Originally Posted By: Willieb
Sounds like a great morning Gill. I didn't get to go as we are trying to finish up gathering soybeans and planting wheat.


I'm no farmer. I do have a small farm up in middle GA though which many years ago had as good a quail population as anywhere I've ever hunted.

I've hunted that land all my life and my Grandfather kept it mostly in pasture for his cattle. When he passed my Grandmother leased the land out to the local county agent and his twin brother for row cropping.

The twin farmers planted soybeans and corn. After harvest, the land was left in stubble for the winter. Plenty of unharvested soybeans on the ground to feed the birds. The deer herd and the bobwhite population prospered. That decade was when the place was the best bird hunting I've ever experienced.

One year the farmers decided to double-crop the fields and after harvest the fields were turned under and wheat planted. That made plenty of deer feed I guess, but the quail disappeared. This was back in the '70s so before the general collapse of our southern bobwhite.

The reason for quoting WillieB's reference to gathering soybeans and planting wheat was it triggered my memory of the great period of bird hunting in my life. And the wheat crop which I blamed for the loss. I may or may not have been right about the ill effect of double cropping, but in my mind it was a clear case of cause and effect...Geo