Sign Up NOW For The 2021 Bull Creek Youth Pheasant Hunt

 Sign up NOW for the 21st annual Bull Creek Youth Pheasant Hunt on October 16th 2021! All kids age 12 to 16 are welcome to sign up. Kids will be taught hunting safety and will be able to learn about pheasant hunting over dogs. Spots are LIMITED so do not wait to sign up. You do NOT have to be a member of Bull Creek. Click here to register and for directions to the club:

 https://www.register-ed.com/events/view/171045

20th Anniversary Youth Pheasant Hunt A Big Success!

 Amazing day on the 17th helping 24 kids age 12 to 16 take part in Bull Creek Rod and Gun Club's 20th anniversary PA state sanctioned Youth Pheasant Hunt!! Lilly and Brier (Llewellin Setters) were stars of the day. Teaching kids how to safely hunt birds over dogs.

2017 Youth Pheasant Hunt At Bull Creek October 14th!

The 12th annual Youth Pheasant Hunt at Bull Creek is sponsored by the PA Game Commission.  Registration is going on now through September 22nd.  Youth age 12 to 16 may participate FREE.  Sign up by clicking on this link . There are only 30 spots available, first come, first serve. This shoot is open to the public.  You do not need to be a Bull Creek member.  Morning pastries and coffee will be provided. Please follow this link for more details and to register 

Particpants mus be 12 years of age by October 14th

PA Sportsmen Already Paying The Price

By Bob Frye, Tribune-Review

You walk into your doctor's office with a bullet hole in one leg, stab wounds in your chest, severe burns on your feet and, what the heck, let's throw in a doozy of a hangnail, too.

Clearly, you need care.

And your doctor's response?

He asks if you've been taking your vitamins. He wonders if you've considered getting more exercise. He suggests you fundraise to buy bandages and promises you baby aspirin, maybe, later, if you can convince the neighbors you need them.

That's how Pennsylvania lawmakers treated sportsmen last week.

The executive directors of the Pennsylvania Game and Fish and Boat commissions delivered their annual reports to the members of the House of Representatives game and fisheries committee. As expected, both spent a significant portion of their time asking for money.

Hunting and furtaking license prices haven't changed since 1999; fishing licenses not since 2005.

Increasingly, that's leading to consequences.

The Game Commission has already closed two pheasant farms, something that will mean 50,000 fewer pheasants ­­— at least — for hunters this fall. Next up, said executive director Matt Hough, might be the shuttering of the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area and Howard Nursery, which provides trees and shrubs for game lands.

The Fish and Boat Commission, meanwhile, will have no choice but to make “deep program cuts” starting in 2018 without additional revenue, said executive director John Arway. It's likely some of those will come via hatcheries, he warned.

Both agencies are short on law enforcement officers — the front line against poaching — and may get shorter, the directors said.

That's all on lawmakers.

Only they can increase prices. The fact that they haven't in so long is, as Wes Waldron of the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania said recently, “at best unconscionable.”

What's the holdup?

Naked self preservation.

Lawmakers didn't display any animus toward the commissions, unlike in times past. But they danced all around the fee issue.

They quizzed the agencies on whether they're cutting costs. They suggested other ways of raising revenue, like selling permits to allow people to use ATVs on game lands. One offered to propose giving each $1 million in general tax money — something that's unprecedented — to tide them over until something, meaning who knows what, changes.

That's all fine as far as it goes. The commissions should be pressured to be efficient and creative.

But none of those ideas will solve their problems or help sportsmen.

Several lawmakers said they understand that and have heard virtually every statewide sportsmen's group say they favor fee hikes.

But they also made clear they won't risk votes back home to do anything about it, not until the commissions can somehow prove an even wider groundswell of support.

Enough's enough.

No one likes paying more for anything. But the time's come.

Sportsmen who value fish and wildlife and the recreation they provide must tell lawmakers to properly our natural resource agencies.

If not, we'll all pay the price in other ways.

Bob Frye is the Tribune-Review outdoors editor. Reach him at 412-216-0193 or bfrye@tribweb.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodyadventures.com.

PA Game Commission Pheasant Chick And Egg Program Comes To An End

HARRISBURG, PA - Two long-running programs that enabled groups and individuals to

raise pheasants for release in their local areas have come to an end due to financially driven changes to the Game Commission’s pheasant propagation program.

The Pheasant Chick Program, started in 1933, provided day-old pheasant chicks free of charge to sportsmen’s organizations with approved propagation facilities. And the Day-Old Pheasant Hen Chick and Surplus Egg Programs enabled properly permitted organizations and individuals to buy chicks and eggs to raise and release.

Each of the programs served to augment the pheasant releases the Game Commission conducts each year before and during the pheasant hunting season. The birds that went to sportsmen's organizations were released on lands open to public hunting.

In an effort to cut costs, however, the Game Commission is implementing changes to its pheasant propagation program. The agency recently announced the closure of two pheasant farms, and will rely on the remaining two farms for all production. In closing the farms, the agency has also released birds that would have been kept as breeding stock.

Rather than raising chicks from the eggs laid by these birds, the agency will purchase day-old chicks from a privately owned breeder, and raise those birds for release.

Purchasing chicks is more cost-effective. And in making the switch and eliminating 14 positions that had been held by game-farm workers, the agency expects to save $1.5 million in the coming year.

The Board of Game Commissioners also is discussing creation of a $25 permit that would be required for all adult pheasant hunters, and would further help pay for Pennsylvania’s propagation program.

The application period for pheasant egg and chick programs traditionally opened in January.

Organizations and individuals that had planned on taking part in the program in 2017 might still be able to obtain pheasant eggs from private propagators.

Unlike most state agencies, the Pennsylvania Game Commission in not funded by tax dollars. It relies primarily on revenue generated through the purchase of hunting and furtaker licenses – the fees for which are set by the General Assembly and have not been adjusted for inflation in nearly two decades.

“Cost-cutting measures, like the changes we’re implementing to the pheasant propagation program are necessary to balance the agency’s budget until a license-fee increase finally is approved,” said R. Matthew Hough, the Game Commission’s executive director. “We’ve had to make a lot of difficult decisions in recent years, and a lot of them probably went unnoticed because initially we cut in areas we knew would have the least impact on those who rely on the services we offer. But as we’re forced to make bigger and more significant cuts at the program level, there’s no avoiding the impact to services. Unfortunately, more cuts will be needed to balance the budget for the coming fiscal year, and Pennsylvania’s citizens and wildlife resources have begun feeling the impact.”

Pheasant program could go on chopping block without additional funding

BY BOB FRYE

Pheasant harvest rates

In 1998, the Game Commission conducted a study to see how many of its pheasants were taken by hunters. The answer turned out to be 49.9 percent.

It re-did the study in 2015 — after making changes such as releasing birds closer to the weekend and better identifying stocking sites — to see if that helped hunters bag more.

The answer? No.

The commission was hoping last year's harvest rate might hit 60 percent. It was 49.1, said Josh Johnson, the commission's biometrician.

Harvest rates were higher for male birds than females and higher in both cases for birds released on public land than on private land, Johnson said.

Those not taken by hunters don't last long. Johnson said 2.3 percent of male birds and 1.9 percent of females were still alive 30 days after release onto public land. Survival rates on private land were 11.4 and 12.3 percent, respectively.

Commission executive director Matt Hough said the agency's wildlife management staff again is looking at ways to cut costs and boost harvests.

“We tried a lot of things. Obviously we didn't do enough,” he said. “We can definitely improve the program.”

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Going, going ... maybe gone?

That could be the story with Pennsylvania's pheasants.

Wild birds — save for those reintroduced to mixed results in a few areas — long ago disappeared. In their place, the Pennsylvania Game Commission releases about 200,000 pen-reared birds a year for hunters.

But that program is in jeopardy.

The cost of a hunting license hasn't increased since 1999. The result is the commission is facing a $25 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2017-18, which begins July 1, said board president Brian Hoover of Delaware County. That's going to necessitate cutbacks, he said.

“There will be programs that will disappear, that will end,” Hoover said.

The pheasant program, which costs close to $5 million a year, could be one of those, he added. That would be felt a year from now.

The birds currently on the agency's game farms will be released as planned. Stockings will begin in time for the junior hunter pheasant season that begins Oct. 8. The statewide season opens Oct. 22.

That could be it, though.

If no additional revenue is forthcoming, the birds typically kept to produce next year's crop likely will be released, too, said commission deputy executive director Rich Palmer.

“There wouldn't be any sense in maintaining an overwintering flock if there's no intention of continuing the program,” Palmer said.

Commissioners have been looking to one piece of legislation to save the day.

Senate Bill 1166 would give the commission the authority — for the first time in its 120-plus-year history — to set its own fees. Right now, only lawmakers can adjust prices.

That bill cleared a hurdle this past week. Having passed the state Senate earlier this summer, Tuesday it was voted out of the House of Representatives game and fisheries committee. That sent it to the full House for consideration.

That body has 11 days left between Monday and Nov. 15 to approve it and send it to Gov. Tom Wolf for his signature.

Work on the bill has been ongoing for 20 months, said Rep. Keith Gillespie, a York County Republican who chairs the game and fisheries committee. Lawmakers who have shown a “lack of intestinal fortitude” in declining to raise license fees for nearly two decades must finally act, he said.

“We need to do it now,” Gillespie said.

Commissioners are hoping they will.

Development of the 2017-18 budget begins in October, Palmer said. Licenses good for the 2017-18 license year don't go on sale until June.

But if commissioners knew they could count on raising fees by then, they could commit to keeping the pheasant program operating, Hoover said.

And raise them they would, including in a new way.

Some have been calling for the commission to create a pheasant hunting stamp required of all those who hunt the stocked birds.

Dennis Duza, a retired commission employee, has been beating that drum for more than a year. He did so again at the board's meeting last week. He said the high cost of the program and the fact fewer hunters — about 10 percent of license buyers in 2014 — are pursuing pheasants makes a stamp a must.

“Short and brief, we need a pheasant stamp,” Duza said.

Board members initially rejected that idea, saying they wanted small-game hunters to be able to take birds incidentally if the opportunity arose.

A realization they need to be “smart with our dollars” has prompted a change of heart, said commissioner Tim Layton of Windber.

Hoover agrees and said a pheasant stamp likely is “in the cards” moving forward. It would be required only of the most dedicated hunters, though.

Commissioners are leaning toward allowing those who buy a general hunting license to take two pheasants a year, Hoover said. They would have to be tagged, just like a deer.

Hunters wanting to take additional birds would have to buy the stamp, Hoover said.

What it might cost has yet to be determined. The goal, though, is clear: to keep the pheasant program operating while considering the budget, Layton said.

“We've made some concessions. That's what it's really about,” Layton said.

Bob Frye is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via@bobfryeoutdoors.

New state plan for pheasant propagation is geared to young hunters

By John Hayes / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Stepping gingerly through the weedy edges of a corn-stubble field, your shotgun is at port arms, your eyes and ears  tightly focused on the waving grasses 10 yards ahead.

Suddenly, inches from your boot erupts a startling explosion of movement, sound and color. In an instant that seems to take forever, the pheasant is already 10 yards above you and cornering toward the rear. You resist the temptation to shoot too soon, holding the gun steady as you pivot to the right, then raise the barrel, pull the butt to your shoulder, release the safety and fire.
A miss -- pattern still too tight. Leveling its wings, the rooster begins to build speed. You lower the muzzle dropping it barely below the flurry of motion until the bead and the bird seem to connect and ... Blast!
The ring-necked pheasant crumbles and drops onto the corn stubble.
The most exciting hunt in Pennsylvania isn’t for deer, bear, turkey or elk. With or without dogs, a ring-necked pheasant hunt can be a thrill ride to be remembered -- when they’re there. When the birds aren’t there it’s a long walk carrying a heavy gun.
This year, the state Game Commission is testing a new pheasant plan combining an alternative means of egg acquisition with existing public-private land use agreements, education and an expanded junior-hunter season. Bob Boyd, wildlife services division chief, said the goal is to give young hunters the same pheasant-induced adrenaline rush experienced by hunters that came before them.

“These days when hunter numbers are going down, hunter recruitment activities are very important,” said Boyd. “We feel this pheasant propagation program is very important for hunters, particularly junior hunters.”

Teens and young adults who’ve occasionally seen the distinctive fowl with the white-banded neck may not be aware that the species is not native to North America. Europeans learned of pheasants through international commerce, initially with Black Sea traders and later with their Southeast Asian counterparts. In the 1700s, European colonists brought ringnecks to North America, and later in that century American hunters and hunting groups began importing and stocking the birds.

Near the turn of the 20th century, many states including Pennsylvania were stocking pheasants extensively in a semi-successful attempt to create a pheasant-hunting culture. For decades it worked reasonably well. Hunters loved the excitement, but biologists knew that natural reproduction was spotty and sparse, if occurring at all, and the culprit wasn’t chemical pollution or energy extraction.

“Habitat loss,” said Boyd. “And not just from [urban] sprawl. Farming techniques are much different now than they were a few decades ago. Land is extensively farmed now with very little edge growth or wasted seed. Look at a corn stubble field. There’s nothing there.”

Pennsylvania and other states tried to slow the depletion trend by hatching and releasing more pheasants, and by 1983 the Game Commission was stocking some 425,200 birds for an artificial put-and-take hunt. Despite the continuing interest of license buyers, the pheasant program had dwindled to about 100,00 birds by 2005 at a cost to hunters of $2.7 million per year. The number of pheasants and hunters dropped while the program’s costs increased.

“We’re in the midst of trying to cut the cost of the program and increase the numbers [of pheasants] we put out there,” said Boyd. “One way we’re trying this year is the experimental purchase of day-old chicks.”

Buying peeps from a private propagator saves the agency the expense of feeding the flock during winter. With savings of about 10 percent earned through outsourcing the baby birds, the agency this year has released 220,000 roosters plus 20,000 hens plucked from breeder stock. All of the birds were stocked on huntable public land.

The Game Commission sells a small number of its day-old peeps to private propagators, who raise them for sale to sportsmen’s clubs and other organizations. This year, Cheryl and Joe Fallat converted part of their property near Jeannette, Westmoreland County, into a pheasant farm. With a $20,000 bank loan for posts, fencing, netting, heaters, feed and more including 1,800 day-old peeps purchased from the Game Commission, they’re reviving a family business that provided mature ringnecks to regional gun clubs for distribution on huntable land, often on the morning of the hunt.

“We know they’re not reproducing out there. We know [the pheasants] are going to get shot,” said Cheryl Fallat, “and we know we probably won’t even break even this year. But raising pheasants was such a project and such a joy for my father, I’m excited about taking this on and selling them to the sports clubs this fall.”

The expanded pheasant youth hunt runs Oct. 8-15 for eligible junior hunters with or without a hunting license. Roosters only in management units 2A, 2C, 4C, 4E, 5A and 5B. Male and female pheasants are legal in all other WMUs (no open season in Wild Pheasant Recovery Areas). Limit 2 daily, 6 in possession.

The regular pheasant seasons are staggered and open Oct. 22-Nov. 26, Dec. 12-24 and Dec. 26-Feb. 28. Check the Hunting and Trapping Digest for details.

Pheasants Will Abound This Fall

By Bob Frye

If Pennsylvania pheasant hunters can't find any birds in the field this fall, it won't be because they aren't out there.

The number stocked is expected to top anything in recent memory.

Wayne Laroche, director of the Pennsylvania Game Commission's bureau of wildlife management, said the agency is exploring ways to cut costs within the pheasant program. Right now, he said, the agency spends about $4-5 million to raise and release birds.

Savings might come from buying day-old chicks and raising them, rather than keeping game farms operational year-round so as to produce them in-house, he said. With that in mind, the commission launched an experiment this year. Laroche said it bought 15,500 day-old chicks from a commercial breeder and is raising them at the game farm in Armstrong County.

That represents a “test run to see how they survive relative to our own chicks,” he said.

If that effort proves successful, he said earlier this year, the commission might go to buying all of its chicks. That would allow the game farms to close, or at least scale back operations, at slow times. Those workers would be used elsewhere, he said.

In the meantime, commission game farms produced a “bumper crop” of pheasants this spring, Laroche said.

He said those 220,000 or so birds, together with the 15,500 purchased, will lead to more than 235,000 being stocked this fall “if all goes according to plan.”

Pennsylvania Hunters Ready To Talk Turkey (and Pheasant and Rabbit...)

Fall season begins Oct. 31 in most parts of state; season lengths vary by WMU.

 

          One of Pennsylvania’s most exciting seasons will begin Oct. 31 as hunters head afield in pursuit of a most-coveted game animal – the wild turkey. Hunting season lengths vary according to Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) from closed season to three-plus weeks.
          While season lengths in most WMUs remain unchanged from last year, the first season segment has been shortened from three weeks to two in WMUs 2E, 3D, 4A, 4B and 4D – to help those populations rebound from declining trends, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.   
          The three-day Thursday-through-Saturday season remains intact in WMU 5A to provide greater opportunity for hunters whose schedules do not allow for a weekday hunt. And, as usual, fall turkey hunting remains closed in WMUs 5B, 5C and 5D in southern Pennsylvania.  
          “Now is the time to check the dates of when seasons open and close,” Game Commission Executive Director R. Matthew Hough said.  
          “As is typically the case for the fall turkey season, different season lengths apply in different units, and the seasons in a handful of WMUs have been shortened this year,” Hough said. “The changes are easy to follow, and are laid out clearly on pages 10 and 42 in the Hunting & Trapping Digest issued to all buyers of hunting and furtaker licenses.”  
          Hunters who didn’t participate in the fall turkey season during the last two years might be unaware of season length changes from 2013 and 2014 in some other WMUs, due to declining population trends and the results of an agency study that showed the longer the fall season, the higher the female turkey harvest.  
          “During the fall season, any turkey can be harvested because jakes, young males, are difficult to distinguish from females,” Game Commission wild turkey biologist Mary Jo Casalena said. “Our research shows females (both juvenile and adult) comprise a larger portion of the fall harvest than males. Our management and research also have shown that we shouldn't overharvest females, so we shorten the fall season length when turkey populations decline to allow them to rebound.”  
          Additional information on turkey seasons, bag limits and other regulations can be found on pages 42 and 43 of the 2015-16 Pennsylvania Hunting & Trapping Digest.  
          In most of the state, the fall turkey season opens Saturday, Oct. 31. The seasons are as follows: WMU 1B– Oct. 31 to Nov. 7, and Nov. 26 to 28; WMU 2B (shotgun and archery only) – Oct. 31 to Nov. 20, and Nov. 26 to 28; WMUs 1A, 2A, 2D, 2E, 2F, 2G, 2H, 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D, 4A, 4B and 4D – Oct. 31 to Nov. 14, and Nov. 26 to 28; WMUs 2C, 4C and 4E – Oct. 31 to Nov. 20, and Nov. 26 to 28; and WMU 5A – Nov. 5 to 7.  


FALL TURKEY FORECAST  
          Casalena is hoping for similar hunting participation as last fall, when the number of fall turkey hunters topped 200,000 for the first time since 2005. This is especially encouraging because as recently as 2012 only 123,121 hunters hunted the fall turkey season.
          “Fall turkey hunting remains a strong tradition in Pennsylvania, as seen by how we rank with other states. In 2013 (the latest year data are available) Pennsylvania’s fall turkey hunters (199,098) were more than three times that of the state with the second highest number, Wisconsin (57,840). That year we ranked second in harvest (16,755) behind Texas (19,066) with 54,753 fall turkey hunters.” 
          Last year’s fall harvest increased for the third consecutive year to 18,292, from the low of 14,300 in 2011. Casalena said these increases in fall turkey harvest are related to growth in turkey populations and increases in hunter participation. And in WMUs with shortened seasons, the relatively new Thanksgiving three-day season provides additional opportunities for participation.   
          “Although turkey reproduction this summer was below average in many WMUs, translating to smaller flocks this fall in those units, reproduction did vary and many hens simply nested later than normal due to the harsh winter, and these poults may still be growing when the season opens,” Casalena said.  
          Casalena said acorn, beech and cherry production also varied across the state, with red-oak acorn production and soft mast, such as apples and grapes, seeing average to above-average production in many areas, but below average food production elsewhere. Areas with abundant food sources tend to make the flocks more nomadic and, therefore harder for hunters to find. Whereas lack of food tends to keep flocks congregated where the food exists and, therefore easier for hunters to find, she said.  
          Casalena said the fall season is a great time to introduce a novice turkey hunter to the sport. “It’s not only a great time to be in the woods, but novice turkey callers can be just as successful as a pro when mimicking a lost turkey poult,” she said. “And once a flock is located, I remind hunters that turkeys are tipped off more by movement and a hunter’s outline than fluorescent orange.”  
          Last year’s fall hunter success rate of 9 percent was a slight decrease from the previous three years (10 percent), but hunter success varies considerably depending on summer reproduction, food availability, weather during the season, and hunter participation. Hunter success was as high as 21 percent in 2001, a year with excellent recruitment, and as low as 4 percent in 1979.  
          Hopefully hunter success isn’t measured only by whether or not a turkey is harvested. Enjoying time afield with family, friends, a hunting dog, and/or mentoring a hunter also qualifies a successful hunt.  


SPRING HARVEST  
          Casalena said the 2015 spring-season harvests (including youth, mentored youth and harvests from the special turkey license that allows hunters to harvest a second bird) totaled 41,180, which was similar to the 2014 harvest of 41,258, and a 6 percent increase from the previous long-term average of 38,697. Hunter success, 19 percent, was slightly higher than 2014, 18 percent, and the previous long-term average of 17 percent.   
          Pennsylvania hunters have consistently maintained spring harvests above 30,000 bearded turkeys since 1995, exceeding most other states in the nation. The 2013 harvest of 41,260 ranked second in the nation behind Missouri’s 47,603 spring turkeys.   


LEG-BANDED TURKEYS  
          Casalena also reminds hunters to report any leg-banded or satellite-transmittered turkeys they harvest or find.  
          Leg bands and transmitters are stamped with a toll-free number to call. Although the agency’s research project is completed and rewards are no longer valid, the information provided is still beneficial and hunters can learn the history of the bird. 


FLUORESCENT ORANGE REQUIREMENTS  
          In most parts of the state, hunters participating in the fall turkey season are required, while moving, to wear at least 250 inches of fluorescent orange on the head, chest and back combined. Orange must be visible from 360 degrees.  
          Hunters may remove their orange once in a stationary location, providing that a minimum of 100 square inches of fluorescent orange is posted within 15 feet of the location and is visible from 360 degrees.  
          In WMU 2B, which is open to shotgun and archery hunting only during the fall turkey season, turkey hunters, while moving, must wear a hat containing at least 100 square inches of solid fluorescent orange material, visible from 360 degrees. While fluorescent orange is not required at stationary locations in WMU 2B, it is strongly recommended.  
          Archery hunters who are hunting either deer or bear during the overlap with fall turkey season also must wear a fluorescent orange hat at all times when moving. The hat must contain at least 100 square inches of solid, fluorescent orange, visible from 360 degrees, and may be removed once in a stationary location.  
          Illustrations and a chart listing fluorescent orange requirements for different hunting seasons can be found on pages 62 and 63 of the 2015-16 Pennsylvania Hunting & Trapping Digest.  
          Since fluorescent orange requirements have been in place for the fall-turkey season, fall turkey hunting shooting incidents have decreased from 38, three of them fatal, in 1990, to none in 2012. During the last two years there has been one nonfatal incident each year. 


MENTORED HUNTERS  
          Pennsylvania’s fall turkey season is among those open to Mentored Youth and Mentored Adult hunters  
          The Mentored Youth Hunting Program sets out to introduce those under the age of 12 to hunting. Mentored Youth must obtain a $2.70 permit, and must be accompanied at all times by a licensed mentor 21 years or older.  
          The Mentored Adult Hunting Program is in its second year, and seeks to remove an obstacle for adults who have an interest in hunting and the opportunity to go hunting with a licensed mentor. The cost of a resident Mentored Adult permit is $20.70 – the same as the cost of a resident hunting license.  
          Mentored Youth and Mentored Adults can participate in only approved hunting seasons, and the seasons that have been approved for Mentored Youth are different from those for Mentored Adults. Different sets of regulations apply to Mentored Youth and Mentored Adults, as well.   
          During the fall turkey season, a mentor may transfer his or her fall turkey tag to a Mentored Youth or Mentored Adult hunter.  
          A full description of the programs can be found on pages 15 and 16 of the 2015-16 Pennsylvania Hunting & Trapping Digest.