Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Baby Quail

Pivot sprinklers have about done in our pheasants, etc. There are no more ditch rows and many of the fence rows are gone. No cover, no birds.

Very large coveys of Gambels here, they seem to think the world of the berry rows. Don't know what's up with the Scaled,....just don't see as many around as I once did.

GTC

Sad what pheasant hunting is here in SW Idaho compared to the 70's and 80's.

been hearing bob whites behind the house for 2 months. love it

Quail need 3 things food water and cover, if you don't have all 3 No, or very few Quail, Greg, the reason the Quail like your berry patch, food, water cover.Any place there's water you will have cover and bugs, pretty simple. rio7

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A friend that I hunted a lot with,who became a US FWS biologist,called central MO. the "fescue desert" back in the late 70s. He said that all the fescue that was being planted in those days would do away with our quail.I think that he was right.
Also in those days we had prairie chickens on the prairie ground but I haven't seen a chicken in years...less and less prairie all the time...really doubt if housecats caught very many chickens but skunks,possums,and coons will eat every egg they can find also there are a lot more hawks now than there were then.

Same story with Nebraska. Plenty of predators though.

think this yr might be the first i hunt quail in probably 30 yrs. still haven't seen any blues.

We have two mated pairs of Gambels quail in our neighborhood. I'd been seeing them skittering about as pairs all Spring, until a few days ago when all four showed up together with chicks. Little brown fuzzballs everywhere! Seemed like a hundred of them, but probably no more than two dozen.

We love watching them.

Call me. LOL. Haven't shot a quail since the 80s IIRC either.

I did find a few bluebonnet seeds, and need to make time to finish your 223 stuff, will box it at some point and send unless you are working in the area again let me know.

Jeff

sure thing Jeff. we have had huntable numbers every now and then over the yrs but i don't have a dog to find them when they go down in the brush. the yr before last though we dozed out some clearings so we could hunt birds.

Been fine tuning the setup for years,....the young quail REALLY like young grasses ( been told it's a critical requirement.)
I've been cover cropping oats, in with the chiles, and the precision with which the quail crop the young sprouts is micrometer grade.

GTC

Ive read that and since they are a cat, I don't doubt it, but our bird populations go down the most when the grey fox numbers go up.

But we don't want a bazillion cats either so Carolyn traps em and I shoot em as needed.

But still amazed our 2 wild barn cats must not affect the population that much.

Wished we had quail again, but as long as fire ants are here, it won't happen to any extent.

Tree stand hunting deer one day a covey went thru chirping and beeping and picking in the grass.
About 5 min. later a big black cat.
I swear he was scent trailing them, but don't think cats can do that.
Me and my longbow pinned him to the ground.
He thrashed and struggled a bit then layed down and said, "Meow".

Quail, Are like mother natures cheeseburgers, every predator type critter eats them, a Quail spends most of it's life on the ground, and nests close to the ground,coyotes get about 30% of the baby's and nests 18% of Quail are taken by other predators cats,snakes, hawks,owls,coons feral cats can be a real problem with your Quail.
They need a cover of tall weeds or bunch grass to protect them from above, and bunch grass that they can run threw and hide in. only about 50% of the Quail crop each year makes it to hunting season then they are attacked by humans and dogs,{more predators} I have been studying and watching them for years trying to learn how to improve our Quail on the ranch, I could go on all day about what I have learned, but it would not take long for me to tell you what I know for sure. Rio7

I was raised feeding bird dogs and following my Dad around the Ga. small farms and woods, quail hunting.

We would hunt from just after daylight..enough time to let them fly off the roost and put down a little scent..til noon. Then go to a country store and get a can or two of sardines, thick slice of cheese, some saltines and a moon pie or honey bun and wash it all down with a Nehi or R.C. Then go back and hunt til sundown.

We did a whole lot of walking through some thick briers following some real good dogs.

Can't remember the last time I heard Bob White...call in the spring.

Living in the west now and have dozens of California quail in the back yard every day. It probably does not hurt that Cookie puts out about 1/2 gal of cracked corn in the sagebrush behind the house. The little guys put a real priority on wing feathers and can fly within a couple days of hatching.



I've not heard a single Bob White though during my last 3 or 4 visits to West Virginia, Virginia, or Maryland.