You might like to read the great article the late Ted Williams wrote about preserve hunting in Mass- Grey's SJ-- Fall 1977 issue-
We will always have predators and poachers- same thing as far as the game birds are concerned. 20 years ago we had some fair pheasant hunting, if you had a good dog and plenty of shoe leather-- The nature of farming has changed a great deal-
MI once had a "Put-and-Take' pheasant release program, two birds a day either sex, and they had to have leg tags- sold with your permit-didn't take long for the 'sharpies" to get the dump-off am routes of the DNR's "chicken wagons' and they'd figure a way (with scotch tape) to re-use the leg adhesive tags- 4 guys are hunting- they take 8 birds and the birds were tagged, as the DNR did check the areas, especially on week-ends- then a phone call to a "wheel-man" who picks up the birds and drives away, and the 4, unless checked by the DNR that day, are "good to go" for 8 more- and the tags were carefully removed from the dead ones and "recycled" I know of at least two guys who shot over 50 birds on one set of 8 tags- and never got caught-
As the late Aldo Leopold once said-- "Man is not equipped to managed wildlife by 'assembly line" methods- Nature always holds the trump cards!!"
Later on, still non detered, the DNR wasted a fortune on a Sichuan pheasant program, the tough breed from that China province was supposed to inter-breed with the native hens- Sichuan gets winter weather in Asia- and the surviving birds may well be a hardy breed- over there- Problem was, the Sichuan Rooster pheasant does NOT have the white neck collar band our birds do (or did), and the DNR in its infernal stupidity wrote the regs only allowing for one of the two daily Roosters only limit to NOT have a white neck collar--
You walk in over Old Rufus, glued into a rock-solid point and a red cackling rocket goes up from the swale and duff grass right into the blinding October sun- you know its a Rooster, but even with Superman's X-ray vision, you can't see the neck for dust!!
Today, shifting from pheasants to deer "management?"--just to make a point about the "out of touch with reality of our DNR" in MI-- read the BS regs about deer baiting- recalls the great story "The Dove" by Nash Buckingham, and the fat-headed ideas that were un-inforceable regarding baiting for those speedsters, back in the 1930's!! And the beat goes on.
I hunt two area preserves for pheasants, one has occasional Tower release shoots-and the birds can really move, especially the hens. Being a die-hard 12 gauge windy day pass shooter for waterfowl, I like this- and the pick-up hunt with good retrievers later- This is, no doubt, a poor substitute for the real thing in Europe and England- high driven native birds on a private estate shoot- but it is local and affordable. Also my hunts there for released or "left-over birds" are local, no long drive to SD or NE or MT--
What is the answer? There really isn't one. I grew up hunting in the late 1940's and well into the CRP land 1950's--vandalism and theft from farmers for either materials to make Meth or crack or pipe bombs were not known then, neither did the unemployed and desperate steal copper electrical wire and or pipe to sell for scrap from farmer's irrigation units, as we see all to often today-
Farmers were neighbors, and damn good ones- seldom locked up, and if you approached them properly and if they knew their neighbors let you on their lands, they usually gave you the same open invite- We helped fix fences, put up hay, rebuild barns and buildings, and in my case, weld and re-machine their broken farm equipment- especially important at harvest time.
Today, some of the guys I used to hunt with will only stop to chat with a farmer when its near opening of bird season. Time spent over coffee, or a lunch at the local cafe across from the feed and seed store, and taking time to learn what crops and commodities are trading for, the price of seed and fertilizer, and that milk is sold and prices per 100 lbs. and not gallons-priceless. You make a farmer, and his family your friends and you have friends for life--The farmer gains nothing from your being on his lands, even if you are killing the woodchucks that bore holes in his cattle pasture land-so what incentive does a farmer who can keep his head above water in today's tough economy have to allow a PF or a Ted Turner Quail restoration program--
Last edited by Run With The Fox; 12/02/11 08:51 AM.
