Scarcity Of Pheasants

[del1234 4]

No wild stock about never been a shoot in the area our birds were released on 25/6/2016 we are 8 guns and we have put allot of time and effort into the shoot the land owner is a shooting man and is on our side all the way like i said we are on top of the vermin plenty of feeders good water system plenty of cover and we dog the in good keen members who put the time in so we are reaping what we have sown

[Lab 10,979]

No wild stock about never been a shoot in the area our birds were released on 25/6/2016 we are 8 guns and we have put allot of time and effort into the shoot the land owner is a shooting man and is on our side all the way like i said we are on top of the vermin plenty of feeders good water system plenty of cover and we dog the in good keen members who put the time in so we are reaping what we have sown

Be very interesting to hear what you finish up with. It does make a difference to put the time in as you say.

Get them wing tagged next year and compare your results...??

[harrier 46]

I've a funny feeling the original poster is from the South of Ireland where most clubs still buy a few hundred birds and turn them out into the Irish countryside to fend for themselves.

IMO those days should be over because most of the birds we buy are coming from game farms or are surplus birds from larger driven shoots.

If your not putting out hoppers but your neighbouring club is then that will rob some of your birds. Same if your neighbours have less vermin and so on.

Ye British boys have been studying how to hold birds for donkey years but here in Ireland we now have more Buzzards, Pine Martens and Foxes than ever to deal with.

One thing I'm always pushing for our club to do is to release as many hens after the season as we can afford. Wild birds IMO are very important.

[harrier 46]

Are buzzards taking pheasants in anyone's area ?

[killbilly 17]

Hearing a lot of shooters say pheasants are scarce this year ? Just wondering if this is the case and why ?

 

 

I guess it depends where you are. Having a decent season myself with more birds around than I've seen in a few years. Staying on top of Charlie and having permissions with landowners that maintain natural cover and feeding for birds makes a big difference. Too many Gun clubs I find have members that do FA but turn up in November looking for easy shots while being conspicuous by their absence in terms of vermin control and other ground work the rest of the year.

[Born Hunter 17,622]

 

Hearing a lot of shooters say pheasants are scarce this year ? Just wondering if this is the case and why ?

 

 

I guess it depends where you are. Having a decent season myself with more birds around than I've seen in a few years. Staying on top of Charlie and having permissions with landowners that maintain natural cover and feeding for birds makes a big difference. Too many Gun clubs I find have members that do FA but turn up in November looking for easy shots while being conspicuous by their absence in terms of vermin control and other ground work the rest of the year.

 

 

I'm totally unfamiliar with how your gun clubs work in Ireland but I imagine it's kinda similar to how the DIY syndicates work over here. I've never quite understood why there isn't a system in place to make folks that don't put the time in pay a higher membership fee. Quite often those that only turn up on formal days are the ones that can afford to stump up another 25-50% and are allowed to get away with cheap shooting off of the back of the efforts of the shoots core of hard workers.

 

As I say, I don't know Irish gun clubs but it sounds similar to British DIY syndicates.

[neil cooney 10,415]

Are buzzards taking pheasants in anyone's area ?

YES, everyones.

[neil cooney 10,415]

 

 

Hearing a lot of shooters say pheasants are scarce this year ? Just wondering if this is the case and why ?

 

 

I guess it depends where you are. Having a decent season myself with more birds around than I've seen in a few years. Staying on top of Charlie and having permissions with landowners that maintain natural cover and feeding for birds makes a big difference. Too many Gun clubs I find have members that do FA but turn up in November looking for easy shots while being conspicuous by their absence in terms of vermin control and other ground work the rest of the year.

 

 

I'm totally unfamiliar with how your gun clubs work in Ireland but I imagine it's kinda similar to how the DIY syndicates work over here. I've never quite understood why there isn't a system in place to make folks that don't put the time in pay a higher membership fee. Quite often those that only turn up on formal days are the ones that can afford to stump up another 25-50% and are allowed to get away with cheap shooting off of the back of the efforts of the shoots core of hard workers.

 

As I say, I don't know Irish gun clubs but it sounds similar to British DIY syndicates.

 

Driven shoots in Ireland are nearly all private syndicates. They take out a license for hens too and have their days.

Gun clubs on the other hand are always bound to a local parish and the land shot is by the good will of the farmers and land owners.

Most clubs have 30, 40 or 50 members (of which only ever half do more than a few days) and it's all rough shooting.

Insurance is compulsory and club rules after that depend on bag limits and days that can be shot etc. etc.

IMO it's a brilliant system, not perfect, but for between 100 and 150 euro usually a local lad could have a couple of thousand acres to rough shoot across.

Regarding the quality of birds. Like all other folk trying to get some decent shooting it can all depend on land, roads, poachers, vermin, good birds, bad birds, hard work, laziness and hoping the birds like your Gun Club land better than your neighbours.

[fox digger 1,086]

You have to laugh at the vast majority of gun clubs here, in reality all they are is a way for lazy fuckers to renew there firearms license without having to go to the effort of actually going out and getting written permission off individual farmers. I was one of the organisers of reforming our local club that had previously died a death 15/20 odd year ago and after three years on the committee I said I can see exactly why the last club went down the tubes!! We had over three grand in the kitty and the c**ts wouldn't spend a penny..... The week before the season they would want to buy 20/30 birds to release...... I was the only one with Larsen traps going, one or two took them after I made the club buy them with grant aided funds, they had a path worn to me every weekend looking for a call bird cause on there Saturday trip to check the trap they mysteriously discovered the call bird was dead!!!! I was the only one doing fox drives in our area and the only lads that were coming out were mates from different areas that didn't shoot pheasants but loved foxing, also lamping well over 100 foxes a year in our area alone. The c**ts would do nothing! In the end when they wouldn't agree to build a release pen I put one up on my own land and left the club. Low and behold who did I meet sneaking in along the screen bounding my pen the opening morn only the top doggy of the club!!lol, needless to say he got back into his jeep and headed off....I haven't shot a pheasant yet this year and only a handful last year but still rear them and release, still at the foxes but haven't been out after a pheasant yet. Everyone I talk to around here say they are meeting nothing and I know from hunting the beagles that they are very scarce, Is it any bloody wonder!!! Clubs like the one here should get massive fines from the NARGC for not doing vermin counts, not releasing birds and basically doing nothing to regenerate the area only try deplete it the first couple weeks of November.

Rant over but it would depress ya thinking about it!

[mr huntsman 3]

personally i think they are affected by the mild weather i think that we should start shooting on the first of December and finish end of February as for the shoots are to blame for wandering birds ringed pheasant off our shoot have been shot 8 miles away the seasons are changing and it is only now starting to get cold up with me and as we shoot every other week we only have two to go no time for birds to come back to feeders i seen midges out today

[Shovel shy 4,032]

You have to laugh at the vast majority of gun clubs here, in reality all they are is a way for lazy fuckers to renew there firearms license without having to go to the effort of actually going out and getting written permission off individual farmers. I was one of the organisers of reforming our local club that had previously died a death 15/20 odd year ago and after three years on the committee I said I can see exactly why the last club went down the tubes!! We had over three grand in the kitty and the c**ts wouldn't spend a penny..... The week before the season they would want to buy 20/30 birds to release...... I was the only one with Larsen traps going, one or two took them after I made the club buy them with grant aided funds, they had a path worn to me every weekend looking for a call bird cause on there Saturday trip to check the trap they mysteriously discovered the call bird was dead!!!! I was the only one doing fox drives in our area and the only lads that were coming out were mates from different areas that didn't shoot pheasants but loved foxing, also lamping well over 100 foxes a year in our area alone. The c**ts would do nothing! In the end when they wouldn't agree to build a release pen I put one up on my own land and left the club. Low and behold who did I meet sneaking in along the screen bounding my pen the opening morn only the top doggy of the club!!lol, needless to say he got back into his jeep and headed off....I haven't shot a pheasant yet this year and only a handful last year but still rear them and release, still at the foxes but haven't been out after a pheasant yet. Everyone I talk to around here say they are meeting nothing and I know from hunting the beagles that they are very scarce, Is it any bloody wonder!!! Clubs like the one here should get massive fines from the NARGC for not doing vermin counts, not releasing birds and basically doing nothing to regenerate the area only try deplete it the first couple weeks of November.

Rant over but it would depress ya thinking about it!

I could of wrote this comment.word for word.its the reason I left the local gun club. Exactly the same. I was the only one doing driven fox shoots for them. There muppets