Buzz, I have friends who lease in Garza and Kent counties and they report much the same as you, great pasture conditions, but few birds....
We are having a wet Fall here, which bodes well for forb/weed/seed production next spring....
Hear you loud and clear on the dogs needed.....I am getting the results I mentioned with 3 VERY experienced canine pals....
I put down a great old country bird dog this summer ....she lived her whole life here, and saw thousands of birds in her career....
When I began to see decent broods here in the early Summer months, I was encouraged enough to think I could possibly take on a replacement derby to keep the string at full strength.....She is coming along, but when you shoot 4-6 birds a day (I continue to shoot one bird per rise again this year), the learning curve is much slower than 15 chances in a couple of hours ....Also fewer bird contacts make it much more difficult to "stage" a perfect shot/training opportunity...i.e. a bird find that lets you get the new dog on in the action, and having an opportunity to pick just the right bird on the rise, right over the trainee, make a clean shot and have her view the whole process.....
Use to come together a lot more often than it does these days...
On a note of encouragement, I have reported to my Biologist friend that of the 54 birds I have harvested here this year I have a juvenile to adult ratio of over 60%.....Indicative of a decent hatch this past year.....Not a huge sample , but we will see how it plays out by season's end....
Last edited by mel5141; 11/30/19 09:34 AM.
