The gravel parking lot at the Wildlife Management Area was empty and had lain unused for many days, judging by the lack of tire tracks in the old snow. It was the last day of quail season and everyone but us--my cousin and myself--it seemed, had hung up their shotguns for the year.
Being new to the area we sought some local advice at the area's maintenance shop. Inside we found a lone DNR technician in grease-stained coveralls tinkering with a tractor engine while a kerosene heater roared in the aluminum shed.
"We've been seeing a covey back here pretty regular," he told us, producing a map of the area, marking it with an X and handing it to me. Back at the car, we loosed the dogs and trailed them across grass fields flattened by heavy snows. Our goal was a large woodlot bordered by strips of standing corn.
As we neared the spot marked X on the map we heard a pattering of wings and caught a glimpse of a swirling movement at the wood's edge, like autumn leaves caught in a sudden gust. True to late-season form, these quail had no intention of sitting tight and letting danger approach. They flushed a good hundred yards ahead of us, then bored into the middle of the woods to take refuge in the brush.
Following the covey into the timber, we found the cover as thick as a grouse woods, the ground littered with deadfalls and brush piles. There was even a small swamp, and blackberry tangles sprouted up everywhere sunlight could pierce the canopy overhead. In the heavy cover, the quail dodged among the bare branches while we did our best to shoot through the brush and around corners.
Finally, one of the dogs pointed a bird who flew straight enough for me to knock him down as he crossed a clearing, making us one for never-mind-how-many--par for the course in late-season bobwhite hunting.
The late-season bobwhite is a different critter than the naive quail of Opening Day who sit obediently for the dogs while you and your partner fuss with pipes and admire the scenery. The bob in winter will run, vanish, or flush wild at the merest hint of danger, and a late-season quail hunt can prove to be one of upland hunting's finest challenges.
Where To Find Late-Season Quail
As fall gives way to winter, the bobwhite's world changes--cover thins and cold north winds become a deadly enemy in all but the most southern parts of the bird's range.
Telemetry (radio collar) studies have shown us a great deal about the habits of quail as the seasons change.
"Late in the year, the bobwhites in our study areas confined themselves to 120-160 acre areas," reports biologist Willy Suchy of the Iowa DNR, "where earlier in the season they would move half to three-quarters of a mile in response to weather, crop harvests, hunting pressure, and so on."
In winter, brushy cover becomes crucial quail habitat. Plum thickets and Osage orange hedges, fencelines overgrown with elms, and any other plants that provide protection from the wind and predators, but open enough at ground level so the birds can move and feed freely. In regions where snow falls, quail look for such cover on southern exposures where the snow melts off the ground.
Generally, says Suchy, the variability of the habitat dictates quail movement, that is, in areas where harvest, leaf fall, snow, or other events changed the cover dramatically, birds move in response.
Late in the season, birds in the Iowa study became reluctant to leave their 160-acre winter range. Hunting pressure does move quail, but the longer a covey stays in an area, the less likely it will be to move out of it altogether. When quail seem to disappear, then, they haven't gone somewhere else.
"What they do instead is find places people don't go," says Suchy, "We tracked coveys on public areas and found that some moved just off the areas onto unhunted private land. Many of them stayed on the area but found hiding places away from the beaten path."
Other coveys roosted on public land and flew off the area to feed first thing in the morning, then returned at night.
Late-Season Bobwhite Behavior
Just because they're confined to a smaller area doesn't mean quail turn into sitting ducks; late-season bobwhites run more, hide better, flush wilder, fly further, and land in brushier cover than they did early in the hunting season.
According to another quail researcher, Tom Dailey of the Missouri Department of Conservation, quail definitely fly farther on the covey rise than they do early in the season, and they head for woody, brushy cover. "Early on," he says, "some birds escape to brushy cover, some don't. Those that land in the open get shot."
Telemetry studies conducted on several south Georgia plantations by researchers from Auburn University showed that hunters using the very best quail dogs in the world still missed up to 50-60 percent of the birds on an area. As the season wore on, birds became even more elusive.
A remarkable percentage of birds escaped by running away from dogs (often right out from under the noses of locked-up pointers) or by flushing wild before the guns arrived on the scene. Other coveys sat tight and let dogs pass by, often within a few feet. At the same time, unseen wild flushes increased later in the season; some coveys simply flew as soon as they heard the dogs and wagons coming.
As a practical matter, then, a dog that can point and relocate--in the manner of a good pheasant dog--might pin more footloose coveys. The hunter willing to give up the casual pace of the classic quail hunt and work to stay close to his dogs will probably get more shooting at the coveys that flush wild. The results of Auburn study also suggested that varying your approach and coming in on a favorite covey from a different direction may confuse the birds and cause them to hold better.
Quail Guns
When choosing guns and loads for late-season bobs, bear in mind you may be taking long, pheasant-type shots on a wild covey flush, then encounter woodcock-style chances when you hunt up the singles. My suggestion for late season quail? A 12-gauge choked improved cylinder or even modified--IC/M for a double--and loaded with high quality, hard shot trapload 7-1/2s. A properly loaded 16 or 20 will do almost as well as the bigger gun, and handle more easily.
Rather than fool around with different choke tubes after the covey rise, carry a pocket full of spreader loads for close-range singles shooting in the brush.
Like your gun, your dog will need to the ability to cover ground for the coveys, then work close for the singles. So, for that matter, will you. Late-season quail require more of the dog, the gun, and the hunter than do the docile young birds of opening day. You would not think to call these educated quail "Gentleman Bob" in a million years and you'll have to hunt them harder and smarter as the days wind down towards season's end.
Tomorrow, in part two of this article, we'll lock at where the birds are and the controversy surrounding late-season hunting.
Copyright (c) 1996 Philip Bourjaily. All rights reserved.
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