...AND THE WEATHER TAKETH AWAY

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Brett Hoop

Nice that you gave it a go anyway. The weather has been all over the place in western PA. New Year's Day I took Buzzy, my Setter pup, to see if we could find a pheasant. He did, and functioned just fine, pinning a cock in a wooded field edge. I circled ahead trapping around and flushed the bird, the pup stood while I watched as best I could to see where it went. Half an hour latter Buzzy found the same bird for a replay. I could have taken the bird, for me it's better to have him maybe still be around for another day. This was Buzzy's first pheasant experience, and his grouse and woodcock education seems to have his belief system operating so that all birds live in the woods not those boring fields we have to walk through to get to the thickets. Hopeful we can get out a time or two yet.

Brett,

I'm glad to read that you have been able to get out...and find birds. It sure makes the future look good when a pup shows promise. It's easier to live through the off season when you are looking forward to the next phase of your pup's development. Got any pictures of Buzzy?

[Dean Romig]

Picture #4 really brings me back to my early days in eastern Massachusetts when there seemed to be pheasants everywhere. In fact, our flocks often doubled or tripled the size of that one. They were about gone by the mid-seventies.






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[mobirdhunter]

Dean,
How often do you find yourself lamenting changes for the worse in matters relating to hunting opportunities? I read similar lamentations in sporting books from past generations of sporting authors. It makes one wonder what the next generations will find...or even if they will care.

BTW, Southern Iowa is not a pheasant destination, but we did ride by a field with about three dozen pheasants and an equal number of turkeys gleaning beans. Back in the late 80s, we’d see 75-100 pheasants on open ground feeding in conditions like we have had recently.

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Garry L Gordon

Dean,
How often do you find yourself lamenting changes for the worse in matters relating to hunting opportunities? I read similar lamentations in sporting books from past generations of sporting authors. It makes one wonder what the next generations will find...or even if they will care.

Practically speaking, there is no comparison. Aside from the biological disappearance of pheasants, habitat loss would have done it nearly as quickly. Most farmland has been sold off to developers for industry, retail, and housing developments. When I drive along the streets of towns in the area where I grew up it is difficult to imagine they were once strongholds for a diversity of upland game and property owners back then were more than happy to allow hunting as long as respect was shown for the landowner and his livestock and equipment.
Most towns and cities in eastern Massachusetts have outlawed the discharge of firearms today with more following suit every year. Mid-state and the western part of the state haven't suffered these problems so much but Massachusetts politics and urban mores will eventually overrun the entire state one day.

I get to go back only in my memories these days and when I want to hunt unencumbered like in the old days, I drive a couple of hours to Vermont or Maine where, just like in the 50's and 60's in Mass., I can be hunting when I step out the door on a frosty morning...





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[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

I get to go back only in my memories these days and when I want to hunt unencumbered like in the old days, I drive a couple of hours to Vermont or Maine where, just like in the 50's and 60's, I can be hunting when I step out the door on a frosty morning...
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I'm glad you still have places you can go...and your memories.

Where we live more and more fence rows are being bulldozed, and more fescue planted. Much land is tied up by leasing deer hunters (although CWD is dampening some of that activity). Still, the population in the two most northerly tier of counties in Missouri has a population lower than it did in 1900. We are part of the flyover lands...thank God(!).

[Brett Hoop]

Originally Posted by Garry L Gordon

Brett,

I'm glad to read that you have been able to get out...and find birds. It sure makes the future look good when a pup shows promise. It's easier to live through the off season when you are looking forward to the next phase of your pup's development. Got any pictures of Buzzy?

Garry

Yes I have more pictures of Buzzy than of my second child. But I need one of my kids to help me with posting pictures, and they don't visit all that often.