We hunted Wed. before Thanksgiving and moved 5 coveys around Lubbock in about 4 hours. All 5 had 20+ birds and one covey of blues. A pleasant change from the last few years.

I'd take that. Let's use this thread for new reports. It should be getting better now that the dogs can cover better.

Mark- were the sand burrs bad over there as usual this year?

Not too bad where we were at. Lots of tumbleweeds and cover, but the dog only had ocassional trouble with his feet.

Moved 7 coveys on public land 2 sundays ago. Between 10 and 20 birds in each covey. The sand burrs were terrible and we had to boot the dogs after the first pass. We only hunted for about 3 hours and didn't cover much ground. I can't wait to get back at it in the coming weeks. Next sunday I will be hunting a place in Wheeler county. I'll report back to you guys after I make that trip.

Nice point and pretty good shootin it looks like

We averaged 5 coveys per day on public land after thanksgiving. It was hot, got up to around 80 degrees so we didn't hunt much in the afternoons.

Hunted all day long today in western Oklahoma (on private property, but very close to Black Kettle grassland area) and only moved 2 coveys. The weather was horrible and we didn't get to start until about 9:30 because of the rain. We managed to kill 5 birds but we walked about 10 or 15 miles to get them. Hopefully the birds are more plentiful when we hunt the eastern Texas panhandle next weekend.

That's some impressive results for public land.

9 covies this morning. 8 bobs 1 blues Hunted around 4 hours lots of big covies and the cover still looks great. Only one unproductive spot I assume we could have found birds all day. Only two repeat covies from our last hunt before thanksgiving

Virgin coveys.

Few things are better

Hunted public land around Choke Canyon last weekend. Found 1 covey, it was in the same place when I hunted there last. 7 years ago.

Do you know of any good qual hunting areas around the Ranger Hill/ Eastland area?

I do not - I don't know much about that area. I am way West of there.

One interesting thing about the birds on this trip. We killed 8 or 10 blues and one of them had a chestnut belly. I have killed lots of blues over the years and this is the first I have ever seen that wasn't at a taxidermist or pen raised. I will post a picture if I can.

Look up blob. It is a recognized cross that sometimes occurs where blues and bobs are both found. The few I have seen had more or less a rusty or reddish buff tint to their breast areas. Otherwise looked like a blue. Beautiful birds.

I have to add that when I looked up blob, and saw pictures of Starr county blobs taken by Steve Benson, they did NOT look like what I saw. They looked more like bobwhites. What I saw in Jim Hogg county (pretty close to Starr) looked a Blue quail with a dusky or tawny breast rather than white. More like the quail pictured above, and they were running with blues. Which tells me they had a Blue mama. Maybe the ones Steve Benson photographed had a bob mama?

Juveniles.

I don't think it is a blob and I am pretty certain it is an adult bird. I have asked a couple of taxidermists that post similar birds pictures on their website. Hopefully one of them will give his opinion.

Didn't want to start a new thread to report yesterdays hunt so I'll tag onto this one. First time out in a few years (missed last season); dog is getting a little long in the tooth. 3 Coveys in maybe 4 hours of hunting. This was rolling plains area. Not great but I'll take it. Unimpressive shooting and dog performance. It was cccccold.

We should start getting more reports now that most deer hunters have hung it up. I've hunted in some cold weather in my life but I'm not as mad at the quail as I once was.

Hunted in the central Texas panhandle on saturday (dumas area) and turned up 4 coveys in about 3 hours of hunting. Sunday we hunted the southeastern Texas panhandle (Memphis area) and got into 4 coveys before my #1 got into a fight with a barbed wire fence and lost. He poked a hole in a main artery in his leg which required a quick fix with a glove and then a trip to the vets office in Childress. Talk about expensive on a Sunday, but no amount of money is too much for any of my 4 legged ones.