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Originally Posted by Mike Koneski
Well done Steve!! Too bad the only way we get pheasants in PA anymore is via preserves or the PGC stocking on the SGLs. As a kid I would hunt my pappy's farm and would walk home with two roosters and up to six rabbits every day during the small game season. His farm was loaded with small game. Farming practices, land use, predator control/trapping decline all contributed to the demise of the wild pheasant here.
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We can add the total protection of hawks and owls as one of the major decline factors. Now that the leaves are off you can't drive more than a mile or so without seeing a hawk on a perch waiting for its next meal. Wasn't so long ago the back cover of the PGC's
Pennsylvania Game News urged hunters to take those "vicious predators of small game on sight".
Nowadays, PA Pheasant "stocking" is usually replete with fellas following the schedule for the stocking trucks and that’s become the game bird equivalent of trout stocking with a fishing frenzy for a day or so after each dump of trout. Anyone out in the pheasant stocking areas will see plenty of road hunters cruising for birds. Also sad that many otherwise healthy hunters won't walk more than a hundred yards or so and will just concentrate on the easy ones. Much has changed here in PA and not for the better.