Recommendations on where to go for first wild bird (mine and the dog's) hunt

C

cbump

New member
Hi, I live in Texas and have a 12 month old vizsla. I will be using my days off at the end of this month to go on a 2-3 day hunting trip. Looking for recommendations on where you think I should go, if you don't mind. I can go pretty much anywhere within about a 15 hour drive. I am new to upland hunting and it will just be me and the dog. If we can get one wild bird I would be ecstatic. We are in good shape and can walk/hunt all day.
My current thoughts are one of these:

Black Gap WMA in west Texas for blue quail
Tucson, AZ area for quail
South Dakota for pheasant (Platte or Aberdeen area)

Which would you choose? Do you have any other places you'd go? Species doesn't matter much.

Thanks
 
cbump said:
Hi, I live in Texas and have a 12 month old vizsla. I will be using my days off at the end of this month to go on a 2-3 day hunting trip. Looking for recommendations on where you think I should go, if you don't mind. I can go pretty much anywhere within about a 15 hour drive. I am new to upland hunting and it will just be me and the dog. If we can get one wild bird I would be ecstatic. We are in good shape and can walk/hunt all day.
My current thoughts are one of these:

Black Gap WMA in west Texas for blue quail
Tucson, AZ area for quail
South Dakota for pheasant (Platte or Aberdeen area)

Which would you choose? Do you have any other places you'd go? Species doesn't matter much.

Thanks
Click to expand...
right there in your home state!! even though ks don't have many birds right now I would hit that before I made a long drive to s Dakota
 
A consideration is getting your dog exposed to a good number of birds on its first outing. Maybe a bird ranch/reserve hunt would be best. The only area you mentioned I know anything about is SD which I hunted in October in Jones County. Plenty of birds on the private land we hunted. Bear in mind though that by this time the birds on public hunting areas will likely be spooky and far flushers.
 
Thanks for the replies so far. My closest drive is Black Gap out in west Texas but I am not sure how the numbers are this year. I want to make sure we can get at least one bird.

Brit, he's been on a lot of pen raised birds. He's been to the trainer and he just got a Prize I 112 NA title a few weeks ago. We are actually doing a pen raised hunt a few days before this trip I am planning.
At this point I want to try some wild birds.
 
Not a bad suggestion. I work out here (Oklahoma) so sort of know the area. Have you hunted Packsaddle or Black Kettle before?
 
cbump said:
Not a bad suggestion. I work out here (Oklahoma) so sort of know the area. Have you hunted Packsaddle or Black Kettle before?
Click to expand...

I haven't.....but if you could hunt 2 1/2 days in OK. or a day in SD., OK would get my vote.

I could be wrong on which part of the state, but quail numbers are supposed to be up.
 
With 2-3 days only I agree, stay closer to home. Long drives after a hard hunt isn't a good thing IMO.
Next year, take a 9 day trip. Get into SD, or other good pheasant country. :thumbsup:
 
I would choose the best, closest bobwhite quail territory. You will probably get many more opportunities for the dog to find birds, bobwhite quail hold tighter than pheasants and if you find one covey you can have a hour of good action.

Not familiar with blue quail. I used to live in AZ and those quail don't hold like Bobs.

I think for a young pointing dog getting into a good covey of Bobs is great experience.
 
BrownDogsCan2 said:
I haven't.....but if you could hunt 2 1/2 days in OK. or a day in SD., OK would get my vote.

I could be wrong on which part of the state, but quail numbers are supposed to be up.
Click to expand...

I would agree. Unless you can spend 3-4 days hunting SD is too far. I would rather drive a few hrs and spend 2-3 days hunting quail.
 
Thanks everyone! Sorry I am just now responding. For some reason I stopped getting email notifications and didn't know I had more replies.

I heard a report that west Oklahoma was looking real good on quail so I might try there. The only thing is I work out here away from the house for 25+ days in a row so it almost makes me sick to my stomach to come back on my days off! haha
 
BTW, if anyone knows any good private ground for $150 or less per day I'd be willing to pay that as well.
 
Thanks again everyone. We have decided on Oklahoma. Since quail on packsaddle is closed during rifle season, we will be going the weekend of the 14-15th (7-8th have a hunt test).

My next question is I am about to book a rental cabin from Dec 21 - Dec 28 for Christmas but want to do some hunting wherever we go as well. We were thinking about Colorado? Is there any good upland anywhere in Colorado in late December? We are really open on where to go. Also, would consider a paid hunt for this one.

Thanks
 
Just googled and looks like there are a ton of preserve hunts in Colorado so will probably do that.
 
Here is my dog from training yesterday, btw.

Kiss for luck. When he has birds on the mind all his affection sort of disappears and you can see that here by the way he is leaning away, lmao.






QUAIL!!!


Here he was pointing and when I walked up he laid down and started sticking his head in this hole so I got down and looked in and there was a huge rat sitting a few feet inside there hissing at us. Kind of freaked me out.


And on the way home. He fell asleep shortly after.
 
Nice photos. Thanks for posting them. Tell us about your OK hunt. Hope you got into some wild birds.
 
Thanks guys!
It was either a huge rat or a smallish opossum. All I know is I pulled Blue's head out and stuck mine down there to take a look and I saw the back end of an animal with a hairless tail and it was hissing back at us. haha It was dark in there so hard to see for sure but I didn't keep my face down there too long to find out. lol
 
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