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The time is here for hunting at one of the select Indiana Fish and Wildlife Areas for the popular sport of put-and-take pheasant hunts. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources offers put-and-take hunting for ring-necked pheasants through next Sunday at Atterbury, Glendale, Pigeon River (west of Indiana 3), Tri-County, Willow Slough and Winamac Fish and Wildlife areas and at J. Edward Roush Lake State Recreation Area.
The cost for put-and-take hunts is $15 per person, and the bag limit is two birds. Hunters filling their limit may not take any more pheasants that day. Hunters can reserve put-and-take pheasant hunts online until midnight Saturday at IndianaOutdoor.IN.gov. Hunts are no longer available on a first-come, first-served basis at the properties. Hunters can select the date and property location for their hunt. Pheasant hunting season is extended on Atterbury and Glendale until Jan. 15. The bag limit is two birds of either sex.
For those who are not familiar with put-and-take pheasant hunts, here is how it works:
•The property staff tallies the number of hunters who sign up to hunt in each part of the property being used for put-and-take hunting. For every hunter a pair of pheasants is loaded on a truck and the staff drives the truck through the fields releasing the birds.
•The pheasants are turned out before the 8 a.m. starting time. The daily limit is two pheasants per hunter, the same as the limit on private land for wild pheasants. One difference is that on put-and-take hunts both hen and rooster pheasants are released so both hens and roosters can be harvested.
•If you are a person who prefers to hunt small game other than pheasants on the properties that host a put-and-take season, you aren’t out of luck. Only certain sections of each property involved are used for put-and-take hunting. The rest of each wildlife area is open to licensed hunters who are after quail, rabbits or other small game.
•While the sections of each property being used in the put-and-take pheasant program are closed to other small-game hunters, deer hunters may still hunt in these simultaneously. Some deer hunters do just that, but most either switch to other areas during the pheasant season or hunt early mornings before the start of the put-and-take hunts or late in the day after the majority of pheasant hunters and their dogs have gone. So, for the most part, the put-and-take hunters have their entire hunting units to themselves.
For hunters in the Fort Wayne area, the J. Edward Roush Lake SRA in Huntington County, the Pigeon River FWA in LaGrange County and the Tri-County FWA in Kosciusko County are the closest.
If you aren’t able to make it out during the put-and-take release days, don’t worry too much. Good hunting can usually be had on the days immediately following the put-and-take where hunters can hunt any birds that may have made it through. Or there may be some extra birds around due to situations where some hunters had to back out of their reserved dates at the last minute and couldn’t make their hunt. These “clean-up” hunts as they are referred to can not only be productive, but they don’t cost you anything either.
The statewide pheasant season runs through Dec. 21 with a daily bag limit of two birds (rooster only) with the exception of the put-and-take hunts where hunters can shoot roosters and hens.
