HARRISBURG-- Break out the brush pants, your favorite shotgun and, of course, a fluorescent orange hat and vest. Pennsylvania’s pheasant season is winging its way closer.
Saturday, Oct. 11 marks the start of the junior pheasant season, and the statewide season follows close behind, opening on Saturday, Oct. 25.
Pennsylvania’s pheasant hunters this year also will enjoy more Sunday hunting opportunities than ever before.
The junior pheasant season, which runs Oct. 11-18, includes Sunday, Oct. 12. The statewide pheasant season from Oct. 25-Nov. 28 includes all Sundays within that range – Oct. 26, Nov. 2, Nov. 9, Nov. 16, and Nov. 23. Within state parks that allow pheasant hunting, Sunday pheasant hunting is allowed only on Nov. 16 and Nov. 23.
The statewide pheasant season reopens after the firearms deer season, running Dec. 15-24, then Dec. 26-Feb. 28. No Sundays are open for pheasant hunting during these periods.
All told, the Game Commission plans to stock approximately 215,000 birds incrementally through early January, with most releases occurring on public land.
About 16,000 pheasants will go out for the junior pheasant hunt, open to all junior hunters and mentored hunters of any age. The junior season runs from Oct. 11-18. Visit the pheasant hunting page at www.pa.gov/pgc for junior season stocking locations. Stocking for the regular season follows.
“Pheasant releases will occur weekly from late October through late November,” said Ian Gregg, chief of the Game Commission’s Wildlife Operations Division. “A mid-December release will bolster hunting opportunity prior to the holidays, and many sites are also scheduled to be stocked twice after Christmas for late season hunting.”
Pheasant hunting is open statewide, except in Pennsylvania’s two Wild Pheasant Recovery Areas (WPRAs) – the Central Susquehanna WPRA in Northumberland and Montour counties, and the Franklin WPRA in Franklin County. No pheasant season will occur in either WPRA this year. While the Game Commission in recent years has authorized a youth pheasant season within the Central Susquehanna WPRA, and regulations were amended in 2024 to allow hunters of all ages to participate if a season was established, springtime pheasant crowing surveys in these areas were below the population estimate trend at which hunting would be authorized.
Elsewhere in the state, hunters may harvest either male or female pheasants. Both are released by the Game Commission, at a ratio of about three males for every female.
Although protecting hens is an important aspect of wild pheasant management, survival of propagated pheasants is too low to support sustainable populations, even without hunting mortality.
Each pheasant hunter needs a general hunting license, and most hunters need a pheasant permit, as well. Pheasant hunters must, at all times, wear at least 250 square inches of fluorescent orange on the head, chest and back combined. A fluorescent orange hat and vest will satisfy this requirement.
Hunters must abide by a two-pheasant daily limit and six-pheasant possession limit.
Pheasant permit requirements
All adult hunters and some senior hunters who pursue pheasants are required to purchase a pheasant permit in addition to a general hunting license. The permit costs $26.97 and is available through HuntFishPA or from any license issuing agent.
As with a general hunting license, hunters can store a digital pheasant permit on a smart device to carry when hunting. Paper licenses and permits must be signed when carried afield.
Senior lifetime resident license holders who acquired their licenses prior to May 13, 2017 are exempt from needing a pheasant permit.
Junior hunters and mentored permit holders under 17 need a free permit.
Although pheasant-permit revenue is not earmarked specifically for the propagation program, and does not completely offset the costs of raising and stocking pheasants, it is important in ensuring the financial sustainability of the program. Permit revenue for the 2024-25 license year was nearly $1.5 million.
“Over 75,000 pheasant permits are issued each year,” Gregg said. “This interest level is encouraging for the future of small-game hunting in Pennsylvania and it’s a great time to be a pheasant hunter. Good luck, have fun, and hunt safely!”
Hunters urged to report banded pheasants
Hunters are advised that some of the pheasants they find in the field this year might have leg bands. By reporting those banded birds, hunters can provide important information as part of a Game Commission study to assess harvest rates for pheasants that are raised on the agency’s game farms, then released to provide hunting opportunities in Pennsylvania.
Game Commission wildlife biometrician Josh Johnson said about 8,000 pheasants are being banded. Over the course of the season, they’ll be released on state game lands and other properties alongside more than 200,000 non-banded pheasants.
Each leg band is stamped with a toll-free number a hunter can call to provide the date and location of harvest.
Johnson said hunter participation is crucial to the success of the study, and he urged all hunters who bag banded pheasants to report their harvests. Further, any banded pheasants found dead from other causes, such as being hit by a vehicle, also should be reported, as this information is very important to the project as well, Johnson said.
Based on their track record, Johnson said he anticipates Pennsylvania’s hunters will report their birds.
“We rely on hunters in conducting many of our studies, and we survey many of our hunters each year to learn more about how their hunting seasons went or gauge their opinions on topics, and year after year they step up,” Johnson said. “Hunting is an important part of the lives of many Pennsylvanians, and I expect the state’s pheasant hunters will again show us just that through their reporting of banded birds.”
A similar study on pheasant harvest rates was conducted in the fall of 2015. That study found about 50 percent of pheasants stocked by the Game Commission were harvested.
Since then, however, many changes to pheasant-stocking schedules and strategies have been implemented with the goals of expanding opportunity and increasing harvest rates. The new study will provide data to evaluate the effects of these changes and assess where additional opportunities might exist to maximize the number of hunter-harvested pheasants through future adjustments in stocking strategies.
Finding pheasants
Because pheasant hunting in Pennsylvania relies on the release of propagated birds, hunters are wise to focus their efforts on the time periods and locations where the Game Commission stocks birds.
To increase awareness of where and when pheasants will be stocked, the agency publishes an allocation table and interactive stocking locations map online. Both of these are available on the pheasant hunting page at www.pa.gov/pgc.
When using the allocation table, click on a region to see the number of male and female pheasants planned for stocking in each county for each release, as well as the range of dates for each release, and a listing of each property to be stocked.
The interactive map shows more than 220 properties that are scheduled to be stocked. Click on a pheasant icon to see the property name, the number of releases, and number of birds released last year to get an idea of large versus small release areas. Users can also zoom in to see pink highlighted areas representing areas of best pheasant hunting habitat where birds are most likely to be found.
As a reminder to hunters in these areas, it is unlawful to discharge a firearm within 150 yards of a Game Commission vehicle if its occupants are releasing pheasants.
For those new to hunting pheasants, the Game Commission offers online resources to help inexperienced hunters find success. Various pheasant-hunting resources are available on the Learn to Hunt Program page at www.pa.gov/pgc.
Handling harvested wild birds
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus can be carried by wild birds and has been found across the Pennsylvania landscape. To protect themselves and to reduce the risk of spreading this extremely contagious disease to other birds, hunters are advised to practice the following precautions:
- Have dedicated footwear, clothing, and tools that are only used for hunting, handling, and dressing harvested wild birds.
- Do not handle or harvest wild birds that appear sick or are found dead.
- Wear gloves when handling or dressing harvested wild birds.
- Do not eat, drink, or smoke when handling or dressing harvested wild birds.
- Dress harvested wild birds in the field.
- Double bag any offal and feathers that will be removed from the field.
- Wash your hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer immediately after handling or dressing harvested wild birds.
- Wash all tools and work surfaces with soap and water after using them, then disinfect with a 10% household bleach solution. Allow to air dry or rinse after 10 minutes of contact time.
- Change footwear and clothing before coming in contact with any domestic poultry or pet birds.
While influenza viruses can infect humans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared that currently in the United States “viruses circulating in birds are believed to pose a low risk to the general public”.
Any sick or dead domestic birds should be reported to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture at 717-772-2852.
Sick or dead wild birds should be reported to the Game Commission at 1-833-PGC-WILD.
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