doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com NY State Closing Last Phez Farm

As I said originally, and somewhat tangentially to a post about the ebb and flow of pheasants in Illinois, Pennsylvania is not and never was--as JDW so boldly stated in his original post---"...the pheasant capital east of the Mississippi." Given the lack of wild pheasants in most of the states east of the Mississippi, it should be no surprise that of the five to seven states with huntable populations, Pennsylvania is in the top ten.

But talk about "dyslexia"! Go back and read your original post...and then check a dictionary.

What gets me with this Internet gig is how persons unskilled with the English language so quickly revert to throwing personal jabs. First it was "ridicule" to say that PA was not the pheasant capital...then accused of the evil of being a wordsmith (thus "an expert on everything") and/or long-retired lawyer (since 1981--this I get a lot)...and finally "dyslexia," and chided to go back and "read slowly." My God! A violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act right here on doublegunshop.com!

But, really, I seem to recall parroting-back exactly what you mis-spoke...using quotation marks to highlight your mis-statement...more than once...and even enumerated all the states east of the Mississippi that did or did not have reputations for huntable wild pheasants. Yes you stated that "Pennsylvania was the pheasant capital easy of the Mississippi," and I stated that you were wrong. Now you say that you were right because Pennsylvania had pheasants and was "rated" in the "top ten."

After much adoo about nothing, the thrust of my original post--lamenting the general decline of pheasant populations, first occasioned by observable weather events hereabouts, and since perpetuated by nothing that I could put a finger on other than farming practices (not observable loss of habitat or excessive predators)--has been lost in the morass or who's right or wrong...as I finish this I'll go back and cut and paste your exact "Pheasant Capital" words from your first post and next your "top Ten" equivocation and we shall see who is dyslexic [sic].

Parting shot: McFarland's is a pheasant farm at Janesville WI, about 20 miles from my farm. I believe they raise at least 1.3 million pheasants each year. Tobul is another pheasant farm about 10 miles from here, and they raise about 65,000 pheasants per year. Thus one plus "six zeros" isn't much when it comes to wild birds dispersed over 44,000 (PA) or 55,000 (IL) square miles. The real problem is getting released birds to take in the fall, winter over in numbers, and propagate the next year. The states, be they IL or PA or anywhere else where pheasants have historically been found in numbers, should devote more resources to boosting pheasant populations.

Illinois pisses away a small fortune in stocking warm streams and rivers with trout that will not reproduce and/or survive. Illinois is now on an expensive rampage of exterminating deer populations under the guise of minimizing "CWD" (chronic wasting disease), as if deer haven't got sick and died (just like people) from the beginning of time. Much of what we see here in "game management" is just job opportunities for pols who would not otherwise be employable. And as I stated above, even such seemingly valid organizations as Pheasants Forever have lost sight of their core objective when they raise money for the stated purpose of perpetuating pheasant populations and then donate the cash to the Forest Preserve Taxing District to bus inner city kids for a day in the country. This was the thrust of my original post, which got submerged in the obscure bickering ... EDM

Oh, c'mon. It's insensitive to expect a "writer" to demean himself by engaging in something so far below his established station in life and as plebeian as "research". The suggestion is just downright disrespectful!

But more "probably" NOT.

Yes, PA was "probably" one of the top ten.

Illinois has always had and presently has a greater wild pheasant population than PA, given that pheasants moved from west to east naturally (from birds stocked in the western states) or by direct stocking with western birds. The extent and lay of the land, average moisture, farming practices, range of temperature, and other factors made Illinois less pheasant friendly than some western states (like Iowa and the Dakotas), and more pheasant friendly than other states east of the Mississippi (including PA).

Facts are facts (Google "pheasants"), and for someone (even someone chastised as a dreaded "writer") to call attention to a cheer-leading-type overstatement is not "ridicule." Nor is it "dyslexic" to directly quote the the misinformed cheerleader. EDM

I dont know what is an EDM...But he seems to take a lot of words to say very little. When we had our farm in Pa. We had lots of Pheasants. Yesterday, in a couple of hours, South of the home place here, we lifted at LEAST 400 Pheasants (not phez, dunno what them are either) out of just two (2) covers. Put that in your smoke and pipe it.

According to the Pennsylvania Game Commission:



Interesting.

According to the SD Division of Wildlife, South Dakota's estimated pheasant harvest wasn't that high in any year from 1965 to 1970. The average annual pheasant harvest for South Dakota for the ten years beginning in 1965 ("late 1960's and early 1970's") was only 918,000 birds. Wow. An eastern state beating out the Pheasant King for a while back in those days. I had no idea. Looks like JDW was right.

400 Nitro,
South Dakota in the late 60's had a a few very bad winters with the snow very deep, many birds perished in that snow and very cold temperatures, plus some of the early sprngs were very wet and hen pheasants will only try to nest twice before giving up.

To relate a story told to me by a World War Two Vet, traveling from N.J. to the west coast in a troop train, it stopped in South Dakota in the middle of no where. The local farmers had tables set up with food on them. My friend asked one of the ladies about the chicken, she said it wasn't chicken it was pheasant. She said didn't you see them all along the tracks? On leaving he watched out and said they were all over the place.

I've hunted there, and yes Ed I did get of Translyvania, in the late 80's, near Mitchell. Hunted a small 10 section farm and saw hundreds of pheasants in 2 days of hunting in this spot.

Last Dollar, Nothing excites me more than pheasants, and I'm glad to hear that there are a lot of birds by you. Good hunting and take care of them.
By the way EDM has written a few books on Parker Shotguns.

Ed, just to show you what kind of guy I am, even though the only school I graduated from was the school of hard knocks and hard work, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Oh, I almost forgot, your state back then was lower than Pa, I don't know where it fell into the TOP TEN or if it did at all.

Was well aware of that. My group had hunted there every year since 1955.



I hunted 25 miles SW of Mitchell for 12 years.



Still is. Projected harvests are 150,000 vs 200,000.

Around here back then you would not only see wild pheasants in farmland, they were all over the near suburbs and even on my street in Philadelphia!