pheasant farm...real hunt???

Game farms are great when the season is not open or when time does not permit for a all day hunt. Shooting "scratch at the game farms is a little more of a chalange and gets you close to the real thing.

At the end of the day nothing is like shooting true wild pheasants the kind that would rather run than fly and can split your 2 dogs and leave them spinning in circles wondering were the bird went.

I dont think or judge anyone who just hunts game farms. Your still enjoying the outdoors and thats the best part of hunting but its just not the same feel and rush for me.
 
I did a scratch hunt one time. Hunted for about three hours and shot two pheasants and a chukar, the only birds I found... Except for the chukar, which does not live in KS, it felt exactly like a Western KS pheasant hunt, and a tough one too.

I walked into the field thinking that I would really burn up some ammo and put a pile of birds in the freezer. I walked out of the field knowing that I burned up a lot more shoe leather, and ate more humble pie than pheasants.

I may not have believed I was "really hunting" when I arrived at that field, but I really hunted that day and it was tough.

A preserve is what you make it. It's your money. You can ask them to make it a real shoot-em-up, or make it a real challenge.

I bet half the guys on this forum could recall a day when the stars aligned and they got an unbelievably quick and easy limit on wild birds.

I don't generally hunt at preserves, because I have other places to go. But I usually do use them once or twice before the season to get the dog on birds.
 
I try not to judge. Each have their merits. Time, travel, money, expectations all determine what is right for you.

Many SD pay to play places are actually game farms in disguise. No issue with that at all, as long as the promise is not all wild!

That said, I enjoy outsmarting wild December roosters as much as anyone. It is especially fun when there is a few inches of fresh snow on the ground.
 
Well put Bman. Nope nothing can replace wild bird hunting. Any other thing is no dif then walking out to my pen, catching a few birds and taking them out to my field and letting them go. I then run my dogs on them training. Same thing. Call it scratch hunting I guess when I get one that got away a few days later LOL. 7 bucks, a bird. But when I wish to go use that training, I will not be doing it a a game farm on the same birds I pay 6-7 bucks for,LOL. Why? not just buy from the grower and let them out your self for a 3rd of the cost?:confused: Yes it works for many. Just not me is all.
 
Pen-raised birds at preserves do serve a purpose:
1. Great for new or novice shooters to get some field shooting
2. Great for those that have no other place to hunt
3. Great for getting "new/young" dogs acclimated to finding scent/flushing

After hunting only wild birds since the mid 1970's, I would not want to hunt preserve birds unless that was the last resort.
 
FCSpringer said:
Well put Bman. Nope nothing can replace wild bird hunting. Any other thing is no dif then walking out to my pen, catching a few birds and taking them out to my field and letting them go. I then run my dogs on them training. Same thing. Call it scratch hunting I guess when I get one that got away a few days later LOL. 7 bucks, a bird. But when I wish to go use that training, I will not be doing it a a game farm on the same birds I pay 6-7 bucks for,LOL. Why? not just buy from the grower and let them out your self for a 3rd of the cost?:confused: Yes it works for many. Just not me is all.
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I think when you raise birds, and do dog training with them, the luster wears off! It seems kind of weird to release a caged bird one of you raised. But there is no way to raise a bird dog that I am familiar with. I read a book by some apartment deweller in Manhattan, that you can raise pointing dogs with a dummy and bird scent? I wish I had it the pictures were hillarious. Pointing dummies in Central Park. I have other semantics which rule out preserves, No fair play, I don't want to hunt something who has no idea of habitat, defense instincts. Two I like to look in the craw to find our what the wild birds eat. I makes me sad to find Purina medicated chow in there. To the extent I use fresh grains, greens, and meal worms in my chow. The clipped beaks are annoying, because they sometimes are to short to make a living in the wild possible. Birds some have their toe removed to designate a "pennie". If it's all there is? , I don't think so for me, like the guy with "no bird" birddogs book. Now,I get skunked, and I like it!
 
oldandnew said:
I think when you raise birds, and do dog training with them, the luster wears off! It seems kind of weird to release a caged bird one of you raised. But there is no way to raise a bird dog that I am familiar with. I read a book by some apartment deweller in Manhattan, that you can raise pointing dogs with a dummy and bird scent? I wish I had it the pictures were hillarious. Pointing dummies in Central Park. I have other semantics which rule out preserves, No fair play, I don't want to hunt something who has no idea of habitat, defense instincts. Two I like to look in the craw to find our what the wild birds eat. I makes me sad to find Purina medicated chow in there. To the extent I use fresh grains, greens, and meal worms in my chow. The clipped beaks are annoying, because they sometimes are to short to make a living in the wild possible. Birds some have their toe removed to designate a "pennie". If it's all there is? , I don't think so for me, like the guy with "no bird" birddogs book. Now,I get skunked, and I like it!
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I do it 2-3 times a week, and no it is not the same at all. Now if they get away and are out for a few weeks, they are now very much wild. But most game farms take them from a pen the day you buy your 20 and out they go. Yes it is great training. But too pricy for me with the amount I train. I would be broke in no time LOL. Raising them and killing them has become second nature I guess. I dont name them LOL.
 
Was lucky enough to to get invited to a buddies corp hunt at MN Horse & Hunt Club today. Last time I hunted birds at game farm was.....I can't remember.

MNHH is a great place and well run. Awesome sporting clay's course and good cover in the fields.

We had two groups of 5 and each group harvested about a dozen birds. 20 were put out for each group. Some nice points, cackles, flushes, tailfeathers, shots and retrieves.

Was it a hunt? Yes. Was it a UGUIDE South Dakota pheasant Hunt?

Not by a long shot:D
 
I get to go to one now and then as well Chris. For a customer appreciation day from a supplier or whatever. Its fun and all. But like you said just not the same. I would pay for a hunt with Uguide first. Just my style I guess. I wonder how many wild hens are shot each year on game farms?
 
FCSpringer said:
I wonder how many wild hens are shot each year on game farms?
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I really hope your states and preserve owners are smart enough not to let much of that happen. In California there are type A and B preserves. Type B are in areas where no wild birds are present and both hens and roosters can be released and shot. Type A are in areas where wild birds may be present and only roosters may be shot.
 
I do not believe MN has those type A and B regulations. Generally when I scratch Hunt at preserves which is really the only preserve hunting I will do I will only shoot roosters even though I could shoot Hens. Scratch hunting is a nice alternative. It is cheaper in most cases and most of the birds you are going to find and hunt have been so pressured they often act as wild as possible. Imagine living in a war zone for 2 weeks..imagine how wild and skiddish you would be after that. That's how I view scratch hunting at the MN Horse and Hunt Club. You find a bird that has been living outside at that club for over a few days and tell me it doesn't act like a wild bird.. I dare ya.. Hunting preserves are different at every single one. Some preserves produce more realistic hunting situations with better birds then others. I do not think it is fair to label preserve hunting in one category. Some preserves do not really even offer scratch hunting because the birds they release usually always get shot by the immediate party releasing them do to the birds being to domestic and not enough good cover. Other preserves like the HHC can offer a realistic wild bird experience. You can see birds roaming all around that property and they know what they are doing. I do agree that nailing a wild rooster on some public land is about as rewarding as it gets but putting your boots on the ground with your dog and scratch hunting for 4 hours to land a couple of roosters is pretty damn rewarding to. Also - that seems weird that game preserves would feed their roosters dog food? I have never heard of that.. I beleive someone previously mentioned seeing craws stuffed with purina..gross. Every bird I have shot..preserve or wild is usually plump with beans or corn.
 
Purina makes feed for game birds, similar to crumbles you would feed a laying hen. When fed mainly this type of feed they rapidly become to fat to fly well but it makes for a nice roasting bird.
 
I am fortunate to live where there are usually plenty of wild birds and places to hunt. If that were not the case, I would find bird ranches to be the go to place.
 
BRITTMAN said:
I try not to judge. Each have their merits. Time, travel, money, expectations all determine what is right for you.

Many SD pay to play places are actually game farms in disguise. No issue with that at all, as long as the promise is not all wild!

That said, I enjoy outsmarting wild December roosters as much as anyone. It is especially fun when there is a few inches of fresh snow on the ground.
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Great post. :cheers:

Here in my part of Wisconsin, we are pretty much limited to state stocked PHGs. It's easy pickings if the truck just dropped a day or two before, but after those birds get some time in the wild, they are crafty and hard to hunt. I've only been to the Dakotas on a hunt once. My dog caught 3 wild birds that weekend that weren't cripples without me firing a shot....so to each their own. Those of you that are fortunate to live in the heart of pheasant country...consider yourself very lucky and don't take it for granted. I am THRILLED that our Dept of Natural Resources has a pheasant stocking program.
 
I spend quite a bit of time at a planted-bird club on Sunday afternoons in January and February, after the wild-bird season has closed. If I take someone else along, I fudge a little bit and call it "hunting." If I go by myself, I call it "dog training."

If I'm alone, I just run the dogs along the perimeter in search of wayward birds that others have missed. That usually gets me one or two contacts per trip, and that's all I'm after.
 
Game Farm/Preserve

A wise man once said you can't make a good bird dog without any birds. Some of us don't have a choice, my dog enjoys herself and she is hunting to find these birds, I've even missed a couple:confused:. We do look for wild birds here in WA and go to ND ever year and nothing compares to wild birds, for those of us not in the bird belt I would almost call it a neccesity if we expect top performance from our canine partners, I am going to check into buying birds direct to cut down the cost as one poster suggested.
 
PTM said:
A wise man once said you can't make a good bird dog without any birds.
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I've read that wise man's quote's before and he is absolutely correct. ;) Pen raised or wild, it's a numbers game and if you don't have the wild bird numbers, then the other option will have to do.

One note on pen raised birds that are released at preserves. Well flight conditioned birds will fly just as well as any wild bird. The key to making your preserve hunt as close to the real thing as possible is how the bird is put down. Birds that are dizzied hard are going to be just that... lethargic and may not move at all for a good period of time. Birds that are put down without anything being done to them other than tucking them into a piece of cover will be alert and acting normal immediately. HUGE DIFFERENCE.

The preserve I normally go to puts their birds down this way unless specifically asked to set the birds a little harder. Their birds act and fly much like a wild bird and especially birds that I have harvested while scratch hunting.
 
I agree with Birdshooter - pen raised can be very wild, especially when scratch hunted.

We have had birds run and fly in the same way the wild birds act.

I have trained two dogs with chuckers and pen-pheasants and it's an excellent way to introduce a young dog to birds.

At first, we placed birds close to little flags. After a few birds the dog got accustomed to "birds- at- a flag" and went for the flag. Obviously we had to change tactics and move future birds farther from the flags.

Lots of fun for hunter and dog!
 
Game preserve birds and state released birds, its all we have left here in Pennsylvania. It doesnt matter to me and im pretty sure my dogs dont mind either. Enjoy your "wild bird hunting" before it goes the way Pennsylvania,s did.
 
The quality of the birds can make or break a club hunt. At the club where I go, they've selectively bred them for more than 20 years and by club standards, they're small, fast and spooky. At times, they're nearly impossible to hard-plant and it's not uncommon to have a rooster run right off the property a hundred yards or more from where it was dropped, and they also run like heck when they've been wing-tipped.

I found a dead one last year that got completely stuck trying to run through a fence. I don't know what that type of fencing is called, but it's made of heavy-wire strands running both vertically and horizontally, leaving a bunch of square openings that are about 6 inches by 6 inches. It flat-out killed itself trying to force its way through.

It's one of the few clubs left where the cards are still punched when the birds are harvested rather than released. If it was punch-on-release, a lot of members would quit because too many birds get away from them.
 
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