Bobwhite Reintroduction!

[Mike Koneski]

Here in PA our Game Commission released wild trapped bobs back into PA. Bobs have pretty much been extirpated here since the 80s-90s. Bobs were wild trapped in VA, KY and FL. In total there will be 100 released in the Chambersburg area on Letterkenny Army Depot this year. More bobs to come. The majority also has transmitters placed on them to track their movements and survival. At one time we had bobs in every county of the state. Kudos to our PGC for proceeding with this plan. :clap:

[Jerry Harlow]

Don't know why they would trap wild ones in Virginia. I think they trapped the last ones. Send them back!

[Tom Kidd]

Good Morning Mike and followers,

They should check out the Pine Barron's and below in Jersey to see if any Jersey Bob's have survived. Hunted them before, after, and while stationed on Macquire AFB, and they were at least 50% larger than the ones here in Pa. and W. Va. back then. I also hunted the Barron's for grouse, but I understand they are now long gone, Sad! I had/have a Savage 20ga 28" Ejector Sterlingworth that was choked tighter than a frog's butt, (and that's H20 proof) that I kept locked in the office at maintenance shop. Wow, try that today. I used to hunt with the Sarge and most times it was in his trailer out in Browns Mills. I hope our memories are connected to our soul, if so, then I will have lots to keep me entertained in the hereafter. The last wild quail here in Eastern Pa. were along the RR on/in the old abandoned farms behind the tank farms, friends have told me that they survived into the 90s out in your area?? I used to run/train the dogs without shooting them towards the end, which was back in the 70s. Enough BS for now, Take Care, and All the Best to Everyone. Remember, Life is Good, Treat it with Respect! Tom

[John Davis]

Don't know why they would trap wild ones in Virginia. I think they trapped the last ones. Send them back!

Glad they didn’t take any Georgia bob whites. We ain’t got any to spare.

[Garry L Gordon]

Good luck with your State’s quail reintroduction. We spent years and traded wild turkeys for grouse here in Missouri only to have the Conservation Department abandon its habitat management in our area (I believe because hunters found them too hard to hunt). There are still grouse along the Missouri River, but not enough to support hunting. Unless there’s a landscape level habitat management plan, chances of survival are slim.

But there’s nothing quite like hunting wild Bobs in your own backyard!

[john pulis]

NY CEED, quail project, reintroduced close to 500 pen hatched BW on Long Island last year in various NYS Parks from western Nassau Cnty, near NYC, out to both the North and South forks. MY wife and I were walking along one the greenbelts last Fall, and lo and behold I heard that call, “Bob White, Bob White.” I stopped mid step and said, did you hear that. We have to walk again this Spring with our ears ready and hope for the best. Suburban sprawl has all but eliminated habitat.

[Dylan Rhodes]

I think over the course of training my two dogs I "released" 200 into the Mercer County area myself. I never could get them to recall properly, a bird or two every now and then would come back to the pen. They stuck around my hunting locale on the property for a couple years. I would hear them chirping while turkey scouting or during turkey season. Not sure if they all just died off or were eaten, but 4 years later no evidence of them remains. Good habitat too - had my hopes up after hearing them still around after 1 year.

[George Davis]

Eastern New Mexico (Carlsbad) for years was a winter field trail area and bobwhites were used. Today we have a thriving small populations of bobwhites which escaped the trails. They've adapted and surviving in terrain which looks nothing like the Midwest or South.
We found then in canyon filled with scrub oaks bushes which are 12-14 inch tall (produce a abundance of very small acorns) and are filled with Goat Heads/Texas Tacks which are terrible for your dogs pads. Dog boots are required!!!!!!!
I'm always amazed how some animals adapt and survive. I'm from central Illinois originally and family is sharing they are now seeing then after many years of nothing.

[Arthur Shaffer]

Don't know why they would trap wild ones in Virginia. I think they trapped the last ones. Send them back!

I too am surprised. Quail, in my mind, are an endagered species in Kentucky.
When I ws young, they were everywhere and could be hunted without a dog. They fell prey to modern farming practices and are very hard to even see now. If you have a covey of any kind it is a miracle.

Kentucky has been a part of several reintroduction programs which have been amazingly successful. The two recent(?) ones were wild turkey and elk.

The turkeys were largely due to a trade with Missouri; turkeys for river otter. We went from no turkey to flocks so large they feed and roost in our back yard. This was aided by the fact that we have vast areas of agriculture bordered by heavily masted woodlands.

Elk have been reintroduced over the last several years to former areas of reclaimed strip mines surrounded by native woodlands and low human populations. It has been so successful that very successful hunting seasons allow even out of state tags (too many due to state quest for revenue) and a significant tourist flow. Many don't realize that elk are actually a plains animal that took to the mountains due to human pressure. The "deer" that were a big draw to native americans and the pioneers were actually elk to a large extent. The reintroduction was truly that. In the same way, it was successful due to habitat shifts which mirrored their former condition. Deer were formerly plentiful but by the early 60's had all but disappeared over most of the state. While not introduced, they gradually repopulated themselves from southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to the point that they are almost a nuisance.

Don't hold out much hope on a system of release to have much affect. Habitat management is the only thing that will work. Quail require food, water and shelter within a home radius which is, I believe, the smallest of any of the game birds. Unless the habitat exists, there is little chance of success. Nature is resilient. If the habitat is provided, then a small reintroduction can have a big effect.

[Joe Graziano]

Tom,

I loved reading your post. I grew up in Toms River in the 1980s. My father and I used to hunt wild quail in an old county park in Ocean County. No one I’ve told has ever heard of wild NJ quail! We didn’t know they existed until stumbling on them while rabbit hunting. Yours is the only other post I’ve ever read about someone else hunting quail in NJ. They were indeed big, and also plentiful where we hunted. I never saw another hunter back there other than our family and friends. Most of the time, we hunted stocked birds, pheasant and quail, at Colliers Mills. Brings back such memories.

Thanks and God bless!

Joe

[Mike Koneski]

Art, this was planned for over 10 years. The PGC had been working on quail habitat in Central PA. There will be 25 wild birds from VA, 25 from KY and 50 from FL all total that will be stocked on that Army base this year. Word is that over the past few years there has been quite a bit of predator trapping on the base too. Most of our birds need some predators removed to successfully grow the populations. That's one thing the PGC is finding while working with MO and a few other states that are actively studying turkey populations. Hard data is needed for them to make changes. Comments pro or con regarding predator removal don't cut it. Good research gets things done. We need healthy habitat and we need to take some predators out of the equation. I'm looking forward to being out and trapping again next winter. I enjoy it and it helps our bird populations on our property.

Just a happy note, we've been hearing grouse drumming here for the past month! It's the first time in probably four years!

[Steve Cambria]

"YUMMMMMMM, 100 HOT-POCKETS!!!!"

"Sure beats the starlings at the town dump.

Thanks PGC, that should feed me and my hood for at least a week!!!"

125049

[Mike Koneski]

Hawk are very tasty especially marinated and smoked on a Traeger.

[Jim McKee]

Mike, I hope the BW releases work
We had hunt-able populations of BWs in our county just north of I-70 until the Blizzard in the mid 1970s. I hunted them on the Dillon Wildlife area many times
Our ODW refuses to release BWs in our area- the reason "BWs cannot survive this far north"
Jim

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Ohio still has a quail season in some of the southwestern counties--these are wild birds. As Jim attested, the blizzards of 77-78 wiped out the quail in the rest of the state. Growing up on a dairy farm in eastern Ohio, quail were common until then.
West Virginia released wild trapped quail in some of the southern coal fields a few years ago and are still hanging on but not thriving. The WV DNR has been releasing pen raised quail on other WMA's and I had a great time this year with my setters. I was sttill working my dogs on them up until a few weeks ago, but have now stopped. Doubtful, but hopeful those birds may reproduce this spring. I need to go out and listen to see if I can hear a little bob-white calling--god, how I miss that. I can see why my friend Garry is so enamored with them.

[Harold Lee Pickens]

A couple recent junk store finds:

[George Davis]

Growing up in rural Central Illinois in the fifties & sixties many of the farm kids had trap-lines and helped control the population of raccoons, skunks, red fox and weasels (didn't have coyotes then in our areas). Our local game warden even helped teach us how to set traps, skin the animals and stretch the hides, what a great era of our country.

[CraigThompson]

Hawk are very tasty especially marinated and smoked on a Traeger.

I’ve been told freshly dug holes like consuming Hawk carcasses :whistle::rotf:

[Gary Laudermilch]

When I was in college in 1967 I hunted the area not too far from Letterkenny. I waws hunting pheasants primarily but I flushed more quail than pheasants. I hope this successful.

[William Woods]

The mid-seventies winters, advances (?) in farming practices, machinery, chemicals, decline (if not outright ending) of trapping, have all contributed to all but elimination of a huntable population of quail in my area.

Years ago, I was told by DNR officials in both Kentucky and Indiana that the introduction of pen reared quail was a failure everywhere it had been tried.

Another theory was that the introduction of pen reared quail were carriers of disease that contributed to the demise of wild quail wherever the pen raised were released, either by well-meaning individuals or people working their dogs on the released birds.

[Harold Lee Pickens]

I read a report that wild fur demand is going to be a big increase next year. I have caught/disposed 10 raccoons at my house since March 1st using dog proof traps, and a 22 pistol.
South Dakota has a super predator bounty system. $10 for each fox, racoon, possum, skunk tail turned in. The first month is for youth only, then open to all. Payout limit is $590 to keep it under the 600 limit where taxes must be claimed. Wish other states would enact this, would help out ground nesting birds.

[Garry L Gordon]

I like the idea of a managed bounty. I think with today’s deck stacked so much against quail (and quail habitat) that some sort of variable control is in order. The Feds are coming around in their NRCS policies regarding CRP and native grasses and forbs, but ultimately, it’s the farmers who need to buy in and also have a clear sense that programs like field buffers, etc. are in their best interests.

[Aaron Beck]

What kind of bag limits were there in the good old days when birds were abundant?

[William Woods]

What kind of bag limits were there in the good old days when birds were abundant?

In my "good old days" the limit was 12. I had heard of limits of 15 before my time. Prior to federal regulations being implemented, no limit hunting.

[Garry L Gordon]

Aaron, an example: the bag limit in Kansas in the early 20th C. was 20 per day. Some states had season limits to go with their day bags (I remember those). In the South limits were high, too, back in the day.

The setting of bag limits was found to not be the best way to manage quail by itself. When I first started hunting quail in 1960s Virginia, I recall the limit being 15. It’s been 8 birds in Missouri for the last 44 years.

Read about the psychology of setting limits. It’s fascinating.

[Arthur Shaffer]

I think too that hunting pressure is a lot of the problem. I lived in a very rural area area of Kentucky in a town of 1200 people. The closest town was po. 100 and 17 miles away, after that it was more than 20 miles in any direction to a town, and all the intervening land was farmed or vacant. It teemed with game but there were few hunters when I was a kid in the 50's and 60's. We lived on the edge of town and I literally walked out my back door and had the choice of three or four farms to hunt (close enough for my parents to watch me).

My family was a family of hunters but I realized later that we were a rarity. Outside of a few people who would shoot a few squirrels, hunting was not a big deal. My dad told me that during his childhood in the 20's he hardly ever heard of an adult hunting. If a farm kid had access to a 22, he might shoot a few squirrels and rabbits, but by and large it was not an adult thing. During the depression no one had the money to buy shotgun shells and certainly didn't wast them by shooting at flying birds. If a hunting dog was to be seen, it was a small cur that would tree squirrels.

I was raised on the stories of Daniel Boone and the pioneers and the myth of the American hunting legacy, but I really believe it was not as widespread as we imagine. Historians have written extensively about the expansion out of the colonies and across the plains, and the truth is that most people feared the outdoors and looked on it as a sinister and dangerous place. Hunting, camping and outdoor recreation only became popular as we entered the 20th century, and was the domain of people who could afford to do it. Fishing seems to havel always been popular, much more so than hunting.

The advent of recreational hunting around the mid century co-incides with the start of the deline of game.

[Stan Hillis]

Hawk are very tasty especially marinated and smoked on a Traeger.

When asked how hawks "eat" (meaning how do they taste, in Southern vernacular} an old guy I knew replied "Most like an owl".

[Bruce Hering]

When asked how hawks "eat" (meaning how do they taste, in Southern vernacular} an old guy I knew replied "Most like an owl".

Thats from a Justin Wilson joke routine, I think. Cajun based.

[Alfred Houde]

I hope it works but I'm skeptical. Unchecked predation and habitat loss have had an adverse effect on quail and other upland species.

[John Dallas]

Habitat loss and farming changes are the culprits, I suggest. Certainly was in Michigan. Larger and larger fields meant less hedgerows, 3rd cutting of new, faster growing hay resulted in destruction of pheasant nests. Predators are only a significant problem when there are a lot of them (Which means there is lots of game). Minimal game, minimal predators

[Bruce Hering]

When I came to Southernmost Illinois it was either 12 0r 14 per day with a two day in possession. On most days when I got out of class by noon, I could be in birds in less than an hour and could (if I wanted to) fill a day limit by sundown. Thats with two fully broke pointers.

My how times have changed. Big D is correct. Ag practices have changed so much due to land prices and crop prices that many farmers now till fence row (if there is one) to fence row.

[John Davis]

Ditch bank to ditch bank.

[Garry L Gordon]

My State has been grappling with the "quail issue" for some time. When I was teaching I had a class partner with the local Conservation Dept. folks to do quail covey counts in a nearby area where landowners had signed on for funding for some quail friendly practices. Our covey counts took place both within the areas where these practices occurred and without. It was stunning to see the difference in the number of coveys. Although not all of the folks who signed on to the funded practices were farmers, I was encouraged that many were. If the farmers care enough and get support to help, maybe there's hope.

This past year a fellow PGCA member invited me to hunt on a farm in a nearby county that had offered a quail hunt as part of a fundraising auction aimed at supporting wounded veterans. Although our hunt happened to fall on a drenchingly (my word) wet day, we saw some of the best North Missouri bird cover I've seen in the past 30 years of hunting. We found birds, and I got invited back by the landowner for another hunt later in the season. Oh my gosh(!) what a difference a shift in practice on a piece of ground can make for wildlife.

It can happen IF we want it to happen.

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Often wonder about the effects of all the invasive plants that now fill our woods and fields. Autumn Olive, multiflora rose, tree of heaven, Japanese stilt grass, kudzu, garlic mustard, and the list goes on..........

[Bruce Hering]

Lets do it this way:

Good quail management amounts to finding the limiting factors and fixing them. The quail's life is made up of many things but the three top are, as always, food (over the course of a year) cover (the right kind) and water.

I can go further but it will take a bit. I am willing to identify all the aspects as they relate to the bird's survival and population if ya all would like but it will take several posts.

Just offering.....

[Andrew Sacco]

Everyone mentions water, but I guess in the NE US we never think about lack of water. Literally ponds, lakes, rivulets and streams everywhere. On a tangential thought about cover: it's my totally uneducated feeling that the death of all the ash trees has helped the ruffed grouse somewhat. There is surely more second growth in some of my frequent haunts that were maturing too much. More sunlight, more ground cover is good.

[Garry L Gordon]

Everyone mentions water, but I guess in the NE US we never think about lack of water. Literally ponds, lakes, rivulets and streams everywhere. On a tangential thought about cover: it's my totally uneducated feeling that the death of all the ash trees has helped the ruffed grouse somewhat. There is surely more second growth in some of my frequent haunts that were maturing too much. More sunlight, more ground cover is good.

I wondered about the same habitat boost from the Gypsy moth invasion. Even if all the trees were not killed, there would be more sunlight reaching the forest floor. Anyone see any more grouse in those areas hit by the moths?

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Hasn't helped the Appalachian part of Ohio, Garry.