Pheasant!

First pheasant hunt of the season. My son and I took Ol' Clarkie and our shotguns to the semi-local pheasant club for a day of hunting. We only came home with two birds, but what a great day!

Yes, that's a duck decoy in the pond behind Clark:


Guy

Sounds like a super day. Good job, Clark! He sure is a handsome dog.

That's very cool. I need to book a pheasant hunt soon....

Book a Hunt ! Come to Iowa hunt Wild Pheasants on Public ground.

Sounds like it was a great day Guy. There hasn't been any Pheasants or Quail around here for ever it seems like or every since no till farming chemicals eradicated all the birds and the farmers cleaned up all the thickets and fence roes. No habitat no birds.

I love hunting pheasants over a well trained dog. You guys are making me envious!

Dan

truck driver":32mu4fhq said:

Sounds like it was a great day Guy. There hasn't been any Pheasants or Quail around here for ever it seems like or every since no till farming chemicals eradicated all the birds and the farmers cleaned up all the thickets and fence roes. No habitat no birds.

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Ya, they've got to have somewhere to live.

Hunters take some birds every year. Habitat destruction kills 'em all.

Guy

1100 Remington Man":is30st8u said:

Book a Hunt ! Come to Iowa hunt Wild Pheasants on Public ground.

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I'd enjoy that, and I have an invite to South Dakota anytime.

But, I can hunt wild pheasants if I drive another hour here in Washington. Or be perfectly content with taking all the wild chukar I want. As long as I'm willing to hike for 'em. :grin: I like hiking! So will probably be quite content with staying here in Washington for most of my bird hunting.

Guy

Guy You should get to South Dakota at least once, when there bird numbers are up it is fun. It is fun to watch the dog work. Good Hunting.

1100 Remington Man":2959btd6 said:

Guy You should get to South Dakota at least once, when there bird numbers are up it is fun. It is fun to watch the dog work. Good Hunting.

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Guy- if you head for SD let me know. Maybe we can get together. CL

I'd love to do so - but probably not in 2018. That year is already getting real booked up.

Guy

Well I've never hunted in Iowa, but I have hunted the Dakotas many times. Haven't in the last two or three years and miss it. That from a guy who guides on good ground a couple of days a week.
When I go again I would target right after elk season, call it second week in November.
I'll probably spend a week. Drive straight through to central Montana, then start hunting and driving for two days or so to central SD.
Just need the bird numbers up.
Habitat destruction kills them all, that's for sure. The other big problem not recognized is pesticides. The chicks need bugs, lots of bugs, farmers need yields per acre. Bugs often live under the leaves of weeds, add in round up ready crops like corn and you have a recipe to wipe out most of that years chicks.
It's all about timing.


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Which "no till" chemicals kill pheasants in your area? Chemicals used in your area must be very different from those used in farming here if they kill pheasants. Not heard of that before.

Herbicides are known to sterilize reproductive organs and cause cancer cells so no till farming no matter what is used, roundup, atrazine and others is no good.
Agent orange and agent white was developed by the Army at Fort Detrick in Frederick ,MD for use in Vietnam and was the for runners of the herbicides used today and made by Bayer, Monsanto and I don't know what other chemical companies. As for DDT it has been band from use here but is used extensively in 3rd world countries but we still have Seven and malathion and several others.
Even though the most toxic chemicals have been band it still didn't stop the damage started back in the sixties and seventies and extinction here in MD and other east coast states.
The only Pheasants and Quail you see anymore are stocked farm raised birds.
I don't blame the farmers since they had to make a living but they too have been pushed out of business due to the increase of production causing lower prices because the market was flooded with cheap products that now has driven the consumer prices up threw manipulation of the market and price control by the US government .
Where there were farms you now see housing developments. The farms were bought up by land speculators like the Washington News and Post and other conglomerates as tax shelters and then developed when the land value went threw the roof when the construction industry boomed.

I'll stop my rant and I apologize for letting my emotions get out of hand.

It's not the chemicals in our area killing the birds, pesticides used to kill bugs remove a critical food source for the chicks. Also we learned that round up ready food crops are great unless you use the round up on the broad leaf weeds, which the bugs need. It's a matter of timing.


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We also plant a lot of round up ready alfalfa strips particularly in areas we get noxious weeds. The alfalfa provides nesting cover and a food source for the bugs. We can spray for the bad weeds, like sticky grass and not impact the birds too much.
And we don't worry about spraying pesticides at all as we don't market any of the crops we grow.


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The best thing you can do for pheasant is grow layered crops but it's tough to do on a commercial basis, something that can grow above a short growing weed or grass, gives stages of cover and food as the year progresses.


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Red clover was one of the best hay crops you could plant for bird cover and food plus it attracted other wildlife also. The Amish still plant it for hay since it's less expensive and still makes a good food protein source for cattle feed.
Back in the day when double cropping fields wasn't practiced there was always fields full of weeds that produced seeds for bird feed in wheat fields that wouldn't get plowed till under or sprayed.
On the east coast where the farms were small and the farmers needed to get the most out of what land they had the practice of cleaning fence rows and thickets was essential to survive.
Wild life was considered a plague on the land and consumed food that would be available for live stock.
I once worked for a farmer on a crop damage permit for rabbits and removed over 100 rabbits one spring from one field of around 20acres, some were killed but most were live trapped and relocated to farms that had been sold to land brokers and left to grow over.
New chemicals and GMO crops have changed a lot of farming practices but for the east it came too late to save the wild birds.

We plant three variety of sorghum, alfalfa, four varieties of grass, wheat oats and a little corn and sunflowers. We simply can't grow much in the way of corn and sunflowers. The deer will wipe those crops out before hunting season.


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salmonchaser":3hfa27g1 said:

We plant three variety of sorghum, alfalfa, four varieties of grass, wheat oats and a little corn and sunflowers. We simply can't grow much in the way of corn and sunflowers. The deer will wipe those crops out before hunting season.


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Thank you for being a care taker of our wildlife. I know it is hard to balance both business and nature in agriculture.
Yeah deer love young corn shoots along with the sunflowers.
Since the construction boom around here the home owners complain of the deer eating their precious flowers, shrubbery and the beaver eating their young trees they plant.
When I here someone complain I asked them why they built in the wildlife's back yard and if they don't like it move back to the city where you came from.