Quail hunting
 

I was looking for suggestions for a place to go quail hunting down south, any suggestions / referrals would be appreciated.
Also I have never gone quail hunting before.
Bob

Ask Mills Morrison

Morrison Pines in Moultrie, GA (no relation) is the best IMHO

Thanks

If you can weasel your way onto Bray's Island, that's where I'd go. My parent's lived their for 19 years. It's an adult playground with golf, fishing, horses, deer, ducks, quail and guns. What better. I sure do miss that place.

Thanks
Funny thing is that in the 80’s they were trying to get me to buy a place down there. Maybe should have taken it more seriously.

It's according to whether you want to hunt released birds or wild birds.

Wild birds are available at two or three plantations in the Albany/Leesburg, GA area. Three years ago one of them was getting $11,500 per gun for 1 1/2 days hunting, all accommodations included.

Most people who haven't hunted bobwhites opt for released birds, which can range from really good fliers to pitifully poor, according to the operation..........and are much less pricey.

SRH

Wow! And I thought driven grouse in Scotland were expensive!

Stan is absolutely correct. Some folks who have never hunted a wild quail have not really experienced quail hunting. Not saying that is a bad thing at all, but there is no comparison really to wild bird hunting and pen raised birds.

I wouldn’t mind going somewhere in the deep Old South , but I wanna ride a Tennessee Walker not ride a mule wagon .

Now wouldn't that be the coolest!?!?:cool:

That would be an absolute gas!!

Yeah - with a 34" twenty gauge straight-grip CHE - Yowza!!







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Amen.

For several years I belonged to a local field trial club. Most of the guys participated in the horseback trials, and although we were the "poor" participants (did not own horses), we could have a ride whenever we wanted. It was quite the experience. BTW, Missouri jumping mules are quite the thing, especially among old coon hunters. They would lay a blanket over a fence and the mule would jump it. I saw one once at a horseback trial. I was fascinated, but the others looked down their noses.

Study for "Sunnyside Plantation" by Aiden Lassell Ripley. Also rougher study on the back.

The big advantage to having a couple guys on horseback, as long as they know what they're doing, is that you can get the dogs to work "wider" from the wagon and cover more fruitful territory, and it's easier to keep eyes on them from the back of a horse.

SRH

On the bucket list- wild pheasant and quail. Nothing has made me want to hunt wild pheasant like Pheasants of the Mind by Datus Proper.

That’s the first place I ever rode a Tennessee Walker ! I will say of the horses I rode in my younger days a Walker had the most Pleasent gait .

I’ve witnessed plenty Uhm “sports” fall off horses in field trial galleries when the horse was walking slowly or standing still . Of course caused by the Southern Field Trialers pocket flask or thermos of shall we sat very stiff coffee . I’m not worried about being the scout for the dogs but I liked riding behind them years ago .

I'll second Morrison Pines, I think this will be my 7th year. There released birds early in the year and acclimate well. On occasion we will get into some wild birds as well. I have also hunted Brays Island and favor Morrison Pines. Add some flare and use a small gauge gun.
The Boys and I leave the end of the month and I can hardly wait.

Once or twice a week I saddle up and run the dog. Usually ride for an hour to an hour and half, and we will find 1 to 3 wild coveys on a good day. Field trials are more like work. If handling, you can be up and down off the horse multiple times in 30 minutes handling the dog. And when judging, I've been in the saddle for as long as 8 hours straight. No lunch break and only dismounting to go to the bathroom. And if it's raining, cold and the wind blowing, that only adds to the misery.

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.

And all my life I thought we were poor. Now in my sunset days I learn that we did a half billion dollars worth of wild quail hunting. Pen raised birds are for puppies.

I can hold my own on those birds Gary. It helps to have a good dog of course but it's strictly instinct shooting. After honing my skills on those liitle brown rockets twisting and turning to clear a cat briar bramble it made the transition to grouse hunting that much easier. I really, really miss those days. Walking the fields at dawn listening for old Bob's whistle to locate coveys was a great way to start the day. Even my old pointer Syman would perk his ears to the sound.

In the mid- to late 1960s thru the early 1980s, DE had some of the finest wild quail hunting in the mid-Atlantic region. Large interior farms, some only minutes from the popular beaches, held multiple coveys. Still sparsely populated and remote, I have a suspicion some of these farms may still harbor decent populations of wild quail. Could be worth a field trip and a DE nonresident license!

in the 1960s my dads place was 152 acres it had 5 wild coveys on it...not one covey now probably 10 yesars since I ve heard a bob white...charlie

When we first moved in here in NE Massachusetts in 1976 we would hear bobwhite calling in the evening from across the Shawsheen flats. “Evening vespers” I’ve heard it called. Then that area quickly became industrialized.
We would hear them off and on for the first 5 or 6 years but haven’t heard them in close to 40 years now.





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There is certainly a lot to be said for progress, but it's accounts like this that remind us of the cost of that progress.

We did quail hunt in a thunderstorm once or maybe it was a tropical storm , they were determined to try to get a handful more of birds . There horses were not too pleased .

I can remember going quail hunting for the first time as a boy, with an adult. I remember that first covey rise, the field it was in, and the direction the birds went ...........nearly 60 years ago. Yet, I can't remember over two things my wife asks me to pick up at the supermarket ...........an hour ago.

SRH

Dad supposedly had 9 coveys when he bought his place. That went down to zero, as far as I could tell. This year there appear to be two that we see regularly. A long way to go, but progress

I can remmember opening the draperies in my bedroom when I was fiveish sixish . Our house then was built kinda into a bank and my window was level with the chrysanthemum bed outside the window this woulda been around 66-67 . We lived in the country of course anyway I’d open the window and many mornings a covey of quail would be in that flower bed staring at me thru the window .