For PA pheasant hunters

[savagedasher]

I more then likely am wrong but I feel the use of pesticides and chemicals is the main reason for the decline .
The early 60 they stoped Tilling the soil for Weeds and bugs were controlled by spraying . So the food source and cover was gone or greatly reduced . At the same time they developed hybrid seed . That was insect resistant .
I feel you can't remove the food source and cover . From a species and have it thrive .
Mother Nature has a way of knowing .
Happy New Year Larry

 

[Rem06]

Don't forget to and the income from strip mining, selling the top soil and natural gas wells.

bunch of top political cry babies with full pockets crying for more!

 

[dkhunt14]

Don't forget to and the income from strip mining, selling the top soil and natural gas wells.

I think the DCNR gets the money. I know that when they stand up to the Dept. of forestry and want less doe permits, the DCNR stops writing the checks till they approve what they want. I don't believe they get the license fees either. They get a budget and DCNR PAYS. Thats what I was told. Matt

 

[snert]

There was a farm I hunted back in the 70's. It had lots of pheasant and rabbits. It ran for miles in both directions and was never farmed. Lots of cover and nothing but high brown weeds. They disappeared there also, so I don't think it was farming or cover because that never changed there. Matt

I once asked a retired farmer named Mr. Stamp if I could hunt his 20 acres for rabbits. He was an unhappy sort but since I was 14 and asked, he allowed. It turned out he had mowed walking trails thru the fields. The fields had turned over to what we called "jagger bush"...mostly blackberry vine and weeds. My older cousin brought his beagle, Tuesday, and we limited on rabbit in only hours. We returned two more times in the following year, and once myself after inheriting Tuesday, then he sold out and I went to college in 84. My last beagle died when I was in college. I sure miss the song of a beagle on a bunny, but don't miss the beagle stink!
Now that old farm is covered with condos as far as you can see, and all the others around it near Cranberry PA.

This last summer I had foundation work done on my ancestral home. Part way thru the project I learned from the contractor (who I liked to that point) that he was the project engineer of that development.
I almost shoved him in the ditch.

I sure miss ramming thru the brush till I bled, potting bunny and pheasant with my Model 42. Now I no longer have the legs for it.

 

[hogpatrol]

I more then likely am wrong but I feel the use of pesticides and chemicals is the main reason for the decline .
The early 60 they stoped Tilling the soil for Weeds and bugs were controlled by spraying . So the food source and cover was gone or greatly reduced . At the same time they developed hybrid seed . That was insect resistant .
I feel you can't remove the food source and cover . From a species and have it thrive .
Mother Nature has a way of knowing .
Happy New Year Larry

A lot of contributing factors but it boils down to the resulting loss of habitat.

 

[savagedasher]

A lot of contributing factors but it boils down to the resulting loss of habitat.

Take the feed and habitat away and they don't survive .
Happy New Year to all . Larry

 

[Bugs]

. . . . to return to the OP's original statement, I certainly have issues with the financial situation the Game Commission is in, primarily due to the gravy train state retirement plan and lack of modest fee increases every few years but, relative to pheasant stocking, here is my take. . . .
I have dogs and hunted two different state game lands at least 8 - 10 times this fall and got into birds every time. One game land property is only 10 minutes from home and another is a half hour drive at most. I will gladly pay $10 or even $25 to continue to have that kind of pheasant hunting even if it is "put and take". The days of wild pheasants in Pennsylvania are apparently over for a whole host of reasons.

 

[WyleWD]

Those were some good times, World War Two vets and their sons walking side by side through the fields in search of pheasants and rabbits. When we hunted an Amish farm on first day of small game, it was like the first day of buck. My dad would bring a grocery bag full of Halloween candy for the kids and then he'd slip back behind the barn with a pint for one of the old timers. There was some kind of bogus excuse for those shenanigans but when you're a kid, you pretty much fall for them. We were invited back every year.

MAN!! Does that ever bring back a memory. My Dad was a WWII Marine veteran of 3 different Islands. I remember one of the first years that he took me along hunting back in the early 60's we each got 3 rooster pheasants and a limit of rabbits on a walk through a corn stubble field that is 1300ft long. I remember saying "that was a great hunt huh Dad".

He told me that him and his 4 brothers would have gotten a dozen pheasants and 2 dozen rabbits on that same walk back in the late 30's and when he got home from the South Pacific. I remember him saying "Hell Wayne, there aren't many pheasants or rabbits anymore, and someday this will all be houses and factories." And he was right..... between the 1977 blizzard, the onslaught of the coyotes, and now urban sprawl.... our farm that began in the 1820's is about to be swallowed by civilization. Now "Hunting leases" are starting to become popular near here.

I feel for the hunters.... seems like they pay the bills for diminishing returns. JME. WD

 

[bobinpa]

I feel for the hunters.... seems like they pay the bills for diminishing returns. JME. WD

I can't speak for the decline in pheasants, although I don't think it is any one factor. It is a combination of all of the above, the expanded use of pesticides along with diminishing habitat coupled with higher population of predators. If fur prices were up where they used to be there may be less predators but I doubt that would be the one thing that brings them back. As for the money. The PA game commission is their own worst enemy. We used to have over a million hunters on the first day of the traditional buck season..... Then Gary Alt showed up and he became the deer management specialist. In all of his great wisdom, he thought that he could produce a better deer herd by eliminating most of it. We now have bigger deer and bigger more mature bucks, but a drastically reduced deer and deer hunter population. Alt allowed the harvest of WAY too many deer. In some areas in the northern part of the state the deer herd is almost gone. When there is nothing or very little to hunt, people lose interest and STOP BUYING A HUNTING LICENSE. With a lack of deer, you have a lack of interest and a lack of license sales and a lack of money, so just like everything else this Democratically controlled state does, they turn around and figure the best way to have more money is to do something profound, like raise the rates. Don't do something like try to increase the deer herd, nope, that takes too much work. Don't try to eliminate or greatly reduce coyotes, nope, that too takes too much work......just raise the rates. If they get the pheasant stamp, 5 years from now they will wonder why they are broke again, but they will never admit that when they got the pheasant stamp, it pissed enough guys off that they lost even more license sales and more money...........typical Democratic logic. They continuously try to tax themselves into prosperity and they are too stupid to see that it only works short term.

 

[hogpatrol]

bobinpa, Insightful post. I often wonder if there isn't a conspiracy in PA to do away with hunting. Just about everything the clueless game commission comes up with is detrimental to the sport. Years ago, you carried the regulations in your license holder. Now you need a Philly lawyer to accompany you in the field. The reg book is a byzantine mish mash of hunting areas, each with it's own set of rules and dates. I've sat and listened to the wardens at gun club meetings drone on about the dumbest things imaginable, laws that have no scientific or common sense backing them up yet they talk as if they are reciting gospel from the Bible and disobeying will send you straight to hunter's hell. The last dissertation on the laws was enough to make everyone in the room say the hell with it. From this chair, going on 60 years of PA hunting, unless things change DRASTICALLY, hunting in Pennsy will go the way it has in Jersey, where hunting license sales went from 186,000 in 1971 to 60,000 in 2015. If PA GC thinks it's short of money now, they haven't seen anything yet.

 

[bobinpa]

bobinpa, Insightful post. I often wonder if there isn't a conspiracy in PA to do away with hunting. Just about everything the clueless game commission comes up with is detrimental to the sport. Years ago, you carried the regulations in your license holder. Now you need a Philly lawyer to accompany you in the field. The reg book is a byzantine mish mash of hunting areas, each with it's own set of rules and dates. I've sat and listened to the wardens at gun club meetings drone on about the dumbest things imaginable, laws that have no scientific or common sense backing them up yet they talk as if they are reciting gospel from the Bible and disobeying will send you straight to hunter's hell. The last dissertation on the laws was enough to make everyone in the room say the hell with it. From this chair, going on 60 years of PA hunting, unless things change DRASTICALLY, hunting in Pennsy will go the way it has in Jersey, where hunting license sales went from 186,000 in 1971 to 60,000 in 2015. If PA GC thinks it's short of money now, they haven't seen anything yet.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I remember good old Eddy Rendell (another Democrat) being questioned about some of his decisions concerning things the game commission were doing while Gary Alt was in there. It was in an interview and he was asked how he felt the game commissions decisions would effect small towns in northern PA. For example, a lot of mom and pop stores were really hurt by the decline of business from the decline of deer hunting and camps. His answer was that "those people will eventually find something else to do". "Everything changes". He is the nitwit that came up with "Pennsylvania wilds region" as an answer to declining deer hunting. Since deer hunting went away, he wanted to bring more tourism to the northern tier of the state..... Truly a shame and I have heard he is still pushing things from behind the scenes.

 

[snert]

bobinpa, Insightful post. I often wonder if there isn't a conspiracy in PA to do away with hunting. Just about everything the clueless game commission comes up with is detrimental to the sport. Years ago, you carried the regulations in your license holder. Now you need a Philly lawyer to accompany you in the field. The reg book is a byzantine mish mash of hunting areas, each with it's own set of rules and dates. I've sat and listened to the wardens at gun club meetings drone on about the dumbest things imaginable, laws that have no scientific or common sense backing them up yet they talk as if they are reciting gospel from the Bible and disobeying will send you straight to hunter's hell. The last dissertation on the laws was enough to make everyone in the room say the hell with it. From this chair, going on 60 years of PA hunting, unless things change DRASTICALLY, hunting in Pennsy will go the way it has in Jersey, where hunting license sales went from 186,000 in 1971 to 60,000 in 2015. If PA GC thinks it's short of money now, they haven't seen anything yet.

That is the way it is in NY. i keep saying PA is only 20 years behind NY in the swirl, heading down the toilet. They keep doing the same stupid stuff done here, expecting different results.

One observation though...i have noted that the "woods" in northern PA has changed dramatically since I hunted it in the late 70's. Now the deer are in the suburbs, and that is NOT because of PGC. It is because that is where they can eat. Ain't no food in the mountains no more...trees are high, clearcuts are not as much as past, so no food, no deer.

Similar here. "Woods" I hunted 20 years ago and had to shove thru wearing rabbit hunting clothes can now be walked in like a park. When so much land changes over due to different farming, different economic factors and different needs, trees grow, food goes away and it does not support deer.(or rabbits, grouse, woodcock, fox etc)