RE: PHEASANT without a Dog
 

Codydawg, what does wild and pen-raised birds have to do with this topic? Just a question, not a smart a$$ remark~!!!!

RE: PHEASANT without a Dog
 

Milwakee area is probably where I will end up.

"poor cover and depleating land" Shoot, that sounds like PA.

Is there any place in WI that has wild birds?

Is the public land crowded? Here it is nothing to have 20 to 50 groups of hunters pass through the same field before noon.

RE: PHEASANT without a Dog
 

I dont believe the original poster was asking about pen raised birds. He wanted to know tricks to shoot wild roosters, IMO. Hunting tactics that can be used successfully on pen raised birds will not work on wild birds. Wild birds are much harder to kill and recover, thus if someone were to take the same types of shots with wild birds, the recovery rate would be much less. Thus, I believe you need to approach hunting wild roos differently than pen raised roos.

RE: PHEASANT without a Dog
 

codydawg, where does it say in toons topic, anything about wild or pen- raised birds?

-Springer2000, where in the milwaukee area will you be, I am about 15 minutes from it, Germantown, WI. There are a lot of hunters early in the season, who go for about two days, then the fields are not really crowded, but you have to be in the feilds at about 7:00. There are defenitly wild birds. We have shot a number of them on public land. But, most of the wild pheasants are on private land, so I suggest you make freinds, and hunt on their land, or buy your own, making sure you have a good population of birds. A lot of pheasants have died over the past 10-15 years because of lack of funding. For about 10 years wisconsin has been reintroducing wild turkeys to wisconsin, and now I am glad to say, We are about 5th or 6th in total amount of wild turkeys in the country. And now, with all of this chronic wasting disease, there is not a lot of money left. Hopefully in a couple of years, wisconsin will start to re introduce wild pheasants, and have a nice steady population again. Some places you might want to look for public hunting spots are in theresa marsh, Horicon marsh, Northern kettle moraine, and southern kettle moraine. I can ndefenitally say we don't have nearly that much hunting pressure up here as you do. The cover isnt terrible, in fact there are lots of good cover, just lack of funding is why there are not a lot of wild birds.

RE: PHEASANT without a Dog
 

Hello:

Hunting Pheasants without a dog isn't difficult and if you are proficient with your shotgun, you will not wound and loose any more birds than anyone else. We trek to South Dakota every year and do exceptional without the help of a dog. This year my friend and I in our 5 days of hunting left with 26 birds, and the other two in our party sucessfully got 24 birds. Not bad considering the pheasant populations are down and there were a lot of hunters. As far as Wisconsin as a Pheasant state, I remember long ago their were some decent birds in Wisconsin, but this state will not see the numbers or the hunting for pheasants no matter what amount of funding is spent. We have too many preditors, not anywhere enough habitat, no gravel roads to speak of, and the state is now to overly populated with people and developement to ever realize good pheasant hunting again. South Dakota and Iowa still have what it takes to raise plenty of pheasants as long as the States game departments continue proper management. Wisconsin have very few wild pheasants left at all, and the majority of pheasants that are found are ones that were released and were lucky enough to make it.

Bill(WI)

RE: PHEASANT without a Dog
 

If you are hunting public land in SD you are hunting wild birds. If you are paying to hunt I would just about be sure that you are shooting pen raised from Minnesota and Wisconsin game farms. Over the years I have watched the commercial interests in this state stock the pen raised birds because they can't possibly raise enough wild birds to accomodate the influx of Nonresidents to kill a few birds. Back in the late 50s and early 60s you could shoot 5 or 6 birds in a couple hours about anywhere and they were all wild birds.

RE: PHEASANT without a Dog
 

you have to understand that I don't pay for pheasant hunting, we go on to public land, where it may have been worked 5 or 6 times already, looking for birds. I think game farms are a waste of money.

RE: PHEASANT without a Dog
 

Well guys i want to thank you all for all the tips and info.,Also i want to say that i got 10 pheasents during the season which is my first pheasent season ever.
At the end,The main point is i enjoyed evry moment even when it was long and steep up and down hills walks,which made it very challenging. <img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle>

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