The Pennsylvania Game Commission is releasing about 15,000 more pheasants this fall than in 2021 as interest in bird hunting grows.

The agency plans to release 237,700 pheasants across the state over nine stocking intervals. Males, with the white ring on their necks, account for 173,550, or 73% of the inventory.

“The regular-season releases will be pretty much be the same number of birds they had in recent years. The three late-season stockings will all be bumped up, so that’s probably where hunters may notice a difference in terms of numbers this year,” said Ian D. Gregg, Wildlife Operations Division chief.  

Barring severe weather events or diseases, the end tally will be about 15,000 more birds than the previous year.

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The agency is seeing growing interest in the sport.

In 2020, the agency sold 49,808 adult and 13,247 junior permits. In 2021, the agency sold 54,639 adult permits and 17,684 junior permits, both records. Adult pheasant hunting permits were required starting in 2017 and junior hunter permits were offered for the first time in 2018. 

Adults pay $26.97 for the permit in addition to their general license. The pheasant permit is free to junior license holders ages 12-17.

Gregg said surveys of hunters have revealed a growing satisfaction in the pheasant hunting program. 

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The nine stockings include one for youth season, five for the regular season in October and November and three releases for the late season, at the end of December and early January. The first winter stocking is planned about a week earlier than in 2021, and will happen the week right after the rifle deer season ends.

Pheasant hunting opens for junior hunters Oct. 8-15. The season opens for all hunters Oct. 22-Nov. 12; Sunday, Nov. 13; Nov. 14-19; Sunday, Nov. 20; Nov. 21-25, Dec. 12-23 and Dec. 26-Feb. 27.

Hunters are allowed two birds, either male or female, a day.

“Over 90% are stocked on state game lands or other public lands like state parks, Army Corps of Engineers properties, places like that. We do have a real small percentage that do go onto private farms that are in our Hunter Access Program,” Gregg said about areas where there are a lot of hunters but not many game lands. “All the pheasants are stocked on areas that are available to public hunting.”

Hunters should look for pheasants in farm field settings. Brushy fencerows, tall grassy areas and along standing corn and grain fields are places to find birds.

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Small game hunting is an ideal time to introduce youth to the sport versus deer hunting, in which a child might be challenged to stay quiet and still on a stand in cold weather. “Pheasant hunting, you can get out for a couple hours, you’re walking around staying warm. There’s a lot of action between the dogs working and the birds flushing. There’s a lot of shooting. You may not be hitting much, but that’s OK, too,” Gregg said about the challenging shot opportunities at flying birds.

The Game Commission provides stocking information online at pgc.pa.gov to help hunters discover where the birds are being released and with a three- or four-day window of when the stockings will occur. “We don’t want to create too much crowding if we can avoid it,” Gregg said about not indicating the actual day the birds are released.

“We always want to emphasize the safety aspect,” he said about the challenge of getting hunters out and being courteous to others, while also allowing maximum opportunity to find pheasants. “Walking the tightrope between providing enough information to maintain relatively high harvest rates without providing so much information that it degrades the quality of the hunting experience."

Pheasants are not native to Pennsylvania, and there really isn’t a substantial wild population. They arrived here from Asia. The Pennsylvania Game Commission reports that during the early 1890s, private citizens purchased pheasants from English gamekeepers and released them in Lehigh and Northampton counties. For several decades, many other small releases across the commonwealth were made to establish the pheasant for sport hunting.

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The commission started its pheasant program in 1915 and today propagates pheasants at two farms for each hunting year. The agency anticipates spending about $3.5 million this year on the pheasant program. Gregg estimates it costs about $16 or $17 to raise a mature pheasant, which is slightly higher than last year because of escalated feed and fuel costs.

Pheasant hunting is a heritage program and the birds are a put-and-take resource similar to how the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission stocks trout each year.

The Loyalsock Game Farm, in Lycoming County, and the Southwest Game Farm, in Armstrong County, raise the pheasants to stock across Pennsylvania.

“We’ve made many improvements here on the farm the past few years, actually, so we are able to hold a larger number of birds to put out through Pennsylvania,” Michael Booher, superintendent of the Southwest Game Farm, said.

The improvements allow the staff to have additional space to raise birds for the three late-season releases.

"We want to build more pens to hold more birds. We just don’t have the space at the beginning of the year,” Booher said about young chicks. “We need the space for a better quality bird,” he said about providing ample living areas for growing the birds.

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Other improvements including replacing brooder houses that are more than 30 years old with fully automated buildings that will require fewer man hours to raise the birds. Gregg said the improvements will bring the Southwestern Farm in line with what’s being used at the Loyalsock Game Farm. 

“The hunters want the birds. It’s more tradition than anything for a lot of the people,” Booher said.

An ongoing concern is the avian influenza, bird flu, that occurs from migratory birds. So far, with the protocols that are in place, they haven’t found the disease on their game farms.

Booher said if birds were to get the avian influenza, they would die within 48 hours. “We test our birds every Monday of every week during the stocking season to make sure we don’t have any AI on the farm,” he said.

Gregg said the birds are usually taken by hunters within a month of being stocked, but a handful do make it through the hunting seasons. 

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It’s a challenge for the pheasants to find significant cover to live throughout the year. The birds are exposed to a variety of predators including foxes, coyotes and raptors.

While many hunters use dogs to flush their birds, a dog is not a necessity.

If you don’t have a dog to flush your birds, Booher said you can still be successful. “Be persistent, but be patient. Beat the brush because those birds will hide.”

Gregg said to stop often when walking as that can make a bird nervous and flush.

Be aware of your surroundings. “Beware of the people around you, your dogs, other peoples’ dogs. Lots of people’s dogs may not be well trained and wander off,” Booher said.

Never get in front of anyone else or work too far ahead of your hunting crew. If you see other hunters, work the field in a direction away from them.

If you see a stocking crew where you are hunting, Booher suggests waiting until the birds are all released and the crew leaves the area.

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Gregg reminds hunters to keep the safety on their shotgun and their finger off the trigger until they are ready to shoot. “Obviously it’s an exciting opportunity and the birds get up pretty quick, but you have more time than you think,” he said.

While it’s legal to shoot a pheasant that’s on the ground, Gregg said most bird hunters feel that’s not ethical. A good rule of thumb is to make sure you see the sky around the bird before shooting.

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on your website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on social media @whipkeyoutdoors.