doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Got doves, lost quail

Final check today confirmed that we have doves for our family dove hunt opening day. Hope the weather is cool and the birds take a while to get our limit on.

This hot dry weather has hurt dove numbers on the farm. Looks like the numbers are down about a third from last year. But if you go from 3,000 to 2,000 you still have enough birds.

Quail have taken a real hit this year. Five years building up the local population may be just about wiped out. Hard to sustain good numbers with two bad hatches in the same year or two years in a row of bad hatches. Almost glad that this is my last year on the farm. Very depressing to see bird numbers crash in spite of good food, cover, water and hard work. Mother nature always kills more birds than I do.

I'm afraid Calif will have extremely low quail numbers this year as well. Last year, our success on quail here was very good, due mainly to techniques we developed, the dedication to walk many miles, and my new dog. There's plenty of feed but lack of rain has suppressed the reproductive cycle.

We have probably 250 Quail around our home in So Cal this year but unfortunately while they paired up earlier I have not seen one hatch. There have been years with poor hatches but this it the first time I have not seen any.

I don't understand - we generally have much better dove hunting when the weather is hot and dry ?

Here in SW Ohio we have doves all over the place. Of course I feed and water all of the birds and squirrels all summer. But come winter the doves will be roosting on my deck by the dozens.

We had a hot and semi-dry summer here, but got enough rain to still have a good quail hatch. I have seen a buch of young birds in the roads and along the ditches. Still won't know for sure if this year will be better than last year untill i release the hounds. Since ther is so much river frontage here. We always have allot of doves. Typically having great hunts all 3 seasons.
Opennig Day i am going to take the 410 along with the 20 just in case.

KyJon, what is your thinking about why birds with food, water and cover have not been successful? Usually those conditions would be expected to produce.

We have had two bad years both for turkeys and quail production. I suspect it is more a lack of bugs or some other minor food source that is the problem. Over the last few years I have had a major problem with foxes, coons and hawks. Each has passed but the quail population is way down. Cover is great if you have something to use it.

When I bought the farm we had one small covey of quail. After hard work and mild Winters with normal Springs and Summers we had more than a dozen coveys on farm and at least four or five more on the farm next to mine. Hunting was managed to make sure that each farm was not over hunted. But the last two years have seen almost no nesting success for quail or turkeys as well.

Since I am selling the farm I am not going to invest amounts of time or money in the problem. Might just buy a bunch of pen raised birds and release them for the kids to hunt. The kids will still get to kill a few birds, the dog gets to work and I get to watch. Heck to the kids and the dog it will be same as normal, just a little easier.