I was born a quail hunter, and saw it like it was supposed the be experienced. I joined a duck club this year, I have always been polite with other hunters, they are brothers in sport, did some waterfowling a few times every year. Took the quail hunting or pheasant hunting in exchange. I don't like the "routine", round table talk of minute decisions, wether it's wrong or right we do the same things that were not working before, ( is that the evidence of stupidity?). I don't like to have a board meeting about what field to hunt, and instructions of how to do it, like the military, which is why I don't like 20 people pheasant hunting either. The bobwhite is the noble bird. I would place the huns, next. A man a good dog, your friend and his good dog, quitely hunting a grounds you grew up on. I have shot birds in tracks I made many years before, and seen a rusty old shtgun shell to prove " I was here then", ( we were'nt good at picking up empties years ago). Now use extractors. If I could teach might daughters how it was. They look at me like I tell them stories, like that, we walked to school in knee high snow, when I tell them about 20 covey days. Dogs which " the ditch covey", and just go to where they will be, and point in the exact spot. But my dauhgters plunge into the brush, like the dogs with belief, that around the bend there will be a 40 bird covey, trudge around with enthusiam, shot less than a box of shells, on a season, console themselves with scant birds, shooting trap, relish the morsels of quail we shoot, the best point, who's dog found the cripple, and are more or less happy, and don't give to hoots about waterfowl, where they can be it a blind in 30 minutes from the house. It's the tradition, exploring new places to find "new" coveys, enjoying a good fast food restuarant in a prairie town, stupid or remarkable things from other trips. I hope we get them back. As far as going to other hunting, the truth is every body will eventually either die first, or find a sport where there is at is possible to SEE game. No better bird than a bobwhite, other quail are just fine too. Pheasants have been plentiful, and you can shoot one and not feel grief over it. But they are crafty buggers, and not hidebound like quail in the rule book. Which is why we quail hunters have rules that were told to us your grandfather, who grew up in the depression, and shot pheasants in the ditch for dinner. Would have starved to death to dry gultch quail. The bird makes us noble too! Alast we may be doomed, we are losing quail hunters faster than we are losing quail.
all over God's creation, I realized the value of a relatively relaxing quail hunt. Quail hunting is more about the dogs than it is a shooting sport, though it took me 1/2 a lifetime to figure that out
