In the late 70's the TPW tried to populate pheasant along the Gulf Coast, my families ranch was chosen as a test area to repopulate them. We had 2300 acres that was mostly rice, grains and cattle so had a mix of habitat. They released somewhere between 2,000 - 4,000 over a 2 yr period, if I remember correctly they were released in late June or early July, just about the time we started rice harvest. Since they were juveniles they were dumber than a rock and were always huddled up together, I guess from being in a brooder. More than once our truck drivers would have to stop, get out and literally kick and move the birds out of the middle of our ranch roads, all this in the middle of the day when we are sending bobtail truck loads of rice to our farm bins at the clip of about 5-6 loads an hour. My Dad had threaten all our hands, don't run over any of them, we'll be in deep *****
After about 3 years they actually put a hunting season for pheasant in the TPW Handbook for Matagorda County, the hunting area was a boundary of a series of highways and county roads which surrounded our ranch, which of course was not public so nobody really got to hunt them. There was also another area in SW Matagorda County in the Blessing/Deutschburg area where they had also done this, I think that was on the Kubecka family farm and the Trull Estate.
I actually got to go hunting with all the big shots from TPW when they kicked off the inaugural season, they brought a bunch of higher ups and a trailer load of dogs, they asked my Dad if he wanted to go and he told them no but my son probably would. They showed up and I hunted with them for about 2 hours, they killed a few but we didn't find that many, I think the varmits had killed most of them by then. My only fear was I hunted with all those game wardens that day and they never asked for my license, I hadn't gotten my new one for the year yet so that was my little secret for the day! I think I shot 2 later that year but never hunted them again, we just didn't see many after about 4 years.
