry fellas.
 
PF is a great organization, I am a life member myself. True I think some parts of the U.S. lacks more support from them, Nebraska is where I mostly hunt and I don't see much of anything in the county I hunt. I mainly hunt private land there so I don't have to search for public places. The reasons for not joining and supporting them is lame IMO. My local chapter here in CO does a phenomenal job with so many things they are too numerous to mention. I see the projects they do in many states so I believe it is a good cause to help with. To each his own though.
 
PF lobbies in favor of more CRP. That is value. Problem is one voice against many and the many have deep, deep pockets for entertainment and reelection funding.

Big Ag ... they all benefit by having maximum acres planted. Gone is the time where a farmer kept grain for next year. It is all purchased as part of a larger program ... chemicals, seed, etc... ADM and Cargill all take a cut (sometimes multiple times) on every bushel of grain sold.

Many farmers rotate $100K+ tractors and combines like they used to rotate crops. The sale of new units and resale of used equipment is again big business.

There is also now a huge consulting business out there working with bigger farms to maximize yields and minimize expenses. While costly, many are proven in saving these operations money.

To be honest most smaller towns probably benefit more when more acres are farmed. Younger farmers may just find a start, hired hands are working more, implement dealers, seed & chemical dealers, elevator operators are busier and earn more ... that money all recycles many times in the local community and the nearest bigger town in the county or region.

CRP and CREP was originally formed to pull out farmed acres (I suppose to reduce subsidy pay-outs), but then for that to occur you should target the highest yield acres ... not the lowest??

But targeting poor yielding land, land prone to flooding, land near creeks, rivers and lakes made sense because of the conservation impact. Cannot prevent drain tiling, but all ditches, creeks, rivers and lakes should have buffer strips and CREP should be used reduce the financial impact to the landowners seeking relief.
 
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How about this ?

Start testing water adjacent to ag land (ditches especially). If trace chemicals (excess herbicide, fertilizers, etc) are found ... the farmer is fined for pollution. How is polluted run-off from a farm any different that trace contaminants found being released by the company producing these products ??

If the landowner has buffer strips in-place they are exempt from fines, but maybe need to go through coaching on proper application levels and techniques (save them money in the long run right ??)
 
Or this ...

Anyone receiving crop subsidies must have (say 10% or 15% or even 20% of the subsidy in conservation payments). If they do not have conservation programs in place, their crop subsidies are adjusted downward accordingly or capped ....
 
Or this ...

Anyone receiving crop subsidies must have (say 10% or 15% or even 20% of the subsidy in conservation payments). If they do not have conservation programs in place, their crop subsidies are adjusted downward accordingly or capped ....
None of it will work - all good in principle

Dirtheads/Crop farmers are becoming modern day slaves of the bigger Conglomerate Ag Companies mentioned such as ADM, Bayer, Pioneer JD, etc the same way ranchers have partially fallen there and for the most part pork, dairy and poultry producers are already there.

I can't remember if it was in this thread or another - but I mentioned I was studying landowner maps of a place I like to hunt in KS -- I kept trying to figure out who the owner was of a large parcel and looked up the owners of the business entity - it was a well known hedge fund guy from NYC - Manhattan - Billionaire buying 2-3k of farmland in BFE KS --- there are other articles you can find about other billionaires buying land (one specifically about a Russian Oligarch's son) buying land on the KS/CO border and specializing in dryland farming and ringing every last dollar out of the land - he even bought the local short line RR so he could own the transportation that moves his grain. You can find some articles on Gates shadow purchasing tens of thousands of acres of irrigated land (I think it was more in the NW in a river valley in Washington or Idaho) -- Anyways where I'm going with that is that with robotics, Artificial intelligence and tech in general at some point likely most family farms are gone and the big money on the coasts or overseas will own all of the farmland or if there is a family farm hanging on they will be a modern day feudal slave much like those in dairy, pork and poultry production already are where the large buyers basically rent their labor and tell them what they will and will not pay. It slowly happened to them unfortunately much like the frog in a boiling pot of water analogy.

The few producers on here will get mad at me saying it and think I'm talking trash on them - I'm not - all you need to do is look at what has already happened in the industries I've mentioned and then partially already happened in ranching (rules/regs are set up to keep producers from selling directly to consumer -- right now with social media/internet some farmers/ranchers get it and are directly marketing to consumers and COVID helped them immensely in places like KS where I live - however the fact remains the beef and meat processing industry is largely controlled by I believe 4 companies - 2 of which are foreign owned. KS in particular had some laws on the books most likely bankrolled by Tyson/other large meat conglomerates to keep small mom/pop competition out in the name of bogus public health regs)

Until farmers fight back and get some common sense and stop letting these big corporations tell them how they need to farm and make money which includes enriching these same conglomerates telling them what to do and the general public gets a wakeup call via food supply shortages/interruptions like we had in Covid we're all screwed.

This kind of veered off topic but my ultimate goal of all this is the big picture is the people who will buy the land and eventually own most of it if we keep allowing the status quo to happen will not give 2 shits about the land, anyone that lives around it, much less any wildlife.

The only way to win anything is an uprising against the Big Ag Conglomerates and unbrainwashing the producers who have been groomed by years and years of the big conglomerates Profiteering bs.

The only way I can think how is by getting some of the products these large conglomerates peddle banned and outlawed such as Roundup, GMO Seeds, etc -- force them to work with nature instead of against it. Some of this stuff is already banned in Europe - my opinion of our brothers in countries in the Eastern Hemisphere and their overreaching govt's is slim to none - but on that front I do agree with them.
 
I will note that most PF money raised at the chapter level stays at the chapter level (county). Money raised locally stays local for land acquistion, food plots, etc...

PF realizes they are not supporting migratory birds, but universal support of CRP and CREP has benefits to most hunters in their home state.

I do not belong to NWTF, DU or Delta for much of the reasons noted above.
 
Or this ...

Anyone receiving crop subsidies must have (say 10% or 15% or even 20% of the subsidy in conservation payments). If they do not have conservation programs in place, their crop subsidies are adjusted downward accordingly or capped ....

Quoting myself ... relying to myself ... :unsure:

Every single individual, farmer, co-op and farm corporation (where legal) receiving farm crop subsidies, crop disaster insurance payments, and/or conservation program payments are listed on the government website. Every dollar for the past 20 years or so is published. County and State data is available too.

Requiring participants to decrease acres planted in order to qualify for subsidies seems like a fair compromise. That or just eliminate them in their entirity.
 
The patient seems pale, doctors- perhaps you are correct, we should bleed him more.

If regulation coupled with taxpayer handouts were solutions, we'd be awash in pheasants by now. :)
 
I just read that in 2020 PF was part of the acquisition of over 6,000 acres that were put into permanently public use....what a terrible organization to support. What do they do or not do, that is so against what you fellas want? If you are upset that they assist on creating habitat on private that you don't have access to, get over that, where else should they do it? If it were only on public ground, it wouldn't be much habitat at all (there just isn't much of it), the public ground is already looking great, PF was very likely involved in the establishment of it. I hope your reasoning for your lack of support is that there is already an overabundance opportunity and birds already and you don't think the birds or yourself need any more of this kind of lame help. If you want something different, join your local chapter and volunteer (yes, they are volunteers) to be on their board, that is where the decisions are made. In my thinking, a group can make more difference than individuals. So, unload, what specifically is the issue with PF? Just trying to understand this negative attitude toward them by other pheasant enthusiasts....or maybe you are just a hunter, then I could understand easier, it is all about you, not so much the birds, but that is OK, we aren't all passionate about this.
I agree PF is a great organization. A lot of guys on this board are constantly whining about habitat loss, Outfitters etc, They should support PF and actually do something for the birds.....
 
The patient seems pale, doctors- perhaps you are correct, we should bleed him more.

If regulation coupled with taxpayer handouts were solutions, we'd be awash in pheasants by now. :)

Actually the opposite. If handouts stopped maybe we would be awash in pheasants. End crop subsidies for 5 years and lets we were ag ends up. Probably not too pretty for some.
 
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