Kansas Quail Season 2013

Kansas quail season opens the second Saturday of November each year. This year, 2013, the season opens on November 9. By the time I made reservations most of the motel rooms close to where I wanted to hunt were taken so it is a 60 mile drive.

I came down on Friday to the Greensburg, Kansas area. On the way down I stopped at a couple of walk-in areas to exercise the dogs. I had my gun with me so I could be turkey hunting. In Kansas you can’t work dogs on walk-in, you can only hunt.

At the first place I turned out Lucky, Luke and Tur Bo. At 5 months old this is Tur Bo’s first trip. It was about 55 degrees with a strong south wind. I didn’t know how strong until I got to the motel and watched the news from Wichita, Kansas. The weather guy said the wind had been blowing up to 51 miles per hour.

We went down a lane near some milo that hadn’t been combined. On the west end there was a draw that ran to the south along the milo. I saw Luke getting real birdy as soon as he got to the draw. Three quail flew right over me. Then I saw on my Garmin GPS that Luke was on point where I thought those three quail got up from. Luke was pointing into the south wind and I was in front of him. We had the birds between us. A covey of 10 to 12 birds flushed.

There was also some soy beans on this farm that hadn’t been combined. We had worked into the wind until we got to the south edge then hunted west across the end. We came back north on a hedge row and we were going to head east toward the truck I checked the GPS and it showed Luke on point. I check the GPS as I head toward the dog on point because sometimes the dog will move and leave his point. As I watched the GPS it showed Lucky backing Luke.

I saw Lucky first then I saw Luke in some heavy brush. Again we had the birds between us. When I walked in a nice covey of about fifteen quail flushed. They are fat and slow when the season is not open.

We hunted back to the truck without seeing anything else. Tur Bo is learning about crossing fences and ditches, and he even learned a little about berry vines and wild roses.

We drove about a mile south to another farm and I turned out the girls, Dolly, Blaze and Whitey. Again we had milo that hadn’t been combined. The farm was smaller on this side of the road but both sides were in walk-in. We started around the milo field. We had gone 1/4 mile west then 1/2 mile south then almost 1/4 mile east when I saw Dolly on point. As I walked in I saw that Dolly was backing Whitey. Blaze came around and backed Dolly.

I got about 10 yards in front of Whitey when I saw 3 quail running on the ground. I tried to flush them, but the wind was blowing so hard that it was roaring in the trees, and if they flew I couldn’t hear them.

Dolly went south along the road and went on point a couple of times but we couldn’t flush anything. We checked across the road and found nothing. We hunted back to the truck.

I’m writing this from my motel room, waiting for opening morning. I have seen quail almost every where I have run dogs. All the way down here I thought of the birds we saw today that were closer to home and wondered why I was driving away. If I didn’t have a motel reservation……………

The post %%POSTLINK%% appeared first on %%BLOGLINK%%.