Had my brother from Alabama come up to hunt with me Sat/Sun/Mon. We duck hunted mostly and shot 2 limits of greenheads 2 days and 4 another day. That was fun, but was not the best part of the trip.
So Monday we had a really solid hunt and shot our limit before 7:30 so I decided to call up a couple landowners that let me hunt up by Randolph. We get to the first CRP field at about 9:30 and start walking hoping for some roosters. Last time I was there we shot 2, I was hoping for 1 since my brother has never killed a wild pheasant, let alone seen one. We walk the field, no dice. We figure if any are there they must be in the milo field next to it. We hit the 2nd CRP field... no dice. Keep in mind I'm running my yellow lab that is an amazing duck dog on his first upland hunt ever. He was actually doing very well working back and forth to my surprise.
Since we struck out on the first two fields I went to my ace in the hole. This 2nd spot has a tree row that has had a covey on it for the 12 years I've been hunting it. We get there and start walking the tree row. About 50 yards in I hear "bob white"... I said to my brother "they are here! let's keep going". My lab is doing a great job of getting right up in the middle of the thick cover, again another surprise. Well we walk the fence row and no covey flush. I know the birds are here, we heard them call 3 times.
We turn around and start walking back again. Then we see a single fly from the tree line to a grass patch. We take off running, get up, and flush the bird. Boom boom... miss miss. I said that can't be the only bird, this covey is always 15-18 birds strong. We go back and work the tree row again... no covey flush. I say "we have to try this one more time, I know they are here". So again we start walking (this tree row is only about 75-100 yards long). We are about 2/3 the way through and I'm looking in the fence row and BAM! I see the whole covey running trying to sneak by us. The dog was on the other side of the tree row. I yell out "there they are, they are running!" At that point they flush and my brother squeezes off 2 rounds and connects on the 2nd shot! My bro just shot his 1st ever wild quail, and my lab ran over and made his first ever retrieve on a quail. It was kinda funny watching him, he didn't know what to do about the feathers. He doesn't have that problem with ducks.
We walked back and forth a couple more times slow to try to get a single to flush but to no avail. I was happy with the 1 bird though! I was glad to see that the covey made it through another winter. Last year we took 4 birds out of it and it looked to be a solid 15-18 birds strong again this year.
Last year this ground had several coveys but believe it or not, the crops are STILL NOT OUT so we didn't try to find the others but I hope they are also there.
All in all it was a good trip!
So Monday we had a really solid hunt and shot our limit before 7:30 so I decided to call up a couple landowners that let me hunt up by Randolph. We get to the first CRP field at about 9:30 and start walking hoping for some roosters. Last time I was there we shot 2, I was hoping for 1 since my brother has never killed a wild pheasant, let alone seen one. We walk the field, no dice. We figure if any are there they must be in the milo field next to it. We hit the 2nd CRP field... no dice. Keep in mind I'm running my yellow lab that is an amazing duck dog on his first upland hunt ever. He was actually doing very well working back and forth to my surprise.
Since we struck out on the first two fields I went to my ace in the hole. This 2nd spot has a tree row that has had a covey on it for the 12 years I've been hunting it. We get there and start walking the tree row. About 50 yards in I hear "bob white"... I said to my brother "they are here! let's keep going". My lab is doing a great job of getting right up in the middle of the thick cover, again another surprise. Well we walk the fence row and no covey flush. I know the birds are here, we heard them call 3 times.
We turn around and start walking back again. Then we see a single fly from the tree line to a grass patch. We take off running, get up, and flush the bird. Boom boom... miss miss. I said that can't be the only bird, this covey is always 15-18 birds strong. We go back and work the tree row again... no covey flush. I say "we have to try this one more time, I know they are here". So again we start walking (this tree row is only about 75-100 yards long). We are about 2/3 the way through and I'm looking in the fence row and BAM! I see the whole covey running trying to sneak by us. The dog was on the other side of the tree row. I yell out "there they are, they are running!" At that point they flush and my brother squeezes off 2 rounds and connects on the 2nd shot! My bro just shot his 1st ever wild quail, and my lab ran over and made his first ever retrieve on a quail. It was kinda funny watching him, he didn't know what to do about the feathers. He doesn't have that problem with ducks.
We walked back and forth a couple more times slow to try to get a single to flush but to no avail. I was happy with the 1 bird though! I was glad to see that the covey made it through another winter. Last year we took 4 birds out of it and it looked to be a solid 15-18 birds strong again this year.
Last year this ground had several coveys but believe it or not, the crops are STILL NOT OUT so we didn't try to find the others but I hope they are also there.
All in all it was a good trip!