Quail Hunting Lease
There is no such thing as a small acreage wild Bobwhite Quail lease. We run a lot of ground every year and to have enough gross acreage to have 4 to 7 coveys a day plus singles action and have enough of such properties to provide an entire season's worth of wild bird hunts requires more acreage than any one person, or at least the average do it yourself quail hunter, could afford. And, that is true for our organization as well.
A good Bobwhite Quail lease in spring.
One part of a good quail lease. This picture is only an 80 acre piece of a large farm for bobwhite, deer and turkey and it shows in spring nesting time key elements: food, winter and nesting cover. The short green field is wheat. The plowed far field will be large grain and the near edge weed strip nesting cover with the woody creek bottom providing winter cover. This picture was taken from the small ridge that hides this farm from the road. When we recommend to our hunters where to hunt it is due to our personal boots on the ground experience with that land. This is the value of the Association owner being the one that contracts the land and he hunts over his own pointers.
A long time ago we would get Polaroid photos that we would scan and get poor results Now we get cell phone photos at low file size making high quality small pictures.
Compare the cost of our annual self guided hunt membership to the 400+ acres a good brace of dogs and a hunter that is willing to walk will hunt in a day. If that quail lease cost a $1 per acre per year and that one hunter hunted a different set of farms totaling 400 acres per each day for one week or 2,800 acres/dollars that is a lot more than what we charge for the entire season of opportunity to hunt.
Our self guided lease approach is not to have a just a bird contract. It is to lease private land for our exclusive hunting use for bobwhite hunts as well as deer, turkey and in some cases duck. This multiple land use lease approach with the quail hunter as well as deer hunter paying for the same land and each of these hunter's use of that same land is 99% conflict free due to our lease land use reservations system it comes far cheaper. A centralized cooperative grouping of hunters that each satisfy their needs with the Association providing for that needs administration and doing so economically enough to allow the average hunter to hunt.
Alternatives to an individual quail lease or our approach include the shooting preserve and plantation. At this point the analysis turns to what value is the quail lease or hunt? As we all will readily agree it is not for food on the table and most will also agree it is to experience the dog work and the spirit of the hunt. If this is the case we then return to the requirement for a wild birds or hunt. Or, the difference between those with their own dogs that approach hunting for its tranquility value versus the image type hunter that spends a yearly four day trip at the lodge. The difference in the value of a quick pen raised bird hunt or the true hunt of wild coveys. If we agree the value of a hunt is to experience the spirit of the hunt and enjoy dog work then wild bird hunts are the only viable fulfillment of that need.
As that wild bird hunt is not economically available to us through an individual quail lease and not an option on a preserve or plantation we are then left with the public land or knock on door private land approach. The pitfalls of these two options are well known and need not be repeated here. What we can continue to evaluate is the individual versus MAHA collective options.
For the first option of the individual quail lease let us suppose it is the earlier cited 2,800 acres. How many hunts will it take to locate each of the coveys on this limited acreage to the point even the dog's know where to hunt? With the MAHA approach each do it yourself hunter can step out of his truck onto a different farm each time doing so, of every day of every trip and never cross his tracks. And, be on wild birds. The difference is obvious and comes at far less effort through MAHA than what any average self guided hunter can afford otherwise.
John and Jon,Had a great late season hunt yesterday (January 29), the weather was perfect and it was a beautiful day. We got into 4 coveys and my young pup is still impressing me to no end. The farm we hunted was spectacular, a perfect mix of warm season grasses, crop fields and brushy draws. We only hunted about 30% of one section of land that is in this unit. Attached is a photo of the birds we harvested. All-in-all, one of the best days a field this year. Thanks again for the good work you guys do to put this together.
Mike