28 ga Wild Quail

[Andy]

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.

[Reggie B]

Originally Posted by Andrew Sacco

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.

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".

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Reggie Bishop

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.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Andrew Sacco

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.

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.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Garry L Gordon

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.

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.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Andrew Sacco

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.