Pheasant Season

[Sashi]

With peasant season opening on Wednesday Sept 1, does anyone know If pheasants will have been dropped off at the Daysland site for opening day.

[elkhunter11]

There will be birds on opening day, and there will likely be a huge crowd chasing them as well. I drove up opening day a few years ago, and there were 26 vehicles parked, so I kept right on driving, and came back a few days later.

[buckman]

Opening day gong show,dangerous and not very gratifying.

[fishnguy]

Are the release days posted anywhere to know what dates to avoid? I want to “go for a walk” at one of the sites up north and would definitely prefer no crowds (though maybe it isn’t as crowed up north?). Don’t have a dog, so getting a bird would be a bonus, lol. Never been, but have been thinking to take a look for a few years now. Maybe this is the one.

[Prewar]

Originally Posted by fishnguy

Are the release days posted anywhere to know what dates to avoid? I want to “go for a walk” at one of the sites up north and would definitely prefer no crowds (though maybe it isn’t as crowed up north?). Don’t have a dog, so getting a bird would be a bonus, lol. Never been, but have been thinking to take a look for a few years now. Maybe this is the one.

Do you really think it would be intelligent to announce the release dates?

[ghostguy6]

They specifically dont release the dates or it would be total mayhem. I have heard of people shooting as soon as the door on the truck is opened.

[Big Grey Wolf]

Fishguy, if you have few hunters with dogs it will help your success, their dogs will flush birds that are missed many times and can come in your direction. Just as mentioned, they mix and match release days to confuse hunters?? that might follow the meat wagon.

[wildwoods]

Originally Posted by fishnguy

Are the release days posted anywhere to know what dates to avoid? I want to “go for a walk” at one of the sites up north and would definitely prefer no crowds (though maybe it isn’t as crowed up north?). Don’t have a dog, so getting a bird would be a bonus, lol. Never been, but have been thinking to take a look for a few years now. Maybe this is the one.

I always go without dogs. I usually fill my limit within 2-3 hrs or less sometimes. It’s a blast and adds a little more challenge to the hunt. There’s some beautiful country out there.

[Ursus]

I was out today early - slow start but got one bird after an hour. Three hours in, it sounded like a war breaking out - obviously the truck was in. I went the other way but like Elkhunter, I came through when the shooting slowed. My dog put up a bird in 20 minutes & we headed home. We hunted for about 4 hours - only put up 2 birds. Driving out, some dude has his shotgun lined up down the road from the window of his Chev Equinox - I thought he was going to shoot at us but there was a pheasant in the ditch. I'd think buying chicken would be cheaper than driving the roads for hours.

[Quest206]

I only live a few miles from the release site and I never go opening day or weekends unless I have company that wants to hunt. For 5 days a week it is my exercise. I don't have a dog but going for a daily walk with my shotgun is quite gratifying and usually I'm able to flush at least one bird. I also hunt the wild pheasants in southern Alberta every year as well. The Pheasant release program is a huge bonus for bird hunters in Alberta and the ACA is doing a wonderful job distributing birds from Peace River to South of Lethbridge so that most hunters can get to a release site within a couple of hours from almost anywhere in the province.
For those of you who don't know about the Alberta Conservation Association check them out. Become a member. We all want our kids and grandkids to be able to hunt and fish as we can.
Good luck and happy hunting

[scarey]

I will admit I learned about pheasant hunting many many moons ago on the release sites but I wont touch most of them now. I was by Rolling Hills twice a few years ago where i saw the release truck show up with many waiting shooters ( i wont call this hunting ) and one group got out with 6 guys and 8 dogs and raked the site. Disgusting in my opinion. There is the odd out of the way site that can provide a nice outing very much depending.

[DRhunter]

Had an interesting day out at hopewell. I am thinking that there must have been a release this morning although I did not see a release truck; I was parked there at first light and there were several vehicles parked when light broke (on the way back to my truck after an hour I counted just under 30 parked vehicles)

This is my first experience at this site as I have a younger pup. Figured getting there at first light on a weekday might beat some of the crowds, however was not the case. Lots of distractions with hunters and dogs running all over the place and lots of shooting!

Despite the fact that it is not really my scene with how crazy busy it is, I do still appreciate these ACA release sites. Nice to be able to go out to a spot where a guy can take the pup for an early morning walk with the shotgun and may even get the odd pheasant.

DR


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DRhunter]

Obviously not a wild bird, but pretty neat to have the opportunity to get a melanistic pheasant. The release programs certainly have some drawbacks but sure is nice for some of us just getting into pheasant hunting with a young pup to have places to go where she can get some experience.

Have thoroughly enjoyed my first pheasant season with my pup.

DR


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[waldedw]

Back 2014 I had an invite from an old friend to hunt pheasant for a day, he had a dog and away I went. I drove a couple hours to meet him at the designated release site, we released the dog and away we went, took us a couple hrs and we both had our 2 birds. We had our lunch on the tailgate swapped some stories of days gone by shook hands and headed for home. It was a great day with an old buddy that I had not seen in 10 years and walking behind the dog with an o/u was wonderful again, it brought back memories.

As much as I liked it I could never see myself raising and training a dog just to spend a couple days in a release site shooting pen raised caged birds, sorry that's just not my cup of tea.

When I lived in Central Asia from 1998 to 2004 and buddy of mine and myself had 3 German shorthaired pointers and we hunted every weekend during the long hunting season which ran Sept through Jan, a small game license entitled you to shoot, roosters, hens, keklic and rabbits, the birds were all wild and very plentiful, in those 5 years the only other hunters we saw were the 3 locals that we took with us from time to time. If we got less than 10 birds in a morning shoot it was a bad day and we pretty much kept the entire village supplied with meat.

I attached a pic of a much younger me ( on the left ) with my hunting buddy and our dogs after a typical morning in the creeks bottoms of Central Asia ( Kyrgyzstan ) man those were good years.

Ed, Dick and the dogs.jpg

Duke and Gerda 4.jpg

[puphood1]

Originally Posted by waldedw

Back 2014 I had an invite from an old friend to hunt pheasant for a day, he had a dog and away I went. I drove a couple hours to meet him at the designated release site, we released the dog and away we went, took us a couple hrs and we both had our 2 birds. We had our lunch on the tailgate swapped some stories of days gone by shook hands and headed for home. It was a great day with an old buddy that I had not seen in 10 years and walking behind the dog with an o/u was wonderful again, it brought back memories.

As much as I liked it I could never see myself raising and training a dog just to spend a couple days in a release site shooting pen raised caged birds, sorry that's just not my cup of tea.

When I lived in Central Asia from 1998 to 2004 and buddy of mine and myself had 3 German shorthaired pointers and we hunted every weekend during the long hunting season which ran Sept through Jan, a small game license entitled you to shoot, roosters, hens, keklic and rabbits, the birds were all wild and very plentiful, in those 5 years the only other hunters we saw were the 3 locals that we took with us from time to time. If we got less than 10 birds in a morning shoot it was a bad day and we pretty much kept the entire village supplied with meat.

I attached a pic of a much younger me ( on the left ) with my hunting buddy and our dogs after a typical morning in the creeks bottoms of Central Asia ( Kyrgyzstan ) man those were good years.

Attachment 176581

Attachment 176582

The real thing.....