Have had the privilege to hunt Wild Bobs in Georgia with a wide varied shotguns. Most anything is fine for the first shot. Staying in the gun for a second shot is were the thinking comes in.
I like the beautiful O/U’s and SxS’s, but the one that brought the most down was a borrowed REM 1100 20 gauge. Although the rule was only 2 shells. And I’m far from a fan of the 1100
And 6’s for the 2nd shot was an eye opener for having them stay in one place when they went down.
Wild Bobs have a tenacity to squirt on the ground that goes beyond their size.
They also had a squirt of a Lab to do the retrieving. His nose was amazing. A wounded Quail would run into a piece of cover to hide. That little runt Lab would hit scent and turn himself inside out on the turn.
Wounded or dead, you about can't spot those little guys once they're down. Truly amazing natural camo, and as you mentioned, they'll often slip down into things that allow them to completely disappear, such as a hole from an old tree stump. Finding quail without a good dog takes way more luck than I regularly enjoy. Some places bring along labs or english cockers for such a task, but I have poor man's bird dogs in that they'll point and retrieve (though the latter still needs some fine tuning). Few things like hunting wild bobs, especially when you've worked all year to manage the habitat that encourages it.
