doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com "For The Love Of Quail" - Video

Georgia Public Broadcasting recently did a 30min documentary on quail and quail hunting in plantation country. Nicely done and entertaining. They visit a couple plantations, check out some of the great research being done by Tall Timbers Research Station, looks at Public land opportunities, and even interview Kevin Kelly in his gunroom at his store, Kevin's Of Thomasville.

View the full episode here.
http://www.gpb.org/georgia-outdoors/episodes/22/2202

Adam

Thanks Adam. That was enjoyable. And informative.

Adam,
Thank you.
Thats a great video

Ithaca1

Adam, thanks for the heads-up. Great show. Gil

Thanks for the link, Adam. Great video, but I'm a little disappointed that they laid the entire demise of the bwquail at the feet of habitat decimation. I, personally, believe there is more to it than that, and anxiously await the verdict on the eye worm and cecal worm parasites that have been identified by the Rolling Plains Quail Research foundation. Habitat decline is a huge factor, but there's much more, IMO.

Beautiful footage, and great background on the Red Hills area of GA. Thanks again. Anything that draws attention to this problem is good.

SRH

learned a heck of a lot there! I knew nothing about quail before, they look to offer really challenging sport.

Thanks Adam. I had missed that one. I have a hat from Samara Plantation, so i must have hunted there as a guest at some time. I'm a little like Stan in thinking there must be something besides habitat that has caused our quail collapse.

I've talked with Reggie Thaxton about his theory of habitat disintegration. He contends that GA after the Boll Weevil, became one uninterrupted mass of perfect quail habitat from the mountain valleys to the coast.

His contention is that the "Spring Shuffle" where related coveys from the winter break up and the boys and girls go looking for unrelated mates for the next generation is the key problem. When the place where the next covey should be becomes a shopping center, there are no unrelated mates to be found.

Yes there is some problem with that, but in South GA there is still plenty of contiguous wilderness for the next covey to be found. I asked Reggie what i could do with 500 acres of mature planted pine, burned regularly to establish the bird numbers i remember. His answer was to buy 5,000 more contiguous acres. Uhhh, not gonna happen.

Predators, fire ants, parasites or something wiped out our bird numbers across the south. I don't think its just shopping malls...Geo

There is a 30,000 acre block adjoining me on my east, much of that is prime habitat, Wade Plantation, managed for wild quail intensively for the last thirty years or so. Millions spent on creating and maintaining ideal successional habitat, predator control and supplemental feeding, etc. At one point about ten years ago their records showed a high of 6.7 coveys pointed and flushed per hour of hunting. That is an almost unbelievable statistic, but true. Then, with no apparent change in any of the contributing factors, the population went into a rapid decline, to the point that now, they are lucky to find 6 or 7 coveys in a whole afternoon. Usually much less. They have nearly given up trying to figure it out. Same thing's happening in Texas. Rapid decline on hundreds of thousands of acres. No habitat change there, but lots of parasites found in the dead quail.

That small acreage problem is the main reason the BQI program never worked like it should. I've got maybe 6 or 7 coveys of survivors on my land that seem to hold their own, year after year. Bumped two of the coveys last week. They have my highest admiration.

SRH

Fort Stewart, Ga., 280,000 acres in the low country was once a great area for quail. It has some of the largest stands of old growth longleaf pine in the world. Despite a remarkably good stewardship by the military with yearly burning, the quail numbers have declined. Go figure....

I spent 20 years and more money than I want to admit to spending on trying to get quail numbers back to my boyhood levels. Three times we had number of coveys that were near our target goals only to see them crash in a two year period. One crash was weather related due to long zero degree weather followed by very cold and wet springs. No hatch for two years crashed our gains. Second crash might have been due to preditor pressure. Last crash came in what seemed ideal conditions. They died anyways. I figured I had quail with low self esteem, a lack of desire to reproduce or were unable to read the literature which explained they should be in quail heaven. Instead they went to heaven.