Jim, what breed is your dog? Once you start hunting heavy cover, a bell, at a minimum should be used. Where we hunt, gps tracking is almost a must. Sometimes we can't seen the dog from 15-20 feet away. One big factor in southern birds is that we are at the migratory stop sign. While there is some movement, it's not migratory unless arriving to winter over compared with states above us where it's passing through or native birds. This has been a spectacular season for us no doubt because of the bad weather to the north which came early this year. After all the talk of needing dense vertical stem cover, comes this video last year from Louisiana looking more like a S. Ga. quail woods. We tried some similar woods around here and found birds in the broom straw but under brush cover. Go figure. Gil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGnyWoWxyKE