As we are having the greatest season of quail hunting as I ever remember, one thing differently I have noticed about the quail is how jumpy they have gotten. Our lease has great cover on it and has only been hunted 4 times this year in saying that we have never pounded the quail. At least on 40% of our points, the birds are getting up long, usually out of reasonable gun range. Dogs are pointed solid, no slipping or cat walking, no beepers, no utv, as stealth as possible, and they are still flushing long. What are your thoughts on why this is happening? My apologies if this has been discussed previously.

Ours are behaving the same way since weekend one. Wild flushing and running like their scaled cousins. Maybe the drought survivors bred some smarter birds. We were just discussing this Saturday evening.

Survivors.

Is there any different approach or methodology we should be taking? These are all Bobwhite quail too. I have not ever seen covey of blues on my place.

been this way for the last two years on our place - we've started circling out and cutting them off. We also only hunt into the wind. The quail we have nowadays are savages - all of the bobs act like blues for the most part where we are. We used to have a ton of blues, not many anymore that we've seen.

I have had the best luck keeping the birds between me and the dogs when approaching. It seemed to make them sit a little longer thinking about what they should do. Like blues they will sit better the more times you flush them. Watch them down and kill singles.

Not sure where all of you guys are hunting, but I posted something a while back towards the beginning of the season about adult to juvenile ratios being around 1 to 1 this season as compared to 1 to 6 last season. The birds on our place have been flushing wild since week 1 and we all (biologists and dog handlers included) attribute it to hunting more adult birds left over from last year. These are wild birds, and they are also "experienced" birds!!

I have also read and heard discussions where some biologists have studied and theorize that quail (along with many other species) will reach a "saturation point" with their densities... or another way to look at it is the land has a "max carrying capacity", say anything over 1 bird per acre where it will begin to impact breeding activity. This could very well be what is taking place over the last two year period where we had a density explosion from 2015-16 where we saw >1 birds per acre on helo surveys with a 6-1 juvenile - adult ratios (killed birds) and then this year where our numbers were almost the same density, just under 1 bird per acre, but our ratios completely swapped ends and went to 1-1 juvie-adult (killed birds).

I'm sure I'll get beat up over this... for "over-thinking it" you know, but you asked the question and we have definitely all noticed the same phenomenon this year from day one with very savvy, smart birds that won't hold.

I think it's a different game. The dog need to almost run them down to pin them. Then stop on a dime when they stop. Youve got to be with your dog at that point.

When my dog first goes on point I run to her. I make sure she stays put till I get there. You can tell that by the time I get to her the birds have run off. Then I send her and stay with her. She crouches and moves in ready to freeze as soon as she smells them.

Because our lease grass has been grazed pretty hard I can clearly see the birds ahead running. They usually stop and sit still a moment when we are closing in. I try to stay off to one side with my dog ahead of me. It's cool to watch. She usually gets close and freezes just as sudden as they do. Sometimes they stop for just a moment and get up but I'm usually close enough to shoot if I want to.

As my bro says....they are not being gentleman bobs today.

These millennial bobs are such cowards:)

Have a lease member who started driving the mule way out in front and walking back to the dog. Seems to work for him. I have experienced some birds running or leaving early but a lot are still holding at our place. Going tomorrow and will let you know how they act.

Everyone on our place hunts out of an UTV and I believe the birds get used to hearing the sound and start to split when Jan and Feb roll around so there's that.

I had a brace of pointers that learned to do that.

Hmmm interesting.

To go along with Chet, I have foot hunted one time and those birds acted right. I have hunted three places that have not been hunted in five years (one of those 2 miles from the foot hunting trip where they acted right), and those birds were jumpy. The first couple the broomweed was really high and I questioned if the birds were jumpy because the cover was so thick they couldnt tell what was going on and would decide to screw it I am flying. I think its UTVs and the survivor syndrome myself. When birds are lean and everything is trying to make a quail dinner out of them its always been the norm, but something is definitely different now from say 2005 when we had a great crop and the birds were flushing underfoot.

my guess is what are you calling good cover. 99 % of the places i hunt shows cattle comes first. Good cover for birds takes a back seat to cattle.

Not a problem with cows on this place. Cover is great.

Same on our place. Flushing wild and frankly, so fast that it is near impossible to get a shot.
Another thing I've noticed is that at times we find a covey or two "off the beaten path." In other words birds that we probably have not hunted OR shot at all season.

Those birds hold very well.

It's frustrating but our goal is not to kill as many as possible and we are just so damned glad to have them back.

While I tend to agree with what most of you are saying, here is one I can refute. Case in point....just this past Saturday, hunting on foot, we ventured into a big bottom along a creek that I have never hunted before on our place. It may be safe to say no man had been in this bottom for 20 years. Really remote and out of sight, hard to get to. We got in to it and the birds were there in spades. We had at least 8 coveys pointed and shot 1 time. No UTV, no beepers, no whooping and hollering. The quail just would not hold and I know that without a shadow of any doubt, they have never seen or encountered man in their lifetime or several generations before. This place is on the backside of hell.

NorthTx - that lends itself that the birds that survived the drought purgatory years and the brink of extermination are the smartest of the smart and are like UFC level bad arses; their one year old offspring are now third generation so we might be in the new normal. Didnt think Darwinism would kick in that quick, but sure seems like it has

It also just goes to show you what a big running derby will get you into. I had no intentions of hunting that area due to very limited access, but when we found her in there pointed, we decided to go in. Once in the bottom, we started hunting and it was game on. The derby did fine. She was not the problem.

success rate is much higher this year on busting the covey and then getting into the singles. The singles is where we get the best dog work and quail manners it seems. We've also noticed that early in the year the quail would whistle once split up. After about the third week they went radio silent and the singles would hold tight and let you walk right past them and then jump out the back side. I guess you learn to adapt when your population gets decimated.

I vote with dances with quail -------- genetics ----- I have the same theory with dove,,, the ones that nest in town multiply, the ones that are in the country are shot and dont get to breed. Hence lots more doves are in town rather than in the field.

Hello.
Could not agree more.

Maybe the predators in the area might have something to do with it. We have noticed sometimes our coveys seem all stirred up. We never even started hunting our birds till after deer season but we did put our dogs on them a few times during dove season . It's almost like we've been hunting them the whole time. Night and day so we chalked it up to less cover but maybe less cover and predator pressure.

So how are you busting running coveys

If you are replying to me, we are not busting any running covey. They flush on their own way the heck out front of us and the dogs usually out of gun range.