A friend, Larry Gann, called and wanted to quail hunt on some land that he owns, in Missouri. He has almost 160 acres of CRP that is surrounded by corn and soy bean fields that have been harvested. The wind was blowing 15 miles an hour or more and a big storm was coming in the next day. Not the best day for a quail hunt but better than staying home.
Luke honoring Sally.
Sally honoring Luke.
Sally in a thicket on point.
Larry and I hunted together when there were a lot of quail but we haven’t hunted together for years. Larry no longer has a bird dog but now he’s talking about getting one.
I put the Garmin GPS collars and e-collars on Sally and Luke and we started down a fence row to the east. My Garmin Astro GPS hand held has replaceable batteries. I use lithium batteries and they say fully charged until they are dead, almost. We were almost a half mile from the truck when they died. I do not hunt without a GPS on the dogs. Most times I have extra batteries in my hunting jacket. I didn’t this time so we moved over to the south and returned to the truck to get batteries.
We went from the truck to the south west corner then followed the property line, hedge row, fence line to the east. When we were on the way back for the batteries Luke had pointed but when we got there he moved up and both dogs had trailed but not come up with anything. On the way back to the east they got real birdy in the same area but didn’t point.
Larry has done a real good job with the CRP on this farm. It’s not too thick for quail to run through and the deer have trails through it that looks like it’s been grazed by cattle. With all of the grain around it, it should be perfect for quail. On days that are windy and especially when a storm is on the way quail are really spooky. I think we had picked the wrong day.
Down in the bottom on this place were a couple of small corn fields where the dogs hunted the edges. We went around the south edge then turned north and hit the north edge that we hadn’t hunted first thing. The only thing left was to go through the middle.
We saw several deer and where turkeys had been scratching in the leaves. We had several points that when we got to the dogs, they moved on trailing, and it could have been turkeys. As we came back through the middle Sally pointed inside a little thicket. Before we got to her Luke honored. I took some pictures then went to the dogs.
I circled the thicket intending to run the birds out for Larry to shoot. This almost never works on wild birds. They know where they are going to fly before you ever get close. When I kicked the thicket nothing flushed and Sally moved about 15 yards and went back on point. Luke had trailed to the south east and I followed him. Larry was close to Sally and saw a hen pheasant run back to the north after a hen pheasant flushed well out in front of her.
I followed Luke and he pointed then moved about 20 yards and pointed again. A rooster pheasant flushed about 40 yards in front of him, too far for a shot.
We hunted on back through the middle of the CRP, then back to the truck. We hadn’t seen any quail but with the strong winds and the storm moving in we weren’t surprised. We were going to try again on the last day of the season but the weather was too cold. I never used to think of this but on really cold days the quail don’t need more stress in their lives.
Larry and I may go back later and just run dogs. I believe there are quail on this place that just didn’t stick around for us to see them.
This morning I read a study on quail put out by Auburn University that said as soon as your dogs go on point you need to get to them. A large percentage of the quail start running immediately. It also said that when you have what is thought of as false points there is often quail there. I knew this but I will still take pictures because I enjoy the pictures more than shooting the quail.
On these cold days I have plenty of time to think and I was thinking about what a great time to be alive. I’m just a few years away from my kids taking my truck keys away from me and by that time they may have self driving cars and trucks. How can you beat it.
Lucky at almost 14 years old pointing a single.
Tur Bo pointing a single that ran then flushed.
Dolly on point.