It's easy to generalize that wild birds are categorically faster than "pen-raised" birds but sometimes that's not true. It depends on how the pen-raised birds were flight-conditioned. Having grown up on a working southern plantation with wild birds, I've come full circle and now a guide at corp retreat that has no choice but to use commercially-produced birds. Our birds come from a producer who has long flight pens with black plastic sides so the birds never see a human except for when they're caught and transported. They are exercised regularly and forced to fly repeatedly, longer distances that wild Bobwhite quail usually go. Having said that, it has been my experience over the years (I'm 67) than wild quail and it seems logically reversed but that's my experience.
Once out in the field, when flushed our pen-raised birds typically take off like a bat out of hell, occasionally climbing up like a pheasant before leveling off - either way they average about a hundred to a hundred twenty-five yards before landing, and oh yeah, they quickly put the trees between you and them. They also can take the shot well and we now supply mostly #7.5's for our quests - I grew up shooting nothing but 9's. Most of our land is long-leaf pine and if a bird's wounded, they will bury under the pine straw several inches. I've had many experienced guests who've shot wild birds all their lives say that these birds are more difficult to shoot. I personally wouldn't claim that they are necessarily faster, but they damn sure aren't any slower. Given our situation most of the hunts last 2-3 hours and on the average, at least half of the birds escape unharmed. Predominantly, most of these instinctively fly to cover; the few that don't are quick meals for the many hawks we have. Holdovers quickly covey-up and if able to avoid too much rain in the first couple of weeks, quickly get their feather oils going - there's plenty weed seeds and tons of beggar-lice seeds for them to eat. Do we have many survive over the summer? No. I believe that's primarily because there's not enough of the right cover for successful rearing of chicks - but I'm not a biologist and I'm sure there many more factors at play. Are we typical of other preserves, I can't really say but we do strive to make the experience as close to the way it use to be when natural wild birds were so plentiful. Typical hunt (for me) is putting out 30 birds over a 5-10 acre area - maybe one set of (6) and the rest mostly in sets of (2) but occasionally (3). We only hunt with two guests shooting at a time. I alternate a setter with a pointer but only one dog on a hunt - if anyone has it "easy", it's the dog in that they get plenty repetitious opportunity and so are well-trained/exercised. Say what you will but if it were not for the availability of commercially-produced quail, we would have very, very few quail dogs these days and all the years and years of successful genetics of traditional pointing breeds would be lost.
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Agricultural practices of total clean harvest plus extensive drainage ditches (holdovers from the Soil Conservation Service) have all but eliminated edge cover and transition areas so necessary for the right habitat that will sustain quail; very few landowners manage for that, nor plant regenerative quail cover food like lezpedesa or partridge peas and the 'art' of true, effective controlled burning is all but disappearing. You have to have food and the right mixed cover for protection not only at rest but for bugging and underneath bare ground for chicks to move around easily. Even with endless resources, not many can or are willing to manage their land this consistently year after year, so like it or leave it, put & take quail hunting is here to stay.
Sorry for the long epistle, but since I'm the only dissenter of the popular opinion here, I figure I've gotten "equal time"
