doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Wild Birds vs. Game Preserves

All depends what the alternative is.

The only alternative for me is to stay at home then. Invest some time, do some scouting if you wish to hunt, but don't chase a truck around a field shooting birds as they throw them at ya. :rolleyes:

MCA,

That isn't how it works -- even at the worst of the preserves.

Just remember, after the season is over, and you're not hunting, some of us other wild bird hunters are out still chasing preserve birds that have been out for days or even weeks, and having a good time with our dogs.

No thats not true, you can shoot a goose or two well into the new year, and crows right up to spring turkey. Plenty to do!

I'm talking about Upland Bird Hunting with a dog, here. And, it's usually open until mid-March, when most goose seasons are closed.

Barn pigeons, which is a hoot, is also available in addition to crows.

The point is, you can still have a lot of fun shooting pheasants on a preserve with a dog, and that many preserves do it right.

After the season is over your right, I am not hunting, and imho you are not hunting either. I understand the dog training but it is not hunting to me. Besides we chase wild birds till the end of Feb. and after that is to hot!

As I said earlier "Some of the "I'm too special to hunt preserves" guys need to realize just how vital and important preserve hunting is to our upland hunting sport."

Hunting truly wild birds is a great thing, and it can't be replaced. However, your condesending attitude towards preserves and hunting them doesn't impress me much at all.

I don't hunt; however, my dog does. I follow him around with a shotgun and when I do my part he brings the birds to me. My dog is a good communicator. To date, he has never let me know that he wasn't really hunting when we were on a preserve or chasing state birds through the multiflora roses.

I live in southern NYS. Down here we really have no wild birds to speak of. There are plenty of preserves around that release a lot of pheasant but the just don't seem to over winter, or at least that's what I'm told. Seems if they can survive a winter in S. Dakota they should be able to survive in NY.

Grouse habitat is gone, the woods have matured, there is no farmland to speak of, no logging. I flushed one last year while deer hunting and it brought some hope to my heart.

Turkeys are the new Canada Geese, flocks on the sides of the highway, public parks, crossing the roads and stopping traffic. I suppose the may also have something to do with the paucity of the other species.

Last year I joined a "hunting club", small group, about 40 members. We lease about 2000+ acres and every year we release 3-400 pheasants. Every weekend there is a release, the birds just fly wherever they want and no one is allowed to pursue them for a couple of hours. It keeps me in contact with other hunters, keeps my head in the game and the tradition alive.

I was once taken to a preserve where we were handed a box of birds and told to "go use that field". Last time I ever went there.

Just this week I came back from a tip to VT where I hunted wild ducks in the early hours and then walked my ass off through some of the finestkind of tough underbrush looking for grouse and woodcock. I had some sucess, not nearly as much game brought home as the preserves but a thousand times the quality of experience. I hope to as much of it as possible. I am surprised if I don't find birds on a preserve but I still find it magical to find them in the wild, as though I'm witness to a secret world.

This is the price I pay to be close to saltwater fishing. Will trade stripers for grouse!

Preserves 80%, wild 20%.

DJ, Don't let these knuckleheads on this board persuade you from writing your article, I know of a few farmers that are running preserves to get some cash flow in order to keep their farms. Make your article the best you can, get people interested in these preserves, color pictures and good action shots of birds and stuff like that, make hunting preserves the new, Microsoft, and if you can do that God Bless Ya!!!!
All the best