Productive quail habitat. The golden ground cover is a variety of prairie grasses and weeds on ground left fallow from grazing or crop production. The green is wheat planted during September. The tree and brush lines are field drains and intermittent creeks. Find this combination and the bird dog hunter has a quail hunt. This is just a small picture of this 560 acre lease. The entire farm's topography is of this combination and finding multiple coveys is the routine for most. Good edge running dogs that know wind and will enter the thick parts will make for a productive hunt while old dogs or those without much natural quail hunting experience will fail to find the coveys. And, that is the crux between good and bad quail hunts - bird dog power.
When we have a hunter that reports to us a bad quail hunt we will ask questions that cover the above points and will often find that one or more of those inefficiencies is the problem and not the habitat or the coveys. The worst cases include the hunter from east of the Mississippi with dogs that only hunt quail on preserves and when planted for training. These planted birds are often placed in the open ground to allow for easy dog finds and blue-sky shooting. An un-natural placement and on unlikely terrain. Dogs trained on this kind of quail habitat will make large circular casts through the crop fields rather than the target habitat within the edge lines.
The hunters that have the most successful quail hunts from season to season are those that have more than one dog and each has dogs in prime as well as on the way out or in. These also are dogs that see a good bit of natural quail hunting on edges rather than simply all field work. Nothing more mysterious than that. |
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Old dogs that rather run the open crop side edge than break brush will miss many coveys. Dogs and hunter that hunt the crop fields rather than the grass or interior edge will miss coveys. Dogs that fail to run the down wind edge will miss coveys. Dogs that fail to cast will wear down the hunter requiring him to walk up and down not just the edge lines is seen in the picture above, but also the many small waterways leading to the creeks seen at right.
The hunter that tells of the many miles of walking will generate the question of dog range. Short running dogs or those that do not recognize edge as target habitat will hunt randomly and miss any edge line not walked by the hunter. While all quail hunting requires walking all day long any hunter that must cover nearly as much terrain as his dogs will tire far more quickly than others with dogs that cast downwind of edge lines and dive into patches of target habitat.
