28 ga Wild Quail
 

The pup just turned a year old and our goal for his first season was to find wild quail in South Carolina. Not an easy task these days. Lots of walking was needed.

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How much is a lot of walking? Congratulations by the way! My son lived in Charleston while attending school and only stumbled on 2 coveys over the course of six years.

Well done, John!

We still find wild birds "across the river" from SC, from time to time. I stumble into them often while farming here, and we occasionally get into them while "wood cocking". That backdrop looks so much like home.

I did just over 12 miles and the dog was at 32 miles when we got back to the truck.

Wild Bobs are trophy birds, indeed. Congratulations on finding them, and on hunting hard to do so. And take good care of those coveys! They will feed your soul longer than they will your belly.

Where is the best place in the US for wild quail? Bobwhites specifically? Bucket list. I'm just glad I got in some great Atlantic Salmon fishing 25 years ago at affordable prices. Hope i'm not late to the quail party in my lifetime.

While I only took one or two out of each covey and didn't chase singles, these are on public land and I wont be able to ensure their safety.

Middle section of the US is probably about as specific answer as you will get! Texas still has a lot of wild birds. Kansas is often spoken of. Finding the specific spots will take some research and "mining".

I guess I always pictured dudes on a carriage with horses while smoking pipes and moss covered trees followed by a big supper in a big white plantation style house and lots of Southern hospitality : { I guess they do what they do out west with Pheasants. "Supplemental" birds, they don't call them stocked.

You can still do those kind of hunts in South Georgia. But the birds will be pen raised/released birds. There may be a "plantation hunt" somewhere in the South that does have some wild birds that they supplement with pen raised. But in general, they all have pen raised birds.

I have not seen a single bobwhite in my part of NE Georgia or heard one whistle since last winter! Bobby

Are you across the river from the bomb plant? We are a little further South, across from Clyo/Sylvania.

Andy, As Reggie points out, there are good public land opportunities for wild Bobs in Kansas and Oklahoma. Texas is great, but access is much more limited. We have hunted Kansas and Oklahoma off-and-on for years. For a do-it-yourself, public land hunt, I'd pick Kansas. Kansas' has an exemplary private land access program and some good public opportunities. The terrain varies and the populations can, too, depending on changes in land use (read that as farming in this case) and, especially, the weather. The kind of habitat that Kansas offers is varied, from cultivated field edges and CRP fields, to tall grass prairie, to mixed grass prairie. Kansas has pheasants, too. We find that folks will drive more to get pheasants than quail, and so go to areas that are not known for pheasants. The Kansas DNR has good information on population trends (but, remember, they are trying to sell licenses).

If you really need to kill a lot of birds, go to a plantation in the SE and pay to play. But, there is no better feeling than guiding yourself to a covey of honest-to-God wild Bobs with your own pup on the prairie. (Unless it's doing like our original poster here, hunting on public land in the Old South.)

Just my two cents. Adjusted for inflation, I probably need to send in some cash.:rotf:

That's exactly where I am, John. I live two miles from Stoney Bluff Landing on the Savannah River, and one mile from the Screven Co./Burke co. line, on the Burke side, on Stoney Bluff Rd.

Thank you Garry. I don't mind pay to play and don't mind going it alone. Kansas keeps coming up as a great place to visit with a shotgun.

A New Yorker won't know what to do with himself (but I'm sure will quickly figure out) in the wide open spaces of sparsely populated land. Try it! Your pup deserves to get a few cockleburs and to fetch a wild Bob.

It seems to be a decent year for wild birds. Need it to cool off some down here.
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So, John, where are you? Our North Missouri/Southern Iowa covers have areas with good bird numbers…and, some, not so good. I guess I’d call it spotty.

This is in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Our numbers are nowhere near what yalls are but can still find a couple coveys if you're willing to walk. I find it much more enjoyable than release birds.

I'm not so sure we have more birds here, but I absolutely agree that a hard-earned Bob is a real gift...and so much better than a released bird.

I hope it's okay I righted your photo...

Believe it or not but there are a lot of wild quail in Florida.South central right in the middle of the state.There's probably 4 or 5 coveys on one ranch I have right now.I've had several ranches over the years that actually had huntable numbers.What's called the prairie region has a lot of birds but its mostly private land.There are more than a few public areas that hold birds but walking will be required.There are also released mang. areas also.

I lived and worked in Overland Park KS in the early 1970s and fell in with a couple who wanted to learn how to waterfowl hunt. Being a Chesapeake Bay area transplant, I struck a deal with them to take me on their every-weekend forays up into northern MO and southern IO for quail and pheseant.

It was a marriage made in heaven; they had a great Brittany Spaniel, no children at home, and a "Mini Winnie" (18-ft. Winnebago). On Fridays after work we would drive north from KC into southern IO and park the Winnie either on public hunting lands or private farms they had cultivated good relations with over the years. We made the weekend of it, hunting roughly in a triangle from Adair northwest to Exira then due east to Guthrie Center then back to Adair. There were wild quail everywhere and the biggest pheasants this Eastern Boy had ever seen.

We found a local man about an hour and half southeast of KC who owned a farm within a couple of hundred yards off the mainstem of the river who would cut the dike every fall with his bulldozer and flood about 50 acres of standing milo, then repair the dike for the winter. I taught them everything I could about duck shooting; decoy placement, how to call, effective range of their guns, concealment, lack of movement, etc. There were no divers to speak of in that area but we ran wild on puddle ducks; lots of ringnecks and woodies not to mention mallards and the frequent Black Duck.

They were great people and we both learned a lot. I think of them frequently. I left Kansas in 1973 and moved back east to MD; the lure of the salt air and the Canvasbacks were my siren call. Those were the days!

Kevin what guns were you shooting for both the waterfowl and quail?

Kevin, I know the area. It still has decent cover, but not nearly the birds it once had. We still enjoy it.

Reggie, I shot a 26" Browning Superposed 20 ga. IC/Mod for the quail and a Remington 870 12 ga. 30" for the ducks.

Saw a small covey today on south ranch.Probably the worst habitat for quail of the 4 ranches I hunt.