doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Pen-Raised Game-Bird Percentages?

All those eastern birds are just like the eastern human population - government dependent! Go west young hunter, there isn't a pen raised Gambel's quail, Mearn's Quail, California Valley Quail or Scaled Quail in the whole state of Arizona. Born free and tougher to prove it. No government handouts for these birds. Of course the terrain isn't especially friendly to man or dog but you learn. Just make sure you pick a year when there was adequate rainfall in the Feb, Mar window. Boots for the dogs and pliers to pull the cholla spines. November or later to avoid the heat.

Almost forgot we have Blue Grouse too. They prefer 8000ft plus elevation so how are your lungs, legs and heart?

What! Sounds like trash talk to me...Geo

Well westerners have the luxury of walking a mile to find a bird. Easterners would have to ask for permission from six land owners at the minimum or more to walk across a mile to find a bird.

Pheasants almost certainly rely on trends in agriculture more than any of our other upland birds. CRP reversed a decline in pheasant numbers and gave us an additional couple decades' worth of really good hunting. The confluence of a tight economy with less govt money available and high commodity prices is rapidly reducing those gains.

There are various reasons to rejoice that one has reached seasoned citizen status. One of mine is that I lived through years of truly excellent pheasant numbers, and was fortunate enough to have a lot of time to hunt them. And I'm also old enough to remember when Iowa still had good numbers of both quail and ruffed grouse.

A quick internet search indicates there are many Arizona "hunting preserves" that offer both Pheasant and Chukar hunting.

Jerry,

Perhaps not related but..


I belong to 2 clubs in southern NY, neither of them "High end" clubs but rather workingman's clubs. Both release pheasants 3 times a week and both have a 60% harvest rate.

All clubs here in the Hudson Valley are pen raised birds, no alternative.

Probably says more about the shooting we get than anything else.

I think the state of Illinois releases about 80,000 pheasants annually as part of their "Controlled Pheasant Hunt" program. Hunters pay $30-$35 per day for the ability to take two birds of either sex, on certain state land.

To the best of my knowledge Missouri doesn't release any quail or pheasants.

Interestingly, Missouri regularly stocks "farm-raised trout,"
while Illinois does not. So, we trout fish in Missouri, and pheasant hunt in Illinois...

JERRY

jerry66stl,

You are correct. There are some plant and shoot pheasant and chukar locations in Arizona. We use one of them for the Jr. Pheasant hunt which is setup by Game and Fish in conjunction with the Wild Turkey Federation for about 90 youngsters selected by lottery from the year's Hunter Education courses better performing graduates as recommended by their instructors. About half of this state is not privately owned so there is plenty of room to hunt wild birds. Our problem is we have been in a less than normal rainfall pattern for about the last 10 years and rainfall here is the key to plentiful quail. With a couple years in a row of decent winter rainfall the situation changes into really great bird hunting. They need the small greens the rain brings for the hens to come into egg laying condition and the young need the small insects once they hatch. There have been boom years when I encountered coveys upwards of 300 birds. Right now I will only take a bird or two to keep my dog happy as the breeding stock is pretty low in the desert. Plenty in town around the golf courses though.

Wild birds are losing cover fast, to the tune of 9.7 million acres in the last 5 years.. It's likely to get worse.

http://www.bigpictureagriculture.com/201...-years-334.html