Did you know there are actually three distinct species of ring-necked pheasants in the Midwest? Yes, we have "early-season pheasants," an almost mythical species that are very hunter-friendly. This breed of ringneck allegedly runs to the gun. Hop out of your truck, load up the scattergun and just walk absent-mindedly into the field. In no time, these early- season roosters will notice you are there, come a-running and spring into flight once they get within 10 or 15 yards of you as though they are on some sort of kamikaze mission.

A story about early-season pheasants usually centers on how to pop these birds with 28 gauges and how to keep your bird dog from overheating. Throw in a quick and easy pheasant recipe and the story is told.
The second breed of pheasant roaming the Midwest is the "mid-season pheasant." This species is the ones that are left after the kamikaze birds are all headed for the frying pans. These birds live in the same areas as early-season pheasants, but you'll have to work for them a little to get them into your game sack. A good bird dog will help, but strong legs and a fair shooting eye will make up for being dogless.

Limit hunts come to those who put in a modicum amount of effort. An article about hunting these mid-season birds will often delve into such esoteric topics as which sort of boots to wear or the merits of large-sized dogs like German shorthairs or Labs vs. smaller breeds like Brittanys or springers. Throw in a quick and easy pheasant recipe and the story is told.

Then there are "late-season pheasants." This is the toughest breed of ringneck known to man. These are the birds that can recognize a dog kennel in the back of a pickup truck and are already running out the other end of the field before the truck is even parked. These birds aren't just lucky remnants from the early-season action - these are smart birds. They are the survivors; and in a test of man and dog against a late-season ringneck, odds makers would pick the bird every time. It takes more than just a man and a dog to score on these pheasants. It takes strategy, tact, magnum loads, perseverance, lightning reflexes and a dog sharp enough to read and understand Shakespeare. Or so it would seem with most late- season pheasant hunting articles I've read. Throw in a quick and easy pheasant recipe and the story is told.

Okay, there's really no genetic difference between these species, but there certainly is some truth in the theory about early-, middle- and late-season pheasants acting distinctly different.
I've walked into a patch of giant ragweed on opening day and scored a limit before the muffler on my truck cooled off. I've put my dog in the same field 10 days into the season and came home with tired feet and enough pheasant meat to try out a couple of quick and easy pheasant recipes. I've also hiked miles through good-looking cover and snowed-over fields with only the distant glimpse of a departing rooster for my efforts.

It all has to do with timing. In most areas of the Midwest, early-season pheasants exist, but only about as long as the frost on a thick stand of switch grass on opening day. By mid-morning, the frost is gone and so are most of the early-season birds.

The midseason breed has a bit more longevity. How long they can be found is more a factor of hunting pressure than anything else. That being the case, on most public hunting lands in the Midwest, this breed wisps to extinction as fast as the smoke from a 12-gauge barrel on a windy day. On Uncle Joe's farm, with only you and cousin Ernie out hunting, the midseason breed might be encountered as far into the season as, say, the second day, perhaps the second weekend. Don't expect pushover pheasants much longer, however, because not only are late-season pheasants smart, they are teachers - or so it would seem.

Since pheasants supposedly can't talk to each other or have much reasoning power, one could theorize that each pheasant would have to learn on its own what hunters and their dogs are up to when they hit the field. If that were the case, some pheasants would get their first and last lesson at the same time, while other pheasants in a good pheasant patch wouldn't get a lesson at all.

That doesn't seem to happen. While some ringnecks do learn the hard way, it often seems the word that hunters are afoot spreads through the pheasant population as fast as Presidential rumors grapevine through the Washington press corps.

The point of all this is to explain why many of the most successful hunters I know don't worry about hunting for early-season pheasants and give scant attention to the mid-season breed, as well. These guys will take what easy birds are offered them on opening morning, but by the end of the day, certainly by the end of opening weekend, the experts are already opting for tactics most suited to getting in range of late-season ringnecks.