Shooting pheasants from cotton fields

It's clear that they manage their Pheasants real well. Probably their biggest cash crop. No question this could be done most anywhere in the USA with the same interest and same dedication. In the Northern areas Winter, deep snow, Spring and Summer storms makes pheasant management more of a challenge.
Periods of snow cover is when the Northern Pheasants need the cereal grains and a little help with food and cover. Without snow cover pheasants have no problem finding food in grasslands.

I copied this from the web site, pretty much tell the story.:thumbsup:

Pheasant Hunts

Yes, this is Ring-necked Pheasant country, and we have some great areas to hunt.
We hunt a wide range of areas including but not limited to CRP, grain fields, shelter belts, tree rows, fence lines, rangelands, old homesteads, cattle pens, hay lots, drainage ditches, tail water pits, creek bottoms, old farm implement lots, and playa lake bottoms.
 
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We need more authentic wild ringneck (P. c.torquatus) wild directly from southern China and directly from the bush.[/url]


This is one of the reasons I push James Pfarr's newly released book ( A NOBLE QUARRY) and the good work he's does in the name of preserving true pheasant lines/genes.

James sheds light on a dissipating true pheasant gene pool within their native lands. In some areas, this is in part due to the releasing of mixed breed pen birds which come from generations of pen reared birds. Releasing pen stock birds into areas where true (wild) pheasants still exist is resulting in the destruction of the worlds purely wild native stock of true pheasants.

In the midst of Illinois pheasant gene pool study, they are finding our birds are very similar genetically and inbreeding may become (or is) a issue within our wild stock and could be a contributing factor to declining bird #'s.

If this is the case, the solution is an obvious one. Introduce pure and wild strains of pheasants to our wild stock. For now, such a stock can come from other states such as Iowa and SD where their pheasant gene pool is differs from our own here in Illinois.

But, in time, wild pheasants from other states could also find themselves in the same situation as here in IL. At that point, native wild stock from China and other countries will be the one and only solution to our problem.

If continued mixing and diluting native stocks of pure pheasants in their native lands, in the long run we could have a serious issue on our hands here in the U.S. within our wild bird populations. That is, a dumb down wild stock of birds lacking "wildness" need for survival in the wild.

I know I've gone on a tangent and off course here (sorry), but we (pheasant enthusiasts) need to know what's going on and how it can negatively effect our wild stock here in the U.S. Just bringing the issue to light.;)
 
For the last 30 or 40 years the prevailing wildlife literature said that wild pheasants are dependent on cereal grains to strive in the wild, and that the wild pheasants can't survive well in hot or humid warm weather and minerals like calcium are needed for their survival. This theory is also taught in wildlife management courses.

The healthy wild and growing Mexicali pheasant population basically debunks or disprove those theories. This clearly shows that wild pheasants can survive and reproduce in other warn or southern parts of the country.

QH, gave us some great background information on the Mexicali pheasant and why they are successful. The links below give more information on that area:

www.finandfeathersafaris.com/Baja/Program2.htm

huntandgofish.com/?adventures=hunters-only

If the Chinese workers came from southern China near Shanghai which is on the 30th parallel (the 30th parallel is the same as Mexicali or Houston, Texas a warm climate) the ringneck pheasants they brought over to Mexicali may have been genetically conditioned to deal with a warm climate. We need more authentic wild ringneck (P. c.torquatus) wild directly from southern China and directly from the bush.

Now back to cotton, I can't tell you how many times I have shot at pheasants over cotton (both harvested and unharvested) in the Texas panhandle.
Wild pheasants need undisturbed nesting cover (more than cereal grain) for the hens for about 40 days in the spring time or early summer or late summer, a variety of crops can provide that window of nesting opportunity.

In Mexicali, 65 degree ground temps are reached in late Feb. or early March and cotton can be planted by the end of Feb. and by June cotton is growing and providing cover and an abundance of insects. In addition to that, the week to three week old chicks need cover and insects and that is where cotton plays a big part in wild pheasant production, the fat juice worms and insects the cotton produces when chicks need protein for growth.
There are parts of the corn belt with low pheasant numbers and parts of the panhandle with lots of cotton and a surprising number of wild pheasants.

Look carefully at the background of the main photo taken at an outfitter in Tulia, Texas, notice the cotton field in the background:

http://www.tulecreek.com/ins_outs.asp
Now that China is coming into play as a world player and collecting weather statistics it should be an easy matter to find out where different regions need to import pheasant stock from. It's too bad they'll never be a pheasant hunter in the white house to "do a deal" with China (birds for technical assistance we'd otherwise provide for free).
 
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