Wild Pheasants

Wolfhillbilly

I was just reading a post from stevoman in another thread regarding the shooting of hen pheasants. stevoman is advising that hen pheasants are not to be shot. That is the practice on my own (very small) shoot but I was just wondering in general what the practice is these days. I was brought up not shooting hens because - as stevoman says - the stock is needed for the following year. However that was also because we were shooting wild birds and up north at least, the numbers of genuinely wild birds must be close to zero.
Is there anybody who doesn't put their own birds down on their rough shoot and relies solely on wild stock? There is only one place that I shoot that I would say has genuine wild birds on it and they are few and far between.
As it happens I still don't shoot hens, even though I will be buying new stock next year, (there's something that doesn't feel right about it to me) but I know plenty of shoots where hens are shot. I'm just wondering what the experience of other shooters is around the country regarding wild birds.
On a slightly different issue, only one year of the last six has any of my hen pheasants actually bred and raised a clutch. Every other year, despite there being plenty of hens left over, they don't breed (which may make a good case for shooting them anyway!) I have heard that birds raised from an incubator won't breed in the wild, although I'm not sure if this is an old tale or not. Anyone got a similar experience?

patrickdt10

Wolfhillbilly wrote: »

I was just reading a post from stevoman in another thread regarding the shooting of hen pheasants. stevoman is advising that hen pheasants are not to be shot. That is the practice on my own (very small) shoot but I was just wondering in general what the practice is these days. I was brought up not shooting hens because - as stevoman says - the stock is needed for the following year. However that was also because we were shooting wild birds and up north at least, the numbers of genuinely wild birds must be close to zero.
Is there anybody who doesn't put their own birds down on their rough shoot and relies solely on wild stock? There is only one place that I shoot that I would say has genuine wild birds on it and they are few and far between.
As it happens I still don't shoot hens, even though I will be buying new stock next year, (there's something that doesn't feel right about it to me) but I know plenty of shoots where hens are shot. I'm just wondering what the experience of other shooters is around the country regarding wild birds.
On a slightly different issue, only one year of the last six has any of my hen pheasants actually bred and raised a clutch. Every other year, despite there being plenty of hens left over, they don't breed (which may make a good case for shooting them anyway!) I have heard that birds raised from an incubator won't breed in the wild, although I'm not sure if this is an old tale or not. Anyone got a similar experience?

totally wild birds all over down here in sligo! + its illegal down here. wouldnt shoot a hen even if it was legal, nextyears stock! did ye hear about the govt proposal to make it legal to shoot hens? the rep of ireland is the only country that affords the hen full protection.

meathstevie

patrickdt10 wrote: »

totally wild birds all over down here in sligo! + its illegal down here. wouldnt shoot a hen even if it was legal, nextyears stock! did ye hear about the govt proposal to make it legal to shoot hens? the rep of ireland is the only country that affords the hen full protection.

I only know the situation in Belgium for sure. In the Flanders region it's illegal to release any birds and hens are hunted. Most areas in the region have an abundance of pheasants. In my books it's all down to game management, feeding, poaching control and vermin control. Recently the reappearance ( allegedly helped by so called nature lovers ) of the fox all over the region is starting to cause problems, made worse by a strict prohibition on any nighttime shooting.

jwshooter

patrickdt10 wrote: »

totally wild birds all over down here in sligo! + its illegal down here. wouldnt shoot a hen even if it was legal, nextyears stock! did ye hear about the govt proposal to make it legal to shoot hens? the rep of ireland is the only country that affords the hen full protection.

it is the nargc wanting a introduction of shooting hens ,not the government .any club or syndicate can apply for a section 42 to shoot hens from the npws .i think where clubs are putting down birds hens should be shot if they want to shoot them ,as only 2 percent of hens will bring a chick to maturity and a pheasant will only live till about 4 years

ejg

We tag all our pheasant that are released. Very seldom is a tag brought back. I shoot around 15 -20 pheasant a year, maybe every second year a tag. I observe pheasant when out foxing all summer long and I think in our club we have way more wild pheasant. I don't shoot hens, although the odd black hen with a long tail against the sun has ended in the bag.
The best way of increasing the pheasant population is through strong vermin controll, at least in our club. All depends a bit on club lands.
edi

NoNameRanger

jwshooter wrote: »

it is the nargc wanting a introduction of shooting hens ,not the government .any club or syndicate can apply for a section 42 to shoot hens from the npws .i think where clubs are putting down birds hens should be shot if they want to shoot them ,as only 2 percent of hens will bring a chick to maturity and a pheasant will only live till about 4 years

It is illegal to shoot hen pheasants unless under licence, to get a licence over 250 pen reared birds must be released and there must be a substantially higher proportion of hen's. It's not section 42 of the act though. Oddly enough it was the NARGC that pushed to have hens protected many years ago. Isn't it odd that they/he is now pressing to have that protection removed:rolleyes:. Somebody is looking for easy shooting, next he'll/they'll be looking to shoot sanctuaries, reserves and national parks. :rolleyes: Oh yeah, he/they have already and spent huge amounts of NARGC funds in legal bills in the process:mad:. Game Conservation my ar5e.:mad:

Mellor

Here we shot only wild birds. And obviously not hens

alan123

They shoot hens on driven shoots so there must be some sort of exception for reared birds?? I dont see the harm as long as the wild population is monitored and supplemented.

jwshooter

NoNameRanger wrote: »

It is illegal to shoot hen pheasants unless under licence, to get a licence over 250 pen reared birds must be released and there must be a substantially higher proportion of hen's. It's not section 42 of the act though. Oddly enough it was the NARGC that pushed to have hens protected many years ago. Isn't it odd that they/he is now pressing to have that protection removed:rolleyes:. Somebody is looking for easy shooting, next he'll/they'll be looking to shoot sanctuaries, reserves and national parks. :rolleyes: Oh yeah, he/they have already and spent huge amounts of NARGC funds in legal bills in the process:mad:. Game Conservation my ar5e.:mad:

who is the he ,you are referring to nnr

meathstevie

ejg wrote: »

We tag all our pheasant that are released. Very seldom is a tag brought back. I shoot around 15 -20 pheasant a year, maybe every second year a tag. I observe pheasant when out foxing all summer long and I think in our club we have way more wild pheasant. I don't shoot hens, although the odd black hen with a long tail against the sun has ended in the bag.
The best way of increasing the pheasant population is through strong vermin controll, at least in our club. All depends a bit on club lands.
edi

It depends more than a bit on lands. If there isn't a suitable habitat for a particular animal it's full stop end of story.

cavan shooter

First and foremost I dont shoot hens nor does anyone I know....

However to open up this debate a bit her goes. We release hens and cocks hens on alternative years. My Father and the older lads maintain that similiarly to the argument about shooting Does (as in deer, a female deer) that the older birds stop the younger birds from mating and that the hen population should be controlled

Well as I pointed out as a pheasant gets up you cant shout after it "Hey how old are ye"

We buy in hens in spring and release cocks in October

Terrier

Mellor wrote: »

Here we shot only wild birds. And obviously not hens

How do you know there wild birds?
Our club released 120 birds last year with wing tags with contact details, one was shot over 20 miles from its release point.

This year we released 175 birds with no tags.. released birds do move around so whos to say you haven't been shooting released stock

Mellor

Terrier wrote: »

How do you know there wild birds?
Our club released 120 birds last year with wing tags with contact details, one was shot over 20 miles from its release point.

This year we released 175 birds with no tags.. released birds do move around so whos to say you haven't been shooting released stock

Well, never heard one with a tag being shot. And this is over a 50 year span shooting the same fields (not me personally, but family). One one section of the land (small art not near the others) a large estate nearby realeased its own birds for driven shoots. I'm sure that these would of flew from the estate from time to time, and into the wild stocks nearby. But the estate has since stopped the shoots

Auldloon

Local club has never released birds but a club about 10 miles away released some michigan blues a few years back. Second year after they started releasing we noticed lots of the birds we were getting had a hint of blue so some cross breeding maybe?

pullandbang

I'm in three clubs in Meath and from what I've seen there are no wild birds left, apart from a few really wild hoors around the bog.

All the birds shot this year so far have been club birds and in three days shooting I've seen one hen pheasant. I'm convinced the clubs should let out a heap of hens after the season. Even if they don't all breed, they'll at least hold any remaining cocks in the area.

I had a good one last Sunday.

My dog flushed two cocks about 100 yards ahead of me (she had gone ahead on a retrieve). One cock flew left along the ditch he was on right down to the far corner of it and flew in. We followed him up and it took us about 6 or 7 minutes to get to him. As we came to where he was, out ran a big fox and scarpered - we didn't get a shot at him.

Anyway, my dog set in the corner and I went in to have a look. I could see the cock at the bottom of the ditch with my dog standing on top of the ditch looking down. There was no movement from the cock and I couldn't see his head. I climbed down and there he was, stone dead and headless! He was still warm and there wasn't a mark on him apart from missing his head.

He'd obviously flown the length of the ditch and was unfortunate enough to drop in just where Mr. Fox was waiting!:eek:
The fox must have thought all his birthdays had come together:D

The cock is now hanging in my fridge waiting to be skinned:)