Dove opener

[tex452]

We went to the ranch in Coleman county, for the dove opener, that's the first I've hunted dove in several years, we hunted the tanks and done ok, I can't believe how good my 15 year old grandson can shoot, he wasn't missing much.
I use to be an avid dove hunter and bow hunter but not anymore, but it was nice to get out, I built a new camp house last year and it's that much nicer.

 

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

I really miss hunting dove , quail and pheasant.
Since I cut down about 40 acres of trees and made pasture we are getting a lot of dove now, sometimes we'll see 40 or 50 at a time.
But no quail no pheasant.

 

[Logan52]

Prior to the bad winters of the late 1970s, I kept bird dogs and hunted quail regularly. I could walk out from the house and find a couple or three coveys after school most any time. It was a family tradition over five generations, Browning automatics and bird dogs. Like so much, it is now part of the past, evidently not to come again.
We now have turkeys, deer and coyotes, but no quail.

 

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

Nothing better than a grilled bacon wrapped dove breast with a side of spicy Mac and cheese.

 

[Warren Allison]

I really miss hunting dove , quail and pheasant.
Since I cut down about 40 acres of trees and made pasture we are getting a lot of dove now, sometimes we'll see 40 or 50 at a time.
But no quail no pheasant.

People don't know how to manage for habitat anymore. When I was growing up, all land around here was cotton fields. There were no deer. I was in the 1st grade, 1962, when they had the 1st deer season in Bartow County. Bag limit was 1 buck. People left the ditches in the cotton fields to grow up, and the sides of terraces. Everyone left about 50 feet or so un touched around their cotton fields, too, and we had a LOT of quail and rabbits, Every house had a pack of beagles and a couple of bird dogs, and usually a coon dog. Pasture fences were covered with honey suckle and black berry, hedge bushes, to where you couldn;t see what kind of wire it was. And after a year or two, cedar trees grew up beside the fences. You just used them in instead of replacing posts. End of the 60's, or maybe 1970, everyone in one year, switched to beans. And bean farmers cleared the fields totally. Planted beans right up to the side of the road, and right up to the diches. No more black berry bushes or plum bushes. NO cover meant no rabbits or quail, But the deer population exploded, I think the bag limit now is 10 per season, maybe 12. As the city boys from Atlanta started buying up land, to start their horse and cattle farms., they would bull doze down the old fence lines, and install a new fence, They get their help to weed eat the fence line, and keep them saturated with RoundUp. They want their land to look like a city park or a golf course. There is no habitat anymore. Quail are native to Ga, but pheasant never was. The quail hunting resorts put out pheasants for their clients to shoot, but pen raised pheasant and quail don't raise up very well in the wild. You have a 90-95% mortality rate. For the past ten years or so, we have raised 100-200 pheasants in a chicken house, and put them out at the Kudzu place every year. There may be 50 wild pheasant out there now, and we are not shooting them. When the dogs point them, we will flush them but we don't shoot.

 

[Dave]

We have some doves and a lot of quail but nobody hunts them. We have decent pheasants and only one guy who hunts them. About the only bird hunting done here is chukars. For them you need to be in great shape and young and of questionable sanity. They like to live in the steep canyons.

 

[Logan52]

Dave, what kind of quail do you have?
Of course we have (or had) the old Northern Bob White. Part of the decline can be attributed to the release of the smaller Mexican quail in the 1950s and 1960s'
The old quail (Birds we called them) were gentlemen. They preferred old level weedy fields and held well for the dogs. Nothing quite as exciting as a thunderous flush of a large covey of birds. The Mexican Bob Whites were smaller and took to the woods and thickets at first alarm. They were as apt to run as to fly. My uncles disdained these introduced birds and often came to hunt at my place where they felt the older strain had held out longer and could still be found.
I am afraid "Old Kentucky" is a lost world to my sons-in-law and grand kids.

 

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

People don't know how to manage for habitat anymore. When I was growing up, all land around here was cotton fields. There were no deer. I was in the 1st grade, 1962, when they had the 1st deer season in Bartow County. Bag limit was 1 buck. People left the ditches in the cotton fields to grow up, and the sides of terraces. Everyone left about 50 feet or so un touched around their cotton fields, too, and we had a LOT of quail and rabbits, Every house had a pack of beagles and a couple of bird dogs, and usually a coon dog. Pasture fences were covered with honey suckle and black berry, hedge bushes, to where you couldn;t see what kind of wire it was. And after a year or two, cedar trees grew up beside the fences. You just used them in instead of replacing posts. End of the 60's, or maybe 1970, everyone in one year, switched to beans. And bean farmers cleared the fields totally. Planted beans right up to the side of the road, and right up to the diches. No more black berry bushes or plum bushes. NO cover meant no rabbits or quail, But the deer population exploded, I think the bag limit now is 10 per season, maybe 12. As the city boys from Atlanta started buying up land, to start their horse and cattle farms., they would bull doze down the old fence lines, and install a new fence, They get their help to weed eat the fence line, and keep them saturated with RoundUp. They want their land to look like a city park or a golf course. There is no habitat anymore. Quail are native to Ga, but pheasant never was. The quail hunting resorts put out pheasants for their clients to shoot, but pen raised pheasant and quail don't raise up very well in the wild. You have a 90-95% mortality rate. For the past ten years or so, we have raised 100-200 pheasants in a chicken house, and put them out at the Kudzu place every year. There may be 50 wild pheasant out there now, and we are not shooting them. When the dogs point them, we will flush them but we don't shoot.

Yes sir.
In southern Illinois we had ton of quail and dove in the 60's and 70's.
Pheasants were a little north up around center of the state. I liked them better than duck or goose.
All the birds were good because of the corn fields and there were miles of fences that nobody maintained... excellent bird habitat.
Everything lived in those fence lines.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

In SW Oregon we have California quail. They have a topknot on their heads and the 3 note call A Ya Ya. There is a pair that lives in the yard. I knew the hen was sitting eggs in the grapevines that cover the ground behind the barn. The cock bird was often seen standing guard perched on the powerline above. Then I saw this family with a bunch of darting scurrying babies the size of bumblebees. I kept a garbage can lid full of water for them out in the bushes because it is so dry. This covey grew up quickly on the blackberry seeds and berries. Now in the evening what do I see? Chicken hens, guinea hens and quailees all scratching and picking together it's quite a sight.

 

[tex452]

When I was a kid there were lots of quail and dove where I live,(TexasA n M) area but not anymore, there's still quail in Coleman, south of Abilene and we do not hunt them on my place, I've been seeing more fire ants in that country I'm afraid they will do away with turkey and quail out there.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

Yes the GDed fire ants did away with the Bobwhites and the turkeys in central Texas because the birds nest on the ground. I don't think the bobwhites will ever be back. Fire ants were getting into new born calves eyes and blinding them, even killing old or injured people who had fallen and couldn't get up. Ants from Hell. The ag boys at UT introduced a tiny fly from Brazil that eats the fire ants brain, such as it is. Native ants were coming back last I saw. On the ranch there was a Harvester ant colony on the road into the trap that had been there for at least30 years. I was glad to see they were back. 4 reasons I'm glad we left Texas. Fire ants, feral hogs, yankees and californians

 

[Brute 23]

Look at the dates on this post and see when every one says the quail disappeared. Then go look up when 24d and herbicides became widely used.

You can't kill their food and expect them to survive. Quail have to have weeds to survive.

 

[Hpacres440p]

Look at the dates on this post and see when every one says the quail disappeared. Then go look up when 24d and herbicides became widely used.

You can't kill their food and expect them to survive. Quail have to have weeds to survive.

Monoculture Bermuda hay fields have probably killed off more wildlife than anyone wants to admit.

 

[Brute 23]

Monoculture Bermuda hay fields have probably killed off more wildlife than anyone wants to admit.

It's the monoculture that is the killer. I can grow quail on concrete as long as it has croton and mesquite growing out of it.

 

[Dave]

Dave, what kind of quail do you have?
Of course we have (or had) the old Northern Bob White. Part of the decline can be attributed to the release of the smaller Mexican quail in the 1950s and 1960s'
The old quail (Birds we called them) were gentlemen. They preferred old level weedy fields and held well for the dogs. Nothing quite as exciting as a thunderous flush of a large covey of birds. The Mexican Bob Whites were smaller and took to the woods and thickets at first alarm. They were as apt to run as to fly. My uncles disdained these introduced birds and often came to hunt at my place where they felt the older strain had held out longer and could still be found.
I am afraid "Old Kentucky" is a lost world to my sons-in-law and grand kids.

California quail, some call them Valley Quail. Not unusual to see 3 or 4 coveys of 12-20 birds on my 5 mile drive to the post office. All the fields here are hay fields. Cows get fed on the fields in the winter so they all have fences and the accompanying fence rows. There is also the ditch banks and the river banks that provide additional habitat.