Phesant Shooting

E@gle.

Dont know if there is any phesant shooters here but just wondering if anyone is doing good this season.

Terrier

My Club has only returned 9 birds (male) so far this season.
Although sighting of hens has reached 30+ .
Male sighting are at about 10+ (either seen or to young to be shot)
These are only about 5 major game shooters within the club.
This does not include conservation areas, which are yielding a large number of birds. We are not introducing pen reared birds until next year, in order to improve survival rate, also a substantial vermin control programme since Oct 2003 has also seen bird numbers increase. But worries have been expressed at the number of hens over males. Out of two nesting birds only 1 out of 8 chicks was male.

civdef

Down my way (Laois) it's been a good season so far, plenty of Cock Pheasants about the place.

Pull!theother1

Terrier wrote:

My Club has only returned 9 birds (male) so far this season.
Although sighting of hens has reached 30+ .
Male sighting are at about 10+ (either seen or to young to be shot)
These are only about 5 major game shooters within the club.
This does not include conservation areas, which are yielding a large number of birds. We are not introducing pen reared birds until next year, in order to improve survival rate, also a substantial vermin control programme since Oct 2003 has also seen bird numbers increase. But worries have been expressed at the number of hens over males. Out of two nesting birds only 1 out of 8 chicks was male.

Dont worry, one cock pheasant can easily cover 6 to 10 hens.

On the wild bird front, east Galway has seen a good year so far and birds have been well grown and wild as hell.

On the reared bird scene, any shoots I have been on so far have had good well developed birds although late released birds have not thrived quite as well as the early ones.

I shot birds in mid-October in Northern Ireland (yes, it is legal), which some shooters tried to say were a few years old but which were actualy this years release. So given the right conditions they will thrive and I wonder how long they realy live?

E@gle.

It has been the opposite for me. i have seen about 20 phesants so far this season and only about two of them were hen Phesant.

allnight_2002

So far I have had a pretty good year. Got 3 phesants on the opening day. there were good returns for all members of of my club. Cork area.