The pheasant heyday in Pa. was in the late 60's to mid 70's. The eastern part as stated was the best. In the area near Allentown, near Copley, Ironton, Nazareth, you could hunt all day and find birds. Naturally it was more hens than cocks, but the dogs had a great time finding them.
There was a lot of open land, naturally asking permission, with a lot of hedgerows, alfalfa fields, cut corn, and a lot of soybeans. The only time the farmers didn't want the dogs in the soybean was near harvest, and they would post signs to keep dogs out. The state had a program back then to stock 5-6 week old birds, by the time the season came they were wild. The other big thing back then was that fox fur brought some money and so stopped some predation.
In my opinion, it all went down hill when the state mandated that all new wardens had to be college graduates (more money out of bird progagation), no more July-August young bird stockings, fur prices fell, etc.
Some of these same areas had the same cover and food, but now there were no birds.
I had replied back to a post a while back about Pa. being the pheasant capital of the U.S., I believe in 1970 or 71, with over a million birds harvested. South Dakota had a very bad year with a lot of spring rains, and was maybe 3 or 4 in the runnings.
The only way to find pheasants now is to buy them to hunt. The state stocking program for the entire state is less than 150,000 I believe.
What a shame, the state is nmore interested in big game and doesn't care about pheasants.
