Pheasant Hunting in Ohio

WARREN COUNTY, OH -- Hunting wild game has been a tradition in Ohio since the earliest days of statehood. The virgin forest was mostly cleared and replaced with family farms that raised crops and livestock. The farms were small, many being about forty acres defined by brushy fences and hedgerows along their perimeters. Ditches and natural watercourses that could not be tilled became overgrown weedy habitats ideal for small upland game. 

Pheasants were brought to the U.S. in the 1800’s for sport hunting and as a game bird. In Ohio, they adapted quickly to the turn‐of‐the‐century farming environment. Population numbers surged, peaking in the late 1930s and early 1940s at about five million birds statewide and annual hunter harvests averaged roughly 750,000 male pheasants during that period per the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. 

As a kid I remember watching pheasants scratching the ground for grain and insects on Ohio’s farmlands. But as farming methods changed to increase crop and livestock production, favorable habitat for small game began to disappear. And the upland game populations declined accordingly. 

The last wild pheasants I remember seeing were in Highland County about 40 years ago. The current population of wild pheasants in Ohio is thought to be about 35,000 birds mostly on highly fragmented private land in central and northwestern Ohio as shown on this map...

Map courtesy of ODNR

The male Ring-necked Pheasant is a spectacularly gaudy bird native to Asia. Hunters pursued it not only because of its beauty, but also because it could be made to flush from cover at a sporting range for a shotgun nimrod. 

Being a chicken-size bird, plump and tasty, it often was the centerpiece at many family dinner tables. As pheasant populations declined, the outcry of disappointment from hunters was loud and
clear in the ears of our Ohio wildlife officials. 

They responded by pen-raising around 14,000 pheasants for release each year on dozens of state public hunting areas including Caesar Creek, Spring Valley and Rush Run Wildlife Management Areas in southwestern Ohio.

This week I spotted one of those pheasants along a roadway in Caesar Creek State Park and he smiled for my camera.  

Pheasants can be hunted now through January 10 with a limit of 2 per day – roosters only.

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