John, I thought your last line was going to be "If it's raining, cold, and the wind blowing, we don't dismount."

I never knew how good we had it when I was growing up in the Texas Panhandle. Loads of wild pheasants and quail. 20 covey days were common. The last several years have seen huge declines in populations, but every now and then the stars align and we are loaded with birds again. Doesn't last more than a year or maybe two now, when it happens. Dale Rollins and other researchers have lots of theories, but nobody has been able to find a fix.

When it's a good year, it's AWESOME.

How does one know the difference between a wild bob and a raised bob while hunting a field/farm/plantation that releases raised bobs, but allegedly has both?

-Victor

The wild ones know how to fly.

And not only do they know how to fly, they know how to evade hunters. Wild birds will run from hunters and dogs, and after they flush, will often set down "over the hill" and run like the dickens for parts unknown...or bury so deep that, "air washed" from their flush, they are almost impossible for a dog to find. He may be Gentleman Bob, but he knows guerrilla tactics...and I can't emphasize enough, as Shane says, they know how to fly.

You don't need a flushing dog nor do you have to kick up wild birds. A lot of put and take operations like to tell their clients that they early release birds, giving them time to mature in the wild and then fly like wild birds. It's a gimmick. They put birds out every morning and at mid day for the booked hunts. You are lucky if a released bird lasts more than 3 days in the wild. The quality of the pen raised bird will make a difference, as will weather conditions.

I was very fortunate back in the 70's and 80's to have a number of farms on Maryland's eastern shore that held many coveys of wild birds. We would'nt start hunting till 9am or so, waiting for the covey to work into the brushy cover on the edge of the woods. The drainage ditches were overgrown and held lots of birds. You've never really hunted these birds until you would get into a covey that the dogs pointed 20 feet into the woods.

That being said, the farmers quit leaving those brushy edges and overgrown ditches in the early 90's and they introduced wild turkeys to the shore. I believe to this day that that explosion of the turkey population accounted for the demise of the quail and the lack of the brushy cover doomed any successful hatches they might have.

They are , were, my favorite bird to hunt followed closely by doves.

Turkeys scratching can easily destroy any ground nesting birds nests.






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Turkeys have invaded the Grouse cover in the U.P. as well. It's nothing to see several broods along the road at any given time. The real young ones are good eating.:whistle:

And, Daryl, how are you at shooting “woods quail?” Quail in the woods are by far my toughest shot of all game bird hunting.