Hunting and Fishing: Pheasant Season, Fabulous Fishing, Hawks in Cape May
Friday, September 17, 2010
PA Pheasant Season Begins October 23
HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Game Commission has slated 108,000 ring-necked pheasants for release on public lands throughout the Commonwealth for the upcoming small game hunting seasons, including 16,800 birds for the junior only season (Oct. 9-16).
The region staff will begin the stocking season Oct. 8, when the agency will release 15,000 birds (8,640 males and 6,490 females) for the junior pheasant hunt scheduled for Oct 9-16. A listing of stocking locations for the youth hunt can be found on pages 25-27 of the 2010-11 Pennsylvania Digest of Hunting and Trapping Regulations, which is provided to each license buyer.
Another 1,800 pheasants have been allocated for those clubs sponsoring mentored pheasant hunts for juniors on Oct. 9. (For more information on those clubs participating, please see News Release #088-10.)
Opening day of the general pheasant hunting season is Oct. 23, and closes on Nov. 27. Pre-season stocking of pheasants in each region will begin Oct. 20, followed by the first and second in-season stockings on Oct. 28 or 29, and Nov. 4 or 5. A third in-season stocking will be conducted, on Nov. 10, in areas surrounding the Somerset, Central Susquehanna and Hegins-Gratz Valley Wild Pheasant Recovery Areas. Only male pheasants are legal game in Wildlife Management Units (WMUs) 2A, 2B, 2C, 4C, 4E, 5A and 5B. Male and female pheasants are legal game in all other WMUs.
During the regular fall season, the agency focuses pheasant stocking on State Game Lands and select state parks and federal lands. However, in some areas where habitat conditions on public lands are marginal, birds may be stocked on properties enrolled in the Game Commission public access program. Game Commission regional offices have an updated publication titled “A Guide To Pheasant Releases And More,” which identifies State Game Lands.
Video: Fabulous Fishing at Lake Hopatcong
A new NJ.com Star-Ledger video highlights the fantastic fishing at Lake Hopatcong. The abundance and variety of fish available to anglers is supported by fish raised at the NJ DEP Division of Fish and Wildlife's Hackettstown Hatchery. The division will stock more than 120,000 fish in Hopatcong this season, including trout, walleye, hybrid striped bass, channel catfish, tiger muskellunge and true strain muskellunge.
To view the video visit http://videos.nj.com/star-ledger/2010/09/new_jersey_division_of_fish_an.html on theNJ.com website.
Magazine ranks Cape May Point No. 1 place to see hawks in nation
- pressofAtlanticCity.com
CAPE MAY POINT - A birding magazine has dubbed the borough the best place in North America to see hawks and warblers, and a pretty darn good place to see shorebirds, too.Those superlatives come from birdwatchers themselves, who took part in a poll sponsored by Birder's World Magazine. Of 6,000 votes cast, the hawk watch platform at Cape May Point State Park was rated the No. 1 spot in North America for hawk watching, beating out the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania and 23 other sites in the top 25. Interestingly, readers named their own backyard the 10th best site. The Atlantic flyway and the geography of the peninsula conspire to funnel birds to Cape May Point, where they run into the Delaware Bay. That worries even the best flyers among them, so they come down to earth to figure it all out. The hawk migration period in Cape May Point runs from September to November, as a steady stream of birds leave the skies and come down to Earth when they discover the bay.