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.

GPB does a good job with shows of this sort. I remember seeing this particular show live a few weeks ago when it was aired and enjoying it. Kevin's always has some nice doubles in stock, many of the new ones out of my price range. (Now that I think of it, many of the used ones, too.)

My experience in Kansas is it is 50% habitat, (change in land use bigger fields less edge-mono culture corps) 30% predator population explosion, 20% disease/weather patterns. I say the last factors of disease and weather as that is what KDWP friends say, but I cannot be sure to what real degree they influence the decline.

Bird hunting populations have declined significantly in the last 15 years, though I am told by friends last fall was slightly improved (I missed last season-deployed)

Adam, thanks for the link. The quail problem in the south is like the one here for pheasants, used to be plentiful in the 70's and early 80's, now it is just a memory.

I remember hunting quail when I lived in northern New Jersey and my friend and I would travel to southern New Jersey for some quail hunting, always found some but that was in the late 60's and early 70's. A shame, both were great birds to hunt, but the quail was a more pleasant type of hunt.

I hope that Georgia can do something to bring them back. They have been trying here to bring back pheasants that they got from South Dakota. It has worked in one spot but will never be the same as it was. It is all about habitat.

Glad yall are enjoying it. In my opinion, habitat is the single biggest factor in declining quail numbers but it is certainly not all of the problem. Every aspect of the environment that affect quail have changed in a negative way. The farming is much cleaner now days with well-trimmed fences lines (and fewer of them altogether), more predators (less trapping and hunting for predators). There is less native bunch grass like wiregrass and broomsedge and more thick pasure grasses. The woods are rarely burned anymore. Plus there are fireants, hawks, house cats, parasites, droughts, etc. And to top it all off, with fewer hunters out there, there are less people interested in bringing them back.

The property next door to our lease manages for wild birds exclusively. They manage just like we do... burning 1/2 of the pineywoods each spring along with light supplemental feeding in the fall, winter, and early spring. Not exactly extensive management. They were finding 12-16 coveys a day this year... all wild birds. We would probably have similar numbers but we hunt our land way to hard (about 4-5 times a week) so we have to supplement with early release coveys.

Habitat loss/change is NOT the reason where I hunt and have hunted for 50 years in KS. Same ground, same farmers etc. Zero changes other than yearly weather influences, crop rotations, etc. They have bounced back remarkedly the last couple of years, however. And, at the same time pheasants have stayed very depressed. I dunno.

Thank you Adam for that little trip down memory lane. I hunted at Samara several times as a kid. My step-dad worked for Oldsmobile as a regional rep back then. He was often taking VIPs from Detroit hunting around south Georgia, especially at Samara. So we got to hunt there several times (I'm sure at a reduced rate) due to the business he brought them. Lots of fun and great memories there.

The work that Tall Timbers is doing out of Tallahassee to study quail and their habitat is first rate. It's worth supporting them if you're interested in quail. ---Matt

Ah, I neglected to yes, indeed, thank Adam for the video. A remarkable young(er) man.

And another thanks Adam. That was great. Brought back many childhood memories on my farm in North Carolina where it was nothing special to see 5 or 6 coveys on any given day hunting. Well, actually, a combination of my dad's farm (mine now) and my grandfather's farm which joined that of my dad. Those scenes of the pine / grassy areas, savannahs I think they called them, truly made the memories come back. Quail, my first hunting love, and now pheasant - simply because of the verrrryy few quail one can find to hunt now, especially here in New Mexico.

Thanks Adam.In my opinion Gentleman Bob deserves to be hunted with a side by side .Not an over under or repeater. Bobby

Quail in my area have declined significantly over the last decade. On my Uncle's farm I used to flush large bevys of over 40-50 birds just a decade ago. The habitat hasn't really changed, but a succession of hard Winters and a drop in fur prices are the most likely culprits. There's quite a few more raccoons, skunks, and possums now, resulting in high nest predation and fewer birds being recruited into the adult breeding population. The same factors have affected pheasant numbers, with the Winters probably being the major factor.

For those really interested in Quail management, I recommend Stoddard's seminal work, "The Bobwhite Quail, It's Habits, Preservation, and Increase". It's long out of print, I managed to find an old library copy around 20 years ago. It's fascinating, and well worth the money for any serious quail enthusiast.

Here's a reprint, pricy, although the least expensive I could find via a brief search.

http://www.abaa.org/book/738730272

Here's a downloadable form, I'm not sure if it's the complete book or not.

https://archive.org/details/bobwhitequailits00stod

Regards
Ken

Ken-

Thanks for the heads up on the book. Just ordered it.

And Adam, thanks for the video. I'll look for you at the Southern.

Take care,

OWD