I saw the flock of turkeys Yesterday and again this morning. They are roaming far and wide. I know of 3 flocks nearby. I may have to just change which birds I hunt. I hear they are better than domestic turkeys sold in the stores. Just 1 would put more food on the table than a whole season of quail hunting.With the economy like it is I could save money on gas and shells. I just received my free senior liesons so its not all gloom and doom. Gerald.

The wild quail have disappeared from nearly their entire range east of the Mississippi. There were still a few wild birds in Southern Illinois when I was a kid but by the time I got old enough to hunt all the folks in my family had stopped even keeping dogs.

I think it's predation and farm chemicals that have done it to the quail and the pheasants here in the East. Think about when they really started spraying hard, that's about the time the game birds and rabbits began to disappear.


Destry

there very few wild quail left here in north mississippi.in aall of my hunting and being outdoors this season i have only seen i small covey and iwas in my car driving and they flew acrossthe road in front of me. in my opinion chemicals predators loss of habitathawks and such have taken there share of the quail. some one posted a statment i read the other day that got me to thinking in a differnt way. he stated that several years back that chickens had got infected with some kind of viruss that killed them by the thousands.he said they had avery large phezant population.soon they found phezantsdead by the hundreds.in a few years they had no phezants to hunt. all had been killed by this chicken flu. so if phezants could die from the chicken flu. maybe the quail also have caught this same flu. what do you guys think. sure would like to seea few quail again. i did not hear a bobwhite whistle this past spring. charlie

Hawks
 

Since I posted this thread I have been seeing things. Yesterday I saw a hawk kill a bird in the air. It fell in the street in front of my truck. The hawk then scooped it up and flew away with it. I almost hit the hawk. That brought to mind seeing an eagle dive down from way up and take a large fish from Lake Allatoona. These birds are precision killers and are now protected.They are much better at what they do than we are with our old Parkers. I think I once saw an old Parker ad in which a man was after a chicken hawk shouting "Tarnation". All things considered I guess the little quail has survived pretty well. How much longer I don't know.Gerald

does any one have any suggestions on how to help the wild quail make a comeback.i sure would like to hear some suggestions. charlie

My suggestion is to first join Quail Forever (QF) or some other group focused on the establishment of quail and to inform your congressional representative of your concern about the quail population.

QF is a part of Pheasants Forever (PF) and provides education and establishment of habitat. It is politically active and has been influentional in getting the CRP extended and increased primarily through PF.

It won't be easy but, without the sportmen's help, the situation will not get any better.

Richard

thanks for the info richard i will look into joining a cluband for sure will call my representive.your right if we hunrers do not try and help the little bird that has given more to us than we have to itthen it is probably doomed. if i dont try and help the quail make a come back then i have no right to complain.thanks again.we have tried turning loose penned raised quail but so far no wild cobeys have come from them. charlie

Joining Quail Forever is certainly a good start. That and encouraging state fish and game departments to promote quail populations. We have an excellent program in Missouri and the other day Charlie Herzog mentioned that he was finding wild coveys on the eastern side of the state. We do well in the western side and even better on the Great Plains. The best thing a person can do is to become involved. The birds can come back. And shoot those nasty furry things that eat quail. They are pretty good at escaping winged predators.

Nasty furry things-
 

Outrunning predators- huum-- even the "Airborne patrols?"" Never yet have a seen a feral cat, coyote or fox outrun a 50 grain Hornady from my (or other's) .220Swift or other "Rapid Time delivery" cartridge, scope and rifle-

We need what I read that the British have for their birds- later for their driven shoots- game keepers who are armed, patrol and set traps and kill off all the four legged furry bird and nest destroyers. A bounty on Coyotes would be a very good start-:rolleyes:

This website is about some folks doing research on BobWhites. It is primarily about Southwestern ranch Bob White.

http://www.quailresearch.org/

We currently have good quail but we went through a period of 5 or 6 years where it was awful. Maybe about 1990 is when it started. When they came back you couldn't find a green broke pup within 200 miles, much less a finished birddog. Everybody had gotten out of birddogs. I can get you all you want now though.

Best,

Mike

Edit - I think the most interesting information is in the newsletter section.