WILD Pheasant Harvest Numbers

Very interesting about the PA pheasant decline and you guys trying to bring them back. I grew up in Shiremanstown, PA. As soon as I was old enough to hunt by myself I would walk out my back door onto the the Sheely's farm and would pheasant hunt all the way to Mechanicsburg. This was in the 70's. I always shot a few. When I was old enough to drive, I would go to Litiz area in Lancaster county to hunt wild birds. I carried a list of about 13 amish owned farms I hunted every year until I went away to Penn State for college. We did very well in Lancaster county. All wild birds. I can recall this one farm had what we called a roosting field beside a creek and a railroad track. One time we had just got back to the car when we saw almost two dozen fry from across the road out of a tree nursery and land in this 1/4 acre patch, the roosting field. It was so thick you could hardly walk through it. We did not have dogs back then but we would get them up. You could hear them running and see the grass moving but eventurally you would get them up. It was just amazing. I had never seen such a thing until I started hunting in SD.

While at school at Penn State we would hunt the game lands out hwy 45? west of town. These were stocked birds. After returning to Mechanicsburg after graduating in 1986 there were still a fair amount of pheasants in the same area I used to walk from my house in Shiremanstown. My girlfriend, now wife, and I lived off of Allendale road in a condominium and I would walk my dog, now I had a lab, in the undeveloped area just behind the condo and the pheasants would roost in small shrub like tree/bushes maybe only 15-20 feet tall. That was the first time I had ever seen that. One time there was a rooster sitting on the roof of my Honda early one morning. We lived there for a few years and then moved to a farm over near Cumberland Valley Highschool and we had birds on the farm there. It was right next to the turnpike. This is where I lost my lab. She got hit by a car on the turnpike. But we always harvested a few birds off that farm. I left that farm in 1992 and moved to South Carolina for graduate school, where there are not pheasants. I took up woodcock hunting and that is just as much fun if not more. Every year I would ask my PA friends about the pheasants in the area I grew up in and each year the reports were less and less. It got to the point where they would tell me they hadn't seen or heard a bird in years. Well all the land that I walked from my house is all developed now.

Now I woodcock hunt 20 or more times a year and average between 2.1 and 2.6 birds per hunt. Limit is 3 per day. For the last 15 years I have been going to SD hunting 95% private land. Became good friends with a few farmers and actually stay with one farmer and his family. All I can say it is all about habitat and i commend you PA boys for stepping up and doing it. One of my favorite sayings is "build it and they will come". This saying goes for just about anything in life. It was great reading this string. Have great day. john smink
 
sjohn said:
Very interesting about the PA pheasant decline and you guys trying to bring them back. I grew up in Shiremanstown, PA. As soon as I was old enough to hunt by myself I would walk out my back door onto the the Sheely's farm and would pheasant hunt all the way to Mechanicsburg. This was in the 70's. I always shot a few. When I was old enough to drive, I would go to Litiz area in Lancaster county to hunt wild birds. I carried a list of about 13 amish owned farms I hunted every year until I went away to Penn State for college. We did very well in Lancaster county. All wild birds. I can recall this one farm had what we called a roosting field beside a creek and a railroad track. One time we had just got back to the car when we saw almost two dozen fry from across the road out of a tree nursery and land in this 1/4 acre patch, the roosting field. It was so thick you could hardly walk through it. We did not have dogs back then but we would get them up. You could hear them running and see the grass moving but eventurally you would get them up. It was just amazing. I had never seen such a thing until I started hunting in SD.

While at school at Penn State we would hunt the game lands out hwy 45? west of town. These were stocked birds. After returning to Mechanicsburg after graduating in 1986 there were still a fair amount of pheasants in the same area I used to walk from my house in Shiremanstown. My girlfriend, now wife, and I lived off of Allendale road in a condominium and I would walk my dog, now I had a lab, in the undeveloped area just behind the condo and the pheasants would roost in small shrub like tree/bushes maybe only 15-20 feet tall. That was the first time I had ever seen that. One time there was a rooster sitting on the roof of my Honda early one morning. We lived there for a few years and then moved to a farm over near Cumberland Valley Highschool and we had birds on the farm there. It was right next to the turnpike. This is where I lost my lab. She got hit by a car on the turnpike. But we always harvested a few birds off that farm. I left that farm in 1992 and moved to South Carolina for graduate school, where there are not pheasants. I took up woodcock hunting and that is just as much fun if not more. Every year I would ask my PA friends about the pheasants in the area I grew up in and each year the reports were less and less. It got to the point where they would tell me they hadn't seen or heard a bird in years. Well all the land that I walked from my house is all developed now.

Now I woodcock hunt 20 or more times a year and average between 2.1 and 2.6 birds per hunt. Limit is 3 per day. For the last 15 years I have been going to SD hunting 95% private land. Became good friends with a few farmers and actually stay with one farmer and his family. All I can say it is all about habitat and i commend you PA boys for stepping up and doing it. One of my favorite sayings is "build it and they will come". This saying goes for just about anything in life. It was great reading this string. Have great day. john smink
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GREAT story ! Like yourself I grew up hunting wild pheasants in Pa.. It seemed like ALL of south east Pa. was geared for the Pheasant Season, every restaurant was jammed at lunchtime with hunters. It seemed like every other pickup truck on RT 22 had a bird dog in it . A few years ago we hunted Iowa for pheasants. While there we became friends with a retired wildlife biologist from the Iowa DNR , he said before he moved to Iowa he worked for the PGC. He said the highest pheasant count he ever recorded including Iowa was in an area of Berks County, pretty amazing considering Iowa was once a real powerhouse of pheasant hunting ! We hunt that area of Berks and there are still a few birds left. Thanks for your story John!
 
FLDBRED said:
GREAT story ! Like yourself I grew up hunting wild pheasants in Pa.. It seemed like ALL of south east Pa. was geared for the Pheasant Season, every restaurant was jammed at lunchtime with hunters. It seemed like every other pickup truck on RT 22 had a bird dog in it . A few years ago we hunted Iowa for pheasants. While there we became friends with a retired wildlife biologist from the Iowa DNR , he said before he moved to Iowa he worked for the PGC. He said the highest pheasant count he ever recorded including Iowa was in an area of Berks County, pretty amazing considering Iowa was once a real powerhouse of pheasant hunting ! We hunt that area of Berks and there are still a few birds left. Thanks for your story John!
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Great news about the wild birds in Berks county. I’m 18 so I didn’t get to live the glory days but I don’t think game land hunting is all that bad. Are there any options for habitat improvement? I would be very interested in helping out. It’s a hike from Northumberland county where I’m at to there but I would gladly make a trip a couple times a year to do some work! Jumped that hen with her 10 poults again tonight. I live about 15 minutes from the heart of the central Susquehanna WPRA and drive out a couple times every spring to hear the roosters cackle. Makes for amazing mornings! Best
 
FLDBRED said:
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=980625428656349
Just browsing through some of the different Pheasant Forever Chapters.
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Great to see that! Unfortunately that was 6 years ago. Hopefully they performed that miracle they seem so adept at of hatching out nests. I’m not ready to throw in the towel for pa pheasants. I’m off to the university of Rhode Island in September for college so I’m hoping what we’ve done thus far is enough to keep some birds around till I’m out. I will definitely be checking in throughout the years and when I’m out, hit me up if you want to start working on a trap and transfer operation. One thing that we had done in penns valley this year was to put PF habitat cooperator signs on the properties we enhanced, and I got a few calls about people interested. Might be a good idea to get the word out that it can be done with habitat manipulation. Just like a snowball, if we can get it rolling, it will grow. So…. Let’s get it rolling !
 
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