byron walker wa

T

turtle

Active member
You all should look at the you tube videos Troy Smith has on management. Also the one with Byron Walker and Troy.
 
Cool story -- thanks for sharing. I never knew Kansas stocked pheasant and quail. What year did they stop doing that? Ever any talk of doing it again?
 
We had both quail and pheasant hatcheries in the agency. I believe that the pheasants were at Meade. We stopped production in the 70's if memory serves and we knew long before that that it was a wasted effort. However, politics kept it going probably more than a decade longer than it should have because landowners really thought they were being cared for when they took a box of birds home to release. The reality then was what it is now, pen-reared birds die to the tune of 95% in 30-90 days and rarely add much to the breeding effort from the survivors. Human nature fails to accept the oft repeated telemetry results. Those $ are better spent on acceptable habitat, and that rarely means food plots in Kansas. Nesting and brood-rearing covers are usually the missing link here.
 
Troy you need to toot your horn long and loud. You are the reason we can have a future in Kansas hunting wild birds. That's why I started this post.
 
Every wildlife area in the country should have a manager that likes to follow his dogs in the field chasing bobs and roosters and there would be more birds propagated in those wildlife areas. Add in a bird dog raising manager and it is a really special deal. To Troy it is more than a job, it is a mission.
 
Thanks guys! Unfortunately, I do the work knowing I'll never be able to maximize the game on this area. It is located 40 miles from the largest population center in the state and, any time I get any boost in quail, folks find out about it and they don't last 2 weeks. I do think that our public wildlife areas ought to be a showcase for habitat management. I was lucky enough to have Mike Blair as our videographer for years. He filmed and narrated those videos. We lost him to retirement and the videos stopped. They turned out pretty good despite his having to work with inferior actors:)

I was thrilled to be able to get those done, especially the one with Byron. He died within 4-6 months of our making that video and he was still sharp as a tack on wildlife management. I hope I'm a lot like he was. I am rarely satisfied with where we are at and, being accomplishment driven, will probably retire that way as well. We all too often serve too many masters, doing too much for too many. Unfortunately, a lot of that is too often for folks that aren't paying anything to help manage the area. I guess if they make me the quail Czar, I could run things better:) Quail are not a good public land bird! They are too susceptible to too many mouths, including us. To make a reasonable effort here, I could use 10,000 more acres! Don't see that coming around the corner anytime soon!

Anyway, I hope folks (especially landowners) can use the information in the videos to improve habitat and better understand management on their land. I challenge everyone to get down on their belly and view the world from a quail's perspective. If you'll do that in the habitat you hunt, you may never hunt some of it again! Too many inexperienced hunters waste a lot of their season in habitat that won't support the game that they are looking for. Maybe the videos could help some of them better judge habitat from the road. Pretty easy to judge it after you've walked 2 miles around it for naught! Better to know enough to pass up the unproductive stuff and look for greener pastures (pun) down the road!
 
The Quail Forever Chapter in Wichita has been providing some funding to help Troy with his efforts at Byron Walker.

As one of the co-founders of the chapter, we like supporting efforts by gentlemen like Troy who are following sound science and management practices to improve habitat for the birds.

Thanks, Troy!
 
Thanks Mike! I'm anxious to use that new sprayer! It'll get used on prescribed burns this spring first. Later, it will attack the invasive vegetation on the area. It should really help carry the work load!
 
If anyone is close by, the Wichita QF banquet is March 5. I'll have one of Sage's pups there for the auction! Should be a gala affair. My help, Keith and I will be in attendance. Hope to see some of you there! I'm sure Passiton can get you tickets!!!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top