Jul 14, 2023 5 min read

Because it is July and the hot weather is upon us, I will blame this column on mid-summer irritability. I was going to write about the traditional deer opener the Monday following Thanksgiving versus the new Saturday opener that has been in effect these past few years. However, I’ll save that bit of controversy until closer to deer season’s arrival. In reality, my inner sadist tires of writing about warm fuzzy nostalgic topics every week. (Not really.) Other technical subjects as well as the shotgun blast or “Odds and Ends” column are tolerated once per month or less by my readership, and begrudgingly so. So, let’s dig into all things pheasant stampish.

I overheard some folks talking about the good old days when pheasants were native to Pennsylvania. It is a misnomer in that pheasants were never “native” to Pennsylvania. Pheasants are an Asian bird dating back to as early as 1773. The birds were first stocked in Pennsylvania in the areas north of Philadelphia in Lehigh and Northampton counties in the 1890s by locals.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission began to stock pheasants in 1915. There is some conjecture as to the origins of pheasants within the United States. Owen Denny, the United States Consul General in Shanghai, China, is credited with introducing the birds to the Willamette Valley region of Oregon during the 1880s. There are several other historical versions as to how the birds got started but none proves decisive. Needless to say, the birds took quite well to the Pennsylvania landscape. For decades, wild populations of pheasant inhabited many parts of our state and the 1960s and 1970s, to some, are remembered as the heyday of Pennsylvania pheasant hunting. Since that time, because of a number of contributing factors including clean farming practices, reduced habitat, pesticide usage, and the loss of farmlands to urbanization, wild pheasant populations have been nearly, if not completely, wiped out in the Keystone State. Hunting of pheasants is pretty much relegated to hunting stocked birds from the game commission or those put out by motivated individuals.

In case you are not familiar with the term “pheasant stamp,” and a number of folks that I have talked with are indeed surprised to learn of such a thing, the premise of the pheasant stamp’s introduction was that those dedicated souls who pursue the birds stocked by the Pennsylvania Game Commission should bear at least a portion of the cost of the birds they chase. In other words, pay to play.

Before I render a verdict on this pheasant stamp business, allow me to throw some numbers out that may shed some light on pheasant hunting within Washington and Greene Counties.

• Currently a Pennsylvania resident adult hunting license costs $20.97. Originally, in 2017, a pheasant stamp sold for $25.00. The current 2023 price of a pheasant stamp is $26.97.
• In Washington and Greene counties combined there are nine locations in which pheasants are stocked by the PGC. Two are located in Greene County and seven are in Washington County. There were 3,280 cock birds, or males, and 1,240 hens stocked in Greene County last season. Washington County was allotted 6,700 cock birds and 2,440 hens for the same season. There are additional numbers for individual game lands and their allotments on the PA Game Commission site that you may find interesting but I did not choose to go that deep.

There were days when the birds flew fast and furious. There were days where we didn’t see so many points nor flyers. There are no guarantees. That is why it is called hunting and not killing.

Here’s what I discovered for me and my clan. I got out 14 times last pheasant season. Most were Saturday morning hunts until noon or so. Several after-school hunts were made in the closing hours before sunset. Throw in the couple of odd, midweek holidays and call it a season. For my $26.97 pheasant stamp, I divided by my 14 trips afield, and all together I spent on the average of $1.92 per trip to the pheasant stamp fields.

To put it in perspective, our family probably spent over $100 on coffee and Dunkin Donuts and Little Debbie Lunch Cakes (of whom we are largely responsible for their financial success because the Bates family can eat donuts). The average man or woman spends better than $1.92 on the morning’s cup of joe at their local coffee shop. I am not looking to throw my money away. That is why I’ll continue to fill my thermos from home with Maxwell House or Folgers. Considering the time spent with my family, the enjoyment we get chasing our dogs around, the exercise that we would otherwise miss out on as well as our financial support of the stocking program, I would say all was well spent.

I know that there will be someone out there grousing about the fact that the pheasant stamp costs more than the basic hunting license but this time I think the Pennsylvania Game Commission got it right. My advice to them is drink more coffee, shoot more pheasants and spend more time with family. If they are still upset, start looking for a new puppy.