# Rare sighting, yea.



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Week ago tomorrow we went and drove in our last T post for the fence. I drove the tractor with the tools needed for the job down the road and back along the line. 

Kare cut across about 25 yards of our orginal property and the 330 feet of thre new place. Gets where i am waiting for her and she says she saw Rooster Phesant while crossing over. As she finished telling me it crowed.










I never seen it and that was the last I heard it till Sunday morning then I heard it I believe about a 1/4 mile away.

This evening we were walking out to the barn to walk the dogs there evening one and feed them with new fresh water. I look off to the south tward the pond and there is a rooster phesant running down a trail I have going east across there. 

I go to the barn when it diappered in the woods and got my baby girl a shri pei Mix and go down and cross the culvert at the pond walking down along the horse pasture trail. Get nearly to the back of the place and see two rooster phesants in the corner of the horse pasture fighting each other. They were lighter colored than what we saw going to the barn. 

I believe some one turned a bunch loose near by. Surprized we have not seen any hens though.
Recently there was a new story the Mich. DNR was going to work with Phesants Forever to try to increase their numbers.

This are once was the phesant hunting capital of Michigan.

This is the first birds I have seen in the area since Jan 2015 when a pair of hens and a rooster were in the back yard eatting Mountian Ash berries


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## snowlady (Aug 1, 2011)

It’s been a long time since we’ve see pheasants regularly. I saw a hen on the edge of out timber earlier this spring.


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## secondhandacres (Nov 6, 2017)

I haven’t seen a wild pheasant, quail or chucker here in southern Ohio since I was kid hunting with my grandpa. I have no idea why we still have a open season for them here, best I can tell there’s none to shoot. I would really like to help the population out but from what I read hatching and releasing any of those game birds to the wild don’t work real well. Anybody have a better idea?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I have a friend who raises about 75 per year and has a lot running wild in his area. He releases them just about as soon as they can fly on their own.

 Al


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## Irish Pixie (May 14, 2002)

The NY DEC used to release pheasants near where I lived as a young teen. I'd be riding my horse along the edge of a field and have have five or six explode all around (and underneath) us. That gave some very, very interesting rides. 

I haven't seen a pheasant in 40 years, thanks for the memories.


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## Fishindude (May 19, 2015)

Cool !
They are fairly uncommon here too, but I've seen a half dozen pheasant over the last couple weeks. Hopefully making a comeback.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

They can't survive in the wild here.
The state has tried to stock them but for some reason it never works.


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## Forcast (Apr 15, 2014)

alleyyooper said:


> I have a friend who raises about 75 per year and has a lot running wild in his area. He releases them just about as soon as they can fly on their own.
> 
> Al


When i was a kid Dad brought home 4 kets. In Baltimore no less. Raised them up. One day while feeding I opened the cage door and wham up and out they went. I remember being sad and happy at the same time.


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## Oregon1986 (Apr 25, 2017)

We have pheasants here,beautiful birds


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I Find it intresting when I looked up when the first phesants were stocked in Michigan 101 years ago. the pheasant is a bird fron Asia (china).

article_25379260-c8de-59f0-98f5-fc4203ebcee4.html

It became the most hunted bird here in Michigan and other states over time.

the phesant population here in Michigan was effected by the use of DDT as were other egg laying birds like the bald Eagales.
Also fence row habit cover was being removed by farmer who no longer framed smaller fields and raised cattle. today there is no need for fences. Nearly all cover disappered quickly in the 1960's and 1970's.

There did remain pockets of the wild game birds. One such area was where I live. Farmer raised corn and soy beens to my north and east, across the road also. With our now combined property there was lots of nesting cover for them. We had a few in the area for about 20 years.

The population of racoons rose when the hides became worth less so no one was trapping them nor hunting them to keep the population down.
Then a winter came I seem to remember it being 1996 we had a 3 day ice storm on top of the snow and a very cold streach came. The phesants could not burrow in the snow for shelter from the cold. I found a number of frozen phesants as well as screech owls who starved because they could not get to the mice under the ice.


 Al


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## Grafton County Couple (Sep 20, 2018)

NH buys/stocks them annually.


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## Weedygarden (Mar 16, 2011)

South Dakota has a very successful pheasant hunting season. A couple of my relatives have hunting lodges. 
One cousin raises pheasants that are released for the hunting parties that come from all over the country to their place. You can order them and have them delivered just like ordering chickens. Pheasants are not easy to hatch out in an incubator.

Another cousin manages property for his daughter and her husband's family. They had a lodge built, that is only for their family. They have around 1,000 acres that has been developed with food plots for animals, 3 shelter belts and a dry creek that they began dropping rocks at the lower end that they found on the property. They got the state involved to help them build a dam where they had been dropping rock, now they have a good sized body of water where all kinds of birds come. It is well stocked with fish as well. They have a few weekends a year with the family for hunting. There are a couple dozen people in the husbands family between his siblings, spouses, children and their spouses and grandchildren. I was on this property in 2015 and saw lots of pheasants and some white tail deer.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Michigan used to do a program called put and take.
Guys would follow the truck around and shoot them as fast as they were put out.

 Al


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## Forcast (Apr 15, 2014)

Few years back I wanted to order from hatchery...but in alot of states you have to have a document from DNR in order to order.


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## secondhandacres (Nov 6, 2017)

In Ohio your required to have a game bird license to keep them. They have two different options for license too, one for personal consumption the other for breeders. I think if you plan the release them to the wild it requires more red tape from the game warden as well. To much government involvement for me


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I will have to talk to my friend that raises them. I always figured he bought a mixed run of chicks, he would many times say to me. Well Al I am going to Marlette to get some phesant chicks, so I don't know if he needs any paper work or not.

then when they get where they can fly he just opens the pen up so they can come and go as they wish like free range chickens so to speak.
He says they keep comeing back for about a month then they stop going in the pen for the night and hunker down different places around his garden and the woods.


 Al


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