Pheasant Trapping Keeps You Up at Night

The instructions were all too reminiscent of failed snipe hunts of 30 years past. Remember the family camping outing and the nightly ritual for the ever-elusive -- and quite mythical -- snipe? I can still hear the words: “Get the rope, the net, don’t talk, and bring the box in case we catch him.”

Now I was getting instructions that sounded distinctly familiar, only with a complex twist.

“Your job is to take the spotlight and keep it on the bird,” our leader lectured. “It doesn’t blind them, just dazzles them. And you, with the net, you circle around them from the left, and make sure you are on your tip toes. Creep up on them, and don’t raise the net. You have to be patient but aggressive. God makes netters, and we’ll find out right away if you are a netter or not.”

Yeah, sure, I figured. Little did I know how this intricate, nocturnal trapping technique would lead to the capture of a number of pheasants, an important procedure in assuring large populations of the birds.

John Massie is assistant upland game coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Game. Part of his job for the past four years has been trapping wild pheasants and relocating them to areas where their populations are sparse. Some pheasants are relocated on private lands.

But private landowners have agreed to open their land to public pheasant hunting on a community-hunt basis so the program benefits all.

Massie often has trouble finding help for the all-night mission.

“Sometimes the boss comes in and says we have to do it tonight,” Massie said. “Even when I know in advance, getting people to stay up all night pheasants is often a hard idea to sell.”

It’s 10 p.m. Mike Grima and I are standing at a spot near the Yolo County landfill. We just received spotlight and netting instructions from Massie. Grima is a warden with F&G;, and neither of us had been pheasant trapping before. We were both intrigued and decided to volunteer. “You guys have plenty of caffeine in you?” Massie asked. “Let’s go out and see what we can find.”

With that, Massie started a six-wheel vehicle in motion. I was in the passenger seat with a million-candlepower spotlight. Grima was in the back, another spotlight in one hand, a big fish net in the other. The star thistle and giant aster, some of it 8 feet high, made it difficult to clearly see any roosting pheasants.

An hour went by, and nothing. Then a quick movement was seen, and some red eyes reflected the lights. “Rabbits,” Massie said. “Pheasant eyes don’t reflect.”

More movement -- a skunk -- along a bank. “That’s not a good sign,” Massie said. Not good, because no one wants to run into a skunk in the middle of the night, and skunks are good at eating pheasant eggs.

“We’ll find them,” Massie said. “Sometimes we go along and see nothing, then all of a sudden 20 or 30 jump out. They bunch up.”

Just then, a pheasant jumped and flew about 30 yards and landed. Grima jumped out of the vehicle as Massie hit the throttle. I kept the spotlight on the bird as well as I could.

When we reached where we thought the bird landed, Grima had already swung wide left. The plan was to herd the pheasant to Grima.

“The exhaust is in the left front of the machine, and between that noise and your spotlight, Mike should be able to sneak up on the bird. One of the states that traps the birds has tapes of Janis Joplin blasting on the grill (to help shield the trapper’s movement).”

Just as I spotted the hen on the ground and saw Grima circling in behind, she took off again, this time about 100 yards. Massie hit the throttle, and we were off. Grima was left running through the thistle and aster, hoping a hole or small ditch wasn’t between him and the pheasant.

“She should be around here,” Massie said as he slowed the vehicle. “Look for the tops of the thistle moving. They’ll run a little and then stop. There. Over there about 10 yards to your left.”

I turned the spotlight and saw the top of some thistle moving. By now, Grima had caught up and was slowly getting in position. Massie moved the vehicle toward the bird, and suddenly I could see the hen looking right at me. Massie moved the vehicle toward at her, I kept her in the spotlight, and Grima moved in from behind. Grima made a leap, and the hen was in the net.

I got out and grabbed her legs and pulled her out from the net and took her to Massie. He tagged the hen, and we put her in the cage in the back of the vehicle.

“I think we have a netter,” Massie said of Grima. “Let’s go see if we can find some more.”

Eight hours later, with Grima and me trading duties, we had 40 pheasants. The last two hours, between 4 a.m and 6 a.m., were hardest. The birds did not fly as much. They wanted to sleep, so they stayed on the ground a lot more. Problem was, we also wanted to sleep. Our eyelids were heavy.

“For never having netted before, you guys did a good job,” Massie said as he transferred all the pheasants from the vehicle to a big van. “I would have been happy with 20 birds. Thirty would had been great. But 40 is fantastic. I have to get this vehicle (the borrowed six-wheeler) back to Grizzly Island and then get the pheasants on a plane (for shipment to Imperial Valley in Southern California). I’m doing this again tomorrow night. Anytime you guys want to volunteer again, just give me a call.”

One reason Massie pursues this program is to show the public that F&G; is interested in doing pheasant management work.

“We are trying to help the pheasant population and show all those who buy hunting licenses that we do put their money to work,” Massie said.

Since 1974, wild pheasant populations have dropped from 50 percent to 75 percent. Ringnecks have virtually disappeared in some areas that had supported good populations. Loss of essential cover is the primary reason to the decline. Intensive control measures for weeds, insects and rodents, land leveling, cropping patterns and practices, and other recent developments in agriculture all contributed to loss of pheasant cover.

In 1989, the relocation program featured 10 release sites, some on wildlife areas owned by the state, others on private land.

“We get some criticism that we are taking pheasants off public land and putting them on private land,” Massie said. “But -- and I want to emphasize this -- we do not take pheasants off land that is hunted. And by putting them on private land, which is open to the public for a fee, say $40 or $50, like most community clubs charge, it’s easier to control entry. It’s not a problem for the landowner, trespassing is cut down, and the public hunter gets a place to hunt.”

Massie is looking for a few good men or women to help him trap pheasants.

“Volunteers are always welcomed,” Massie said. “The problem is that I never know when I will have the chance, and it’s hard for people to come out on the spur of the moment and then have to go to work the next day after being up all night.”

If Massie can find areas to trap pheasants, he plans to trap them through February. It is a job that requires some degree of conditioning and willingness to stay awake all night.

“If people plan to help,” Massie said, “they better plan to stay awake all night and work all night.”

Netting is more physically demanding than spotlighting. Often the spotlighter stays in the vehicle and watches the pheasant, while the netter is either chasing the vehicle and pheasant or circling to get in position to net the pheasant.