Did you know that there were 16 varieties of bluestem. I learned that and a lot more than I ever thought I wanted to know about weeds and grasses as I hunted with Jim Willis Saturday. I also learned that he had some great Elhew pointers. Let's go straight to the pictures.

Here's Elhew Dixie with Jim doing the honors;




Here's a great Britt named Buddy pointing as Elhew Sue backing;



Elhew Dixie again;



Here's Sue pointing with Jim doing the honors;



Sue again;



I'm not making this up. Byron brought a Britt named Buddy and a GWP named Ranger. Here's Ranger pointing with Cracker backing;



Would you pick out ranger as a GWP?

I don't post many pictures of Cracker anymore, but she does point. Here you go;



I saved the best bird dog picture for last. Here's Yeats with ET doing the honors;



Jim liked to look at the guts. This crop was filled with a milo size weed seed;



After the hunt;



I mentioned ET's historic, restored farmhouse. It was built in 1910. Take a look at these 100 year old Live Oaks;


[img]http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa155/billoxner/024.jpg[/img]


Byron was headed south, and Jim is out somewhere burning pastures.

Those are some great photos Bill. Nice looking EP's also.

The GSP has what they call the white factor; that's when they are predominantly white. Overall, the parent club does not like it but they have to deal with because of the field trial folks.

That's a GWP which looks like a GSP. Is there a limit to the number of pictures you can post on one thread? I kept trying to edit the house in and I got the image codes every time. Here you go;

nice report bill.

how many coveys does willis think he has on his property

He said that he had up to 20 coveys in some of the past years, but around 10 this year. He gets a bunch of invites, and said that this was really a good year. He said that the hunts have had produced a lot of birds after the first of the year. Truchard gets some help from him.

Is Elhew Sue the dogs registered name? If so are they out of dogs at the Elhew Kennels or an Elhew prefixed champ, or now that Bob has passed are people using the prefix for any Elhew bred dog?

I have no idea what their registered names are. Jim said that they were both Elhew bred dogs. I made that Elhew Sue part up, but I didn't make it up about Ranger being a GWP.

Hey Bill-

I love that old house.

Sandi's parents' farm and house went on the historical register in Oklahoma five years ago. The farm is located on Indian Meridian Rd. which is the eastern boundary of the Oklahoma land run.

The family farm has raised five generations of farmers and is still producing today.

Sandi gets the house, two barns, and the grain silos in the will plus somewhere around fifty acres...guess I could retire from construction management, moved to Oklahoma and take up farming when the time comes. I told Sandi I would get her cows to milk...that didn't set well with her.

yes truchard mentions him from time to time. willis is one of his hunters he says

In his dreams. Jim can hunt almost anywhere he wants to hunt.

Byron was headed down to the now infamous Armstrong ranch. He had some good tales to tell about that, but this is the best tale of all;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney_hunting_incident

Those are some great pics Bill and beautiful country y'all are working.

Great report, great pics!! Thanks

Here's the thread that ET started, about the hunt, on The Snipe Hunters Forum.




http://thesnipehuntersforum.yuku.com/topic/4131/Bird-Dogs-a-Bird-Pup-and-a-Retreiver

Someone asked about Jim Willis on another thread. I didn't want to continue the hijack. Here are some more pictures of Jim. He's now working with the Quail Coalition. He told me last year that he had around 1 bird per acre. It's tough to count them this year because of the cover. One of the problems in his area is that there are no large ranches.

We had a little reunion today, in a different pasture, and Included David Lopries of TPAWD. The stated purpose was to map out some burn areas. We found that David was quite popular in the local establishments in Wharton county. Not because of his quail restoration efforts, but because of his daughter. She played softball for the Aggies, and went on to play professionaly. She's now back at A&M working on her doctrate in sports entertainment.

I hadn't planned on taking anymore pictures, but just couldn't help myself. Here's David and Jim walking in on a point by Jim's Sue. Beckett is literally honoring;



No running in the field David;



Cracker came back to this bush several times;





This picture simply doesn't do Yeats justice. I was a little late with my camers. Notice that he's a little down in the front. That's how he hit the point. The birds were feeding and got up all around him;



David and Jim were still talking about burning when I drove away.

Bill
Your getting close with the TPW guys and already know Willis. Is the general idea among these guys is that QC can have enough participation from landowners to make a big impact on quail numbers thru out the state? Or only a select few will get involved


It boils down to if the landowner is not a quail hunter and needs to be sold the idea that habitat restoration like Willis did will put money in his pocket in the long run. Is that possible

Good pics. Next time you see David, please give him best regards, from one of the old "JD Murphree regulars".

Jim liked to look at the guts. This crop was filled with a milo size weed seed;



Jim showed these seeds around to several so called weed experts. No one had a clue. David took some and promised an answer. Here you go;


"I took the seeds from the quail from the crops to our District
Meeting in La Grange Monday and the consensus on the identification of
the plant the seeds came from was Hercules Club.

If you will Google Hercules Club it will give a good description of the
plant.

David S. Lobpries"

I've never even seen such a tree! Thanks for the info though, I always like learning something new

use to chew toothache tree leaves as a kid. Been a long time.

I've marveled at those gnarly trunks before but did not know they bloomed and dropped seeds/fruit like that.

Wonder if all this warm weather stimulated an early bloom and fruit?

I never added the Jim Willis article to this thread. Here you go;

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/...ail-1764954.php

I heard Willis' name mentioned this past weekend, by the guys that were looking over our property. They didn't mention 22 different varieties of bluestem, but they did mention one ... "old world bluestem", which apparently is not too good for the quail, and the cows don't eat it either. The "love grass" we have in several fields is good nesting cover, but we don't have enough of it, mostly due to the on-going drought.

Lack of nesting cover seemed to be the main issue, as well as the coastal bermuda. It was a good visit though, and we did spot 3 coveys while riding some of the fence lines. The fact that we brought them ~3" of rain while we were there was a very good thing also. If we're lucky, the rancher will work with us and the quail, and begin skipping a few strips with the herbicide. The biologists said that they could see at least 15 covies on our place in a good year. That sure would be nice.

1971snipe, was that a picture of your pointer I saw in the PDJ? That is a great shot.

Pat

Heh, yep, that's him. Thanks. I took that pic at Top Flight, actually; and didn't even remember sending it in.

Hope all is well with you, Pat.

The Houston Chronicle ran another article on Jim Willis and quail restoration on the front page of their paper. The article might lead you to believe that cattle and quail habitat are exclusive but that is not true. A pair of quail can make a living for their clutch running up and down a cow path picking off insects. They can duck into the tall grass to hide from overhead hawks.

Here's the link to the article. I'm not sure if all of you can open the link. I'll preview part of it for you.


http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/sci...-5928426.php#/0



J. Patric Schneider/Freelance





Jim Willis has spent more than a decade restoring overgrazed pastures into native grasslands to make habitats for quail, a rapidly disappearing bird.

CAT SPRING - Jim Willis knows it isn't easy to love a prairie. The quilt of burnt orange and brown that covers his Colorado County land can't awe or inspire the way a canyon or mountain range does. But he can step onto his porch on a crisp morning, take a sip of coffee and hear the three-count whistle of the northern bobwhite quail.








The moment is enough to reveal the subtle beauty of an unbroken terrain of yellow Indiangrass, little bluestem and other tall grasses. That's because the land was barren of wildlife not too long ago, unable to support anything but cattle.

Willis began restoring his overgrazed pasture into native grasslands more than a decade ago, placing him at the fore of a new prairie populism in Texas. Across the state, rural landowners, a new generation of urban refugees, are removing acres of Bermuda grass and creating pioneer-era landscapes that require less water and chemicals and provide habitat for a variety of critters.

The push is in response to the steady decline of the quail, an iconic Texas bird that uses the tall grasses for shelter and food. But the benefits of native grasslands go beyond one species, Willis said.




"Quail really is a canary in a coal mine," he said. "If they're healthy, you have a healthy ecosystem. "

Texas is known for its bucolic hill country and mysterious piney woods, the rugged beauty of Big Bend National Park and a seemingly endless coast. But it's largely a prairie state, and those grasslands are disappearing because of modern agricultural practices, development and fragmentation by roads and ranchettes.

The changing landscape has put quail in peril, with the bird's numbers dropping 75 percent over the past 30 years or so, according to state biologists.

A carpetlike pasture planted for cattle grazing "might as well be a Wal-Mart parking lot" to quail, said Jon Hayes, a biologist for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The native grasses grow in clumps, which allow the bird to nest, forage and hide from predators, heat and wind.

Earmarked for habitat

To help reverse the quail population's decline, Texas lawmakers last year earmarked $6 million for restoring prime habitat, expanding research into the species and educating landowners.

The state's primary goal is to rehabilitate prairie in three areas: the Interstate 35 corridor just south of Dallas, the rolling plains near Oklahoma and a 12-county cluster beyond the westward march of Houston's sprawl. The key is to connect restored plots to one another to increase the bird's odds of survival.

Here's an article from today's Houston Chronicle about Jim Willis and quail restoration.

http://www.chron.com/sports/outdoors/art...in-10952665.php

I hear and see bobs around here in Austin county and there's nothing but bahia. Am curious as the the process of getting rid of a grass and planting new grass? I have a very small field but I have thought about getting rid of the bahia and planting more native grass but I have no idea on the process.

Google prairie restoration techniques and patch-burn grazing. We are working with the TPWD on restoring a 40 acre field and are considering restoring another 150 acres. On the 150 acre pasture the biologist recommended patch-burn grazing alone as that technique requires less interventions.

Basically you are trying to recreate the sporadic wild fires and bison migration that shaped the prairie ecosystem.

Quail on these pastures are now down in spite of the restoration efforts and good rains.

Too much rain perhaps?

Maybe. Maybe not. These pastures have been under restoration for years and they are now down to non huntable numbers. The experts are at a loss.

Still going.

No birds this season?

They brought home 17 the last trip.

great hunt and pics Bill

Good boy