Pheasants are Crowing

BritChaser

BritChaser

Well-known member
While out all day Wednesday turkey hunting I heard pheasants crowing everywhere I went. All we need is a fairly normal summer.
 
hum- arround Lawrence

they're crowing all day long- heard about some pretty good callers the years I lived there
 
Shadow said:
hum- arround Lawrence

they're crowing all day long- heard about some pretty good callers the years I lived there
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Not around Lawrence but where I went turkey hunting, NW and NC.
 
you're kidding right- or just blowing smoke

Being that I sit on some nice pheasant country- and have yet to hear crowing all day in 5 years- matter of fact- hour or so after it's a bit light they shut up-

but you heard them all day long everywhere you went

care to refute
 
During breeding season they will crow all day long. I have been pulling a windmill and we heard them all day. I don't think thats uncommon in the spring.
 
Weird, when I'm fishing up north I hear them crowing all day long this time of year.
 
I've been hearing and seeing them quite frequently throughout NC/NE KS. The conditions are right just need to keep the temps down and the moisture up.
 
Every year when I turkey hunted around Kaw Lake (Oklahoma), I would hear them all day and there aren't even many pheasants there. Definitely heard more in the morning, but would hear them throughout the day. Would even watch them out in burned off areas that were just greening up. Crow then flap their wings.
 
It is good to hear that you are seeing and hearing wild pheasants around Kaw Lake (on the Arkansas river). I keep up with the wild pheasant range as a hobby. And for the last 20 to 30 years wild self sustaining and reproducing pheasants have expanded south and eastward along the Arkansas river.

Wild crowing pheasants are being heard around Stillwater and around the Keystone Lake area of Oklahoma (another lake along the Arkansas river).

Along the Canadian river that runs through west Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle, deer hunters scoping with their binoculars see wild pheasants in the fall and turkey hunters hear pheasants crowing in the spring. But when you go out hunt the wild river pheasants they just disappear into the thick cover.
Even though you have a hard time hunting the river areas, its good to know that wary alert wild and healthy pheasants are alive and well out there.

If wild pheasants are expanding and taking root in Oklahoma and Texas where they were rare in wild numbers 20 or 30 years ago. The wild pheasant should also be slowly expanding into eastern Kansas .

I have received reports of people hearing crowing pheasants Le Roy, Kansas. Wild pheasants naturally follow water ways, so wild pheasants should be expanding south eastward along the Kansas, Neosho river just like they expanded southward along the Arkansas river. This is a slow process it could take years and years.
 
I have not seen a rooster in NE KS in a while. I know a few are still around. 20yrs ago we hunted jefferson county and would shoot a few. In fact I killed my 1st wild rooster in Jefferson county 24 years ago. :)..now an lucky to see a hen.
 
Twenty years ago there were good populations around Valley Falls. We hunted up there a bunch. It was expected that a rooster or two was part of the days bag, along with a limit of quail. We would even run into them from time to time around Perry Lake.
 
carptom1 said:
Twenty years ago there were good populations around Valley Falls. We hunted up there a bunch. It was expected that a rooster or two was part of the days bag, along with a limit of quail. We would even run into them from time to time around Perry Lake.
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I know! I actually saw 30 Roosters one time in a ditch off of 16 just N of VF. I still hunt up there a lot, but mainly Deer & Turkey now. This is a pic of my 1st Lab Maddie (RIP) and my hunting partner JT with our last Jeff Co. Rooster. It must have been 8 -9 years ago on his uncles place off Hwy 16.
 
I had one of my best days ever hunting north of valley falls fifteen or so years ago with my old lab. Shot seven quail, three roosters and a duck in about 5 hrs of hunting in a pretty good snow. Do you still run Labs? My buddy has a black one with a face that is getting white, but not nearly as white as that.
 
[. Do you still run Labs? My buddy has a black one with a face that is getting white, but not nearly as white as that.[/QUOTE]

Yeah she hunted till she was 14 and died at 15, I have Ryann and she is a 8 yr old Choc and 2 Britts a mom and son combo. Yep the quail hunting was good back then too. There are still pockets of public that holds birds, but one my buddies raises quail and ph up there so I leave the wild birds alone now.
 
Wow 15! Yea my last lab only made it to eight. He had a stroke when he was six and was never right after that. He was a great dog that died in his prime. I currently have a three year old that is just starting to get good.
 
Preston I live 14 miles east of Leroy, and I can assure you there are no wild pheasants here, I wish there were. There are lots of guys buying pen raised birds and releasing them, and some make it into the spring. These are the birds they are hearing. If anything it seems to me that the eastern edge of the pheasant population in Kansas is getting fewer birds not more. There aren't nearly as many birds in areas like Marion as there were 10 years ago.
 
Fsentkilr, thanks for the update. Around five years ago I talked to a man that said he was hearing (not seeing) crowing pheasants around there in the spring time.
You are right, those were no doubt, pen-raised birds that made it to spring. Maybe one of these days a lucy old hen pheasant will get a hatch pulled through and get them started.
I wonder what would happen if 500 or 1000 (truly wild) wild-trapped pheasants from S. W. , W. and N. central Kansas were relocated and released around your area.
The Marion situation should be a wake up call to see what is going on to cause a well establish part of the pheasant range to decline in only 10 years.
 
carptom1 said:
I had one of my best days ever hunting north of valley falls fifteen or so years ago with my old lab. Shot seven quail, three roosters and a duck in about 5 hrs of hunting in a pretty good snow. Do you still run Labs? My buddy has a black one with a face that is getting white, but not nearly as white as that.
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North of Valley Falls-

chuckling- how far north

think you're full of it- I hunted just to the West and a bit north of Valley Falls for years- had a freind who liked the area-

poor- poor to piss poor all thru 80's into the late 90's
yeah- you could find a covey 1st weekend- untill the---- shot it out
you'd run into a pheasant- maybe a rooaster even- but you went all day

but heck- I know a guy who raised pheasants and let them loose a week before the season started- his words " got to let a few loose every now and then so these city dudes would think there are birds here"
 
Preston I released thousands of pen raised pheasants back in the late 80's and early 90's trying to get them started. We did have some hens raised a few broods in some CRP but they would then just slowly dwindle to nothing. If I could finds some truly wild pheasants to release, I am sure I could come up with the funds to finance the project. I would love to try something like this one time before I give up. KDWP says it won't work, but trust me I don't believe everything they say. I really don't know one way or another, but would sure like to try once.
 
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