October 21st is the opening of pheasant season in our area. It is not the big event that it once was in this region. If you were to jump into the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman and they took you back to the mid-1960’s on the opening day of pheasant season in Monroe County you would see hundreds of bird hunters with their dogs parked in front of every huntable field in the county. It was a major event. Back then all the hunting seasons started on Mondays, so you had to take the day off to hunt anything on the opener. On the opening day of pheasant season some area schools even gave their students the day off. I remember being jealous of my cousins in Spencerport because their school gave them the opener off. My parents wouldn’t let me take the day off from school and I always had to wait until the first Saturday. If you’d seen my grades you would know why.
When I was in my teens on the first Saturday of the pheasant season I would walk three blocks up Bonesteel Street and get on an RTS bus that ran on Ridge Road with my shotgun…. true! They would let me on the bus with my shotgun. The shotgun was in a gun case, but still! I would take that bus west all the way to the end of the line at the intersection of Ridge and Manitou Roads. From there I would hunt my way across the back fields to my cousin’s house on Webster Road in Spencerport. Ah those were the days (add emojis of whitehead here)!
But enough about the good old days, let us live in the here and now. The wild ring-necks are all but gone in New York now. I noticed on the D.E.C. web site that they claim there are still huntable pockets of wild pheasant in the state, but if that’s true these pockets must also be where Bigfoot is hanging out as well. I don’t know of anybody that has found these pockets of wild birds and I know a lot of bird hunters. What the D.E.C has done to rectify the fact that all the wild pheasants are gone is to implement a pheasant release program; the only way to keep pheasant hunting alive in the state. We here in Western New York are in the D.E.C Region 8. Here is a list of release sites in Region 8, pardon me as I copy and paste:
Pheasant Release Sites
Annually, about 30,000 adult pheasants are raised on the Richard E. Reynolds game farm in Ithaca and released just prior to and during the fall pheasant hunting season.
Region 8 – Rochester/Western Finger Lakes
For further information on release sites contact: Bureau of Wildlife
– Avon Office at 585-226-5380
– Bath Office at 607-776-2165
Chemung County
•Veteran – Bill Winkky Farm, Ridge Rd.; Permission required; Park in designated area; Limited to 2 vehicles – 4 hunters maximum (RS)
•Veteran – Dick Winkky Farm, Veteran Hill Rd.; Permission required; Park in designated area; Limited to 2 vehicles – 4 hunters maximum (RS)
•Veteran – Dick Winkky Farm, Dann Blvd.; Permission required; Park in designated area; Limited to 2 vehicles – 4 hunters maximum (RS)
•Chemung – Maple Hill State Forest (RS)
Genesee, Niagara County
•Alabama, Royalton – Tonawanda Wildlife Management Area; Closed to pheasant hunting on Tuesdays and Fridays (YH, RS)
Genesee County
•Alabama – John White Wildlife Management Area (RS)
•Darien – Darien Lake State Park (YH, RS)
•Oakfield, Alabama – Oak Orchard Wildlife Management Area; Closed to pheasant hunting on Tuesdays and Fridays (YH, RS)
Livingston County
•Livonia – Hemlock-Canadice State Forest – North end of Hemlock Lake (YH, RS)
•Springwater – Hemlock-Canadice State Forest – South end of Hemlock Lake (YH, RS)
•Sonyea – Sonyea State Forest; north end of Union Corners Rd. off of Presbyterian Rd. Do not enter through Department of Corrections property. (RS)
Monroe County
•Greece, Parma – Braddock Bay Wildlife Management Area (YH, RS)
Ontario, Yates Counties
•Naples, Italy – High Tor Wildlife Management Area (YH, RS)
Ontario County
•Richmond/Canadice – Honeoye Inlet Wildlife Management Area (RS)
Seneca County
•Fayette – Poorman Farm, Poorman Rd. off Rt. 414 (RS)
•Lodi – Finger Lakes National Forest – Area around Lodi Center Rd. (County Rte. 137), Neal Rd., Smith Rd., and Dean Rd. (RS)
Schuyler County
•Hector – Finger Lakes National Forest – Satterly Hill Rd. (RS)
Steuben County
•Tuscarora – Nichols Farm on Thompson Rd. (YH, RS)
•Tuscarora – Carpenter property; southwest corner of Liberty Pole and South Hill Clendenning Rd. (County Route 5). Landowner permission required. (RS)
Here in Monroe County the only location I see on the list is the Braddock Bay Wildlife Management Area, just off the Lake Ontario Parkway. That place will be standing room only on the 21st and there be more orange showing in the field than in a hundred-acre pumpkin patch. This is not really hunting, in my opinion, but for those who have bird dogs it’s their only option in the state other than paying to hunt on a game farm. Pen-raised birds are not much wilder than chickens and if, by some miracle, they make it through the army of hunters chasing them they won’t make it very long on their own. They just aren’t wild enough and most don’t even know how to feed on their own in the wild. They quickly become an easy meal for the thousands of predators we have in this state.
In my opinion, the horde of predators here is the major reason for the demise of the wild ring-neck pheasant in our area. The D.E.C will say it is lack of habitat, but if that were the case why wouldn’t there still be pheasants in those areas where the habitat hasn’t changed in forty years? We have far too many predators here. Just to make my case here is a list of predators that eat pheasants or their eggs in Western New York: coyote, red fox, grey fox, great horned owl, red-tail hawk, crow, raccoon, opossum, skunk, mink and weasel, feral cats and, of course, man. Many of these are nest predators which are actually worse than say a coyote because a raccoon, opossum or skunk can’t catch or kill a full-grown pheasant; but they sure love their eggs and come nightfall in the spring that is right where they start shopping by searching for ground-nesting pheasants’ eggs, destroying the whole clutch.
The D.E.C. is trying, but when all is said and done there is very little they can do to reverse the decline of wild pheasants. Let us bird hunters look ahead to the new hope of a mourning dove season here in the state. There are plenty of those and they nest in trees where they have a much higher success ratio hatching their eggs.
Go to http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/ for details and to sign the petition for Bill 7778 which would allow dove hunting in New York. We also need to call Senator Flanagan’s office at 631-361-2154 to tell them you would like the Senator to back a Senate version of Assembly Bill 7778.
As with almost all the states in the east, New York’s upland bird hunting has severely declined over the past forty years. When hunting pen-raised pheasants is all we have, it’s time to do something. A mourning dove season would go a long way towards making wild bird hunting a great event as pheasant season once was in Western New York.
