"It's a little paradise around here," says Matt Kern, 26, a Nazareth native. "People don't realize that there are birds this far south. We have years where you walk 5 miles and never see a pheasant. But we have years with birds you wouldn't believe. Wild birds, and every one is crazy as hell."

Kern always comes home for the pheasant opener to welcome a group of community hunters on the land where he was born and raised. "This is the place I love," he says. "If these folks don't have a good time while they're here, we take it personally."