Y’all watch this

wolfpacker

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
I have shot at one wild quail in my life and i missed. I guess that was a good thing. good presentation.
 

billyf

Six Pointer
great information. thx for posting. One thing that stood out to me was The speaker said that they had radio tracked 12 quail on a study farm and 6 of the quail ended up in a hawks nest....lol Im surprised no one asked more about this in the question time. That's 50% of radio tracked quail ended in hawks nest... I guess the habitat improvement is for the remaining 50%.
 

darkthirty

Old Mossy Horns
great information. thx for posting. One thing that stood out to me was The speaker said that they had radio tracked 12 quail on a study farm and 6 of the quail ended up in a hawks nest....lol Im surprised no one asked more about this in the question time. That's 50% of radio tracked quail ended in hawks nest... I guess the habitat improvement is for the remaining 50%.

That was why he said he never ever recommended trees in his food plots.
 

billyf

Six Pointer

Look at the attached. I believe the quail problem is similar to the passenger pigeon or American chestnut. I believe we are dealing with some external disease/ parasite/virus...or other. Its too extensive across all habitats to be just habitat. Its happening across both Northern climates and southern to be just temperature or weather related.
 

darkthirty

Old Mossy Horns
I follow rolling plains on FB and they have shown a lot on the eye worms. There are a lot of factors no doubt. My only question/concern would be what, if any research has been done in the southeast? West Tx and Oklahoma are essentially a different planet compared to the southeastern US. I know guys who go out to Tx every year quail hunting and they love it. 40+ coveys a day and pace themselves because they say you could limit out in 2 hours and be done.
 

Larry R

Old Mossy Horns
I haven't seen a quail in the Watauga County area since about 1991 or 92. I grew up in the county and remember conditions then. I know that the protection of hawks has increased one of their worst enemies. I also recall years of coon hunting with little or no success when I was a youngster. It was as rare to see a coon as it was to see a deer. Back then fox hunting was a very popular sport. Coyotes did not exist.
Back then hawks, coons and foxes were basically shot on sight (or shot at on sight by a young lad with any kind of weapon from a slingshot, hand made bow and arrow to a rifle or shotgun. Now things have drastically changed. Hawks are prevalent, coons are prevalent and foxes have become prevalent and the added coyote population is a factor. This can only hurt the quail population.

I grew up on a farm, in a farming community and I spent many, many days working on farms. I did a lot of farm labor on our farm as well as working many farms in the area. One thing I can remember vividly was that at that time practically every tillable soil was planted in some kind of crop. I have spent many days helping sew grains such as oats, wheat rye and buckwheat and helping harvest the same in late summer. I can remember that EVERY farmer had grain crops and EVERY farmer left a strip approximately 6 feet wide around the edge of their grain crops. This generally resulted in a 12 foot unharvested strip around fields because in most every case the adjacent farmer left that same unharvested strip around their grain crops. This provided not only food for the quail but cover/hiding opportunities for the quail. I can recall hunts where 5 or more coveys in a days hunt was possible.

Since returning to NC in 1990 I have yet to see a grain field other than corn, which is definitely not at the top of the quail menu. If there is no food then quail will not remain and reproduce. IMO the lack of grain crops is a greater deterrent to quail populations than predators or any other factors. The lack of that border security strip has also made the predator influence much greater.
 
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