Pheasants

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Dress warm, suppose to get really cold and snow this weekend.
Hope you get some good birds. We still have some immature looking roosters running around.
 
I'll be in the North East. Forecast for Sat is rain, sleet and snow some heavy. Cold, low around 25. Most years we have to worry about the dogs getting overheated on the opener. Guess that won't be a problem.
 
Season here in Iowa opens at the end of the month. I might go on the opener, but I don't get too excited about it like I used to because I've gotten into bow hunting pretty hardcore and bow season heats up about then because the rut starts. Also by then most of the corn will be out and that really puts the deer on the move. I like to hunt pheasants as much as the next guy, but the place next door has a bunch of timber bottom and after snow falls pheasants get into there thick as thieves. When they flush in there the trees keep them low, but you have to draw a quick bead because of the trees. Good luck to all.
 
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Well, that trip is over. Talk about crappy weather! Rain then more rain then snow and more snow and wind. Cold and wet. I did get some birds however.
 
Headiing to South Dakota next week. My buddies there say they have a bumper crop. Hope so, gonna pick up the new Pointing Lab and see what she's got.

It's gonna be a tuff trip tho. It will be the first year since 1998 that I didn't take my old girl up there with me. She is 11 now and not bad shape as long as she doesn't get excited but when she does she can't breathe and that has prevented me from conditioning her for the trip. Well guess she can stay home and keep the squirrels out of the garden.
 
What does a pheasant taste like? Is it dark meat or white or both like a chicken? How close can you get to them before they fly? When they do fly, do they go ballistic or do they fly like a quail? One day I'd like to give them a go.
 
Jogeephus":7v29w14y said:
What does a pheasant taste like? Is it dark meat or white or both like a chicken? How close can you get to them before they fly? When they do fly, do they go ballistic or do they fly like a quail? One day I'd like to give them a go.
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They taste great. All white and maybe a little gamier than quail but not much. I have stepped on them and I have had them fly up 200 yards away when I got out of the car. The will scare the livin bejesus out of you the first time you step on one.
 
Joe, Pheasant is good eating. Breast meat is white. The legs and thighs Are dark. It's seems to be a growing trend with hunters to take the breast meat only. I most of the time use the whole bird, cut up like a frying chicken, dusted in flour and fried. I have several meals while camping on the prairie, GOOD eating. I find that pheasants feeding on grain and alfalfa are very good. I've killed late season birds feeding on rose hips and Russian olives that you can't make taste good.
The heavier the cover the better pheasants will hold, taking a good dog to get them to fly. Sparse cover is hard to hunt. Birds would rather run then fly, most of the time you won't even see them, or they will run a quarter mile then fly. Or hole up in the first heavy cover they come to then you will need a dog to get them up. Mature roosters will get up and gone fast, they will use the wind, getting up and down wind in a hurry. The young roosters will get up slower and what most people will limit out on.
What causes me to miss the most is, the difference in the way individual birds will fly, some holding close to the ground, some straight up, some off sideways and always at different speeds. But I don't want to kill the first 3 birds I shoot at, my hunting day would be over in a hurry. So it usually takes me a few miles of walking for me to get my birds.
Hunting pheasants is great sport, not easy, and takes lot of work from you and especially your hunting dog. The dogs I've had will go until they can hardly walk.
 
OK; lets go ahead and have an argument over pheasant meat. The legs might be a little darker than the breast but, they are not dark like a chicken. They do however have a richer flavor than the thigh and breast if they are cooked right. The best way to use the legs is to simmer them slowly for a couple hours with some chicken or pheasant stock and season it with white wine and sage. Then when the meat is tender enough to fall off the bones you can take a fork and pull it apart and use it the same way you would use small chunks of chicken, salad etc.

The main difference between a pheasant and other game birds is the ligaments in their legs are calcified, almost to the point of being bone, but the meat is still very light in color, and the thighs are virtually the same color as the breast.
 
One day I hope to get my chance at them as I have always thought of them as the royalty of all game animals. Don't know where I got this from but I've always kinda thought this.
 

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