Quail hunting Southeast Kansas

W

Waterfowler2001

Member
Curious, I heard from some old timers that Southeast Kansas used to be the mecca of quail hunting for Kansas years ago. What were the general areas that used to be the hot spots? They told me Iola, St Paul, Garnett etc... Crazy to think it was once phenomenal bird hunting...
 
Waterfowler2001 said:
Curious, I heard from some old timers that Southeast Kansas used to be the mecca of quail hunting for Kansas years ago. What were the general areas that used to be the hot spots? They told me Iola, St Paul, Garnett etc... Crazy to think it was once phenomenal bird hunting...
Click to expand...
When I was in college and just out (late 80's, early 90's), my mom and dad had a neighbor that grew up in Centerville, KS. It is southwest of LaCygne. His mom still lived on the family farm, and we had permission on other ground in the area. We shot a ridiculous amount of quail around there. Our farmer friends who let us pheasant hunt in western Kansas would come in for a weekend of quail hunting and they couldn't believe it. Back then it was a big deal if we saw one covey when we were pheasant hunting out west. Some of the best hunting I've ever experienced.
 
Lots of 20+ covey days in SE KS in the 80's and 90's. Then one opening day I showed up and my farmer friend had a D6 parked next to a big brush pile that used to be a 1/2 mile hedge row. That continued until he ran out of hedgerows.
Additionally the corn, beans, fence lines were weedy. Seed tech made everyone a clean farmer. Milo turned into corn. As the px of farm ground, equipment, inputs went up, economies of scale kicked in and the bigger neighbor bought smaller neighbor, again and again.
Then the cows showed up, followed by the fescue.
I still hunt down there, but 1-2 covey a day is the norm for me and oftentimes don't shoot because it's a 5-6 bird covey.
Man...I had some good dogs back then!
 
My grandfather hunted around Yates Center in the 60s. He told me he had no idea how many coveys. You didn't go back to the vehicle. Start at one point and into another covey looking for singles from the previous. He said easily in the 20s of coveys per day. Said it wasn't worth the drive from Wichita unless there were several on the trip. You'd be done too quick.
 
Dirty milo was the best for quail and phez. I would beg for permission. Always turned an average day into a great day.
 
I'm another with similar experiences from the late 80s to the mid-90s. For us it was sort of between Fredonia and Fall River. We also had some great hunting much closer to Wichita along the Walnut River. If you ignore the pen-raised escapees from places like Flint Oak, there probably aren't 10% of the birds that there once were. Chalk it up to all those farming changes cited by Mill Creek.
 
Mill Creek said:
Lots of 20+ covey days in SE KS in the 80's and 90's. Then one opening day I showed up and my farmer friend had a D6 parked next to a big brush pile that used to be a 1/2 mile hedge row. That continued until he ran out of hedgerows.
Additionally the corn, beans, fence lines were weedy. Seed tech made everyone a clean farmer. Milo turned into corn. As the px of farm ground, equipment, inputs went up, economies of scale kicked in and the bigger neighbor bought smaller neighbor, again and again.
Then the cows showed up, followed by the fescue.
I still hunt down there, but 1-2 covey a day is the norm for me and oftentimes don't shoot because it's a 5-6 bird covey.
Man...I had some good dogs back then!
Click to expand...
You pretty well summed it up to a tee.....big ag is not wildlife friendly....and not just the wildlife we like to hunt. 60 years ago one would see plenty of the big yellowtail butterflies as well as monarchs. Saw a yellowtail recently and commented to my wife I hadn't seen one in years..sad
 
I live a mile from some of my wives relatives in SE KS and they have pictures of piles and piles of quail from hunts of years back. I grew up in Leavenworth County and we had good quail when I was a kid but not like they talk about through here. Kids would shoot limits and still catch the school bus kind of stories. Now days I farm and manage our ground in hopes of maintaining quail and it seems futile at times. We seem to be down this year from not many to start with from what I have seen and heard. I have been here 20 years now and it's seems like less and less every year.
 
70's to mid 80's were pretty damn good everywhere. 20 coveys a day pretty common. We didn't really hunt singles, just moved on to the next covey. Soy Beans were the best food source. Fescue and glyphosate seemed to lead to the demise. But ultimately it is farming that dooms wildlife. Only 1 percent of the prairies remain in the U.S.
 
westksbowhunter said:
70's to mid 80's were pretty damn good everywhere. 20 coveys a day pretty common. We didn't really hunt singles, just moved on to the next covey. Soy Beans were the best food source. Fescue and glyphosate seemed to lead to the demise. But ultimately it is farming that dooms wildlife. Only 1 percent of the prairies remain in the U.S.
Click to expand...
The hunting singles is a pet peeve of mine too. I see and hear of it a lot now days. We grew up just moving on as well when you busted a covey but maybe because we knew there were more to come. I see groups out late in the evening chasing them too and that's frustrating.

The batwing mowers and the big zero turns keeping these farms like a golf course doesn't help either.
 
I grew up hunting southern Wilson county in the 60s-70s. Getting a limit was entirely about shooting success, not bird numbers. Big farming hasn't helped,but the cedar takeover on the old hill pastures has been worse.
 
80s and to mid 90s were a great time to hunt quail in SEK. Now days going out and finding a covey is something to talk about. Obliviously farming practices have changed over the years. And I am not picking on farmers that's how they make a living. I am seeing more milo planted every year, my best friend runs a large farming operation a few years ago he said I may never put milo in again. He's planting milo this year on a few hundred acres.
 
I heard that the quail were thick in SEK back in '62 when Joey "Doves" Aiuppa was frequenting the Frontenac area.
 
I’m in Montgomery/Chautauqua counties, and am one of the few people who still hunt quail in this area. Generally, there are more quail in southeast Kansas than people realize. I can pretty consistently get into 4-6 good coveys in a days hunt around here.

That said, the stories my grandpa used to tell were unreal. Truly unfathomable numbers of quail, from today’s standard. Walk out back and shoot all the quail you’d ever want to with a single shot .410, with no dog. There were no deer, there were no turkeys, but there were quail, and a whole lot of them. If I ever find a genie in a bottle, one wish would be to experience a southeast Kansas quail hunt in the 60’s.
 
I’m just south of you in Osage Co and it can be pretty decent down here. I hunt native rolling hills. Pretty consistent in this area.
 
When I was in college - late 90s - I hunted a lot around Anderson (Garnett) and Allen (Iola) counties. By then, people had started to talk about there not being as many quail as there used to be, but for a kid from Wyoming it seemed like heaven. We routinely moved 7-10 coveys a day, sometimes without dogs. They were everywhere you would expect them to be. Went back a few times over the last 10 years, and some of the same cover just doesn't hold very many coveys. They're around, but tough to find. Locals are convinced - and have convinced me - that crop dusting has done a number on them.
 
Has anyone heard of QF coming out and saying what they believe the problem is or that they're knee deep in research to resolve the decline?
 
My grandpa introduced me to quail hunting in the 90's in SE KS and I hunted there with him every year until just this past year, as he's no longer physically able to hunt. Him and all his buddies each had a kennel of pointers, and lots of them. I didn't realize how lucky we were until later in life when you reflect on where things were versus now. I'll never forget, it seemed like almost every hunt, we would go back to the kennel with a full size paper grocery sack full of birds to clean. They knew a lot of farmers down in allen/bourbon/neosho/crawford/cherokee counties, that have since died off or sold. Still have a couple spots that we can hunt that usually hold decent numbers but even as of late they've pushed hedgerows out or didn't reenroll in CRP. My grandpa would always say as we would drive past a pasture overgrazed by cattle "they got it lookin like a damn pool table". I feel like that's all you see now a days down there....
 
BirdGuy said:
My grandpa introduced me to quail hunting in the 90's in SE KS and I hunted there with him every year until just this past year, as he's no longer physically able to hunt. Him and all his buddies each had a kennel of pointers, and lots of them. I didn't realize how lucky we were until later in life when you reflect on where things were versus now. I'll never forget, it seemed like almost every hunt, we would go back to the kennel with a full size paper grocery sack full of birds to clean. They knew a lot of farmers down in allen/bourbon/neosho/crawford/cherokee counties, that have since died off or sold. Still have a couple spots that we can hunt that usually hold decent numbers but even as of late they've pushed hedgerows out or didn't reenroll in CRP. My grandpa would always say as we would drive past a pasture overgrazed by cattle "they got it lookin like a damn pool table". I feel like that's all you see now a days down there....
Click to expand...
I will agree that more and more of the habitat in the SE corner is being mismanaged and when you go out west it's easy to see why there is less and less pheasants and topsoil for that matter because of poor farming and land management but in my direct area the cover is basically the same over the last 20-25 years and my immediate property has better habitat and feed then I did when I bought it but we continue to decline in numbers? Why? I can't say for certain and that's why I say it's something systemic either with chemical or fertilizers or something? This is where I get frustrated with these organizations like QF and PF, where is the research and then when you have a good idea of what is hurting populations don't be afraid to rub feathers and come out and say it. Is it fescue? Farming? Chemical? What? I don't buy that its just habitat loss in our area and I can't say we have any worse predators than we had 20 years ago and probably less coyotes for sure.
 
Last edited:
GetTothePoint said:
I will agree that more and more of the habitat in the SE corner is being mismanaged and when you go out west it's easy to see why there is less and less pheasants and topsoil for that matter because of poor farming and land management but in my direct area the cover is basically the same over the last 20-25 years and my immediate property has better habitat and feed then I did when I bought it but we continue to decline in numbers? Why? I can't say for certain and that's why I say it's something systemic either with chemical or fertilizers or something? This is where I get frustrated with these organizations like QF and PF, where is the research and then when you have a good idea of what is hurting populations don't be afraid to rub feathers and come out and say it. Is it fescue? Farming? Chemical? What? I don't buy that its habitat loss in our area and I can't say we have any worse predators than we had 20 years ago and probably less coyotes for sure.
Click to expand...
Today's habitat is so much different than it was 60 years ago. SEK is hardly recognizable to what it was in the 60's and 70's. Old homesteads have disappeared, hedge rows are extinct, there is more cattle, more crops, and less native grass. There are other factors as well, but habitat is the key.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top