Quail Hunting (Matador WMA)

Some friends and I are taking our old travel trailer up to Matador WMA in early January to hopefully get some quail hunting in. Was hoping for any advice or tips you all may have. It's been years since I've been, we don't have dogs and this is the first run on public land for us.

Thanks,
Brent

I have been a few times in the past. I believe hunting that late in the season without dogs would be tough with all of the pressure that Matador gets. It would probably be best to get in some of the rough terrain that a lot of people avoid.

I definitely appreciate the feedback. Did you generally have good outings in your experience? We're not looking to commit genocide on a covey.. mainly just a few birds each. A few of us just need to get out of the rat race for a bit.

We had a couple of decent hunts. We have only averaged around 4-5 coveys per day with mediocre dogs. The coveys seem to fly much longer distances there than other places we have hunted, making singles hard to find. It is a nice place to just get away, we always see a lot of other wildlife. They have some huge bucks.

We have not hunted it this year. With all the good reports it might be a little better than usual.

Try to go earlier if you can. Public land gets lots of pressure. It gets tougher as time goes on. I have only hunted quail on public land but never Matador. I'm heading up there this weekend. Same deal as you mentioned...just walking around, no dogs, etc. Hopefully we kick something up. If not, then at least I get to explore some new territory. Just 2 of us walking around, so we will see.

Have fun

There is tons of areas in the back that are to thick to hunt with dogs cause you can't see them run. There were birds there. Dog walkers won't hunt that. We need you to push them out:)

Haha I really appreciate the pointers guys. Dually noted on the thick brush as well.

It's been a while since I've been out there, but the word on the street is that this is a banner year for quail. Without dogs, what I would do, is get everybody spread out before daylight. As it starts to break light, the quail will whistle. Locate the general area for each whistle heard. Then have everbdy meet up and compare notes and start working the closest whistles first. Each whistle heard will be a covey.

Now I'm real pumped up to get out there!

I use to hunt quail without dogs. I would just walk up to every brush pile and kick it. Walk, then stop frequently. They would fly when you would stop.

You could always just drive around and look for other hunters then listen to see who is finding birds. We call that "shotgun scouting". It works really good to find secret duck hunting spots.

I was there last weekend, watch the hawks. We saw them on 4-5 different occasions fly down attacking the quail. We were surprised to see that but apperantly that's very common.

Makes me laugh when I see a duck boat fighting to get back into an area I am snipe hunting.
With all the late morning shooting going on they must think there are 1000s of ducks back there.

Ah that'll really helpful. Had no idea about the Hawks. How'd y'all fair out there?

Pretty good, we moved 7-8 covey during a 3 hr evening hunt and 3 hr morning hunt. We were on a time schedule would have liked to stay another day

Finished the day with a total of 37!

Final count for this weekend....48!! Three hunters and no dogs.

Were there lots of sand burrs?

Very few. Still saw lots of dogs booted up though.

I was there this past weekend. It was a zoo. People were everywhere. I had people park and walk right in front of me while I was working into the wind. The number of birds seemed about normal. The dogs did get stickers along the roads and in some really grassy spots.

Yeah it was busier than it was opening weekend. Unfortunately we ran into some rude people.

Interesting to hear that it was even busier than opening weekend. My wife and I were also there for our first trip up and hunted Sat. and Sun. We had no plan and no idea where to go. We saw others as we drove by but never saw anyone else while in the field. Heard shots in the distance but that was it. It was really nice actually. Far more pleasant than hunting the Chap, where I have encountered my share of rude people (Sendero blockers, etc.). At the Chap opener we frequently saw groups of hunters ~100yd away.

The sand burrs were practically non-existent, at least where we walked. At the Chap opener we could not walk 2 steps without having burrs in our thighs as the grass was waste deep in some places. Walking around Matador actually cleaned the old Chap burrs off my boots. :-)

I scratched out 11 on Sat. and 10 on Sun. My wife joined me in the mornings but I hunted solo in the afternoons. No telling how many were running circles around me or just staying put as I walked alone. Every downed bird was recovered. Maybe I have some pointer and lab in my blood.

In short, had a blast and look forward to coming back next year and bringing a few friends.

Met a couple folks from Tyler who were headed back out again as we packed up this morning. Gave them a few tips on my way out. Hope they had as good a luck as I did.

Below are a few pics from the trip with Sat. and Sun. morning's take. I really enjoyed the scenery and hills much better than fighting the S. TX brush. I think it went as good as I could have hoped for our first trip and not knowing the territory. My wife was able to get an action shot by chance. She just happened to be taking pictures of a roadrunner and heard some chirping noises in the grass, so I went to investigate. Sunday was really windy. I had to hold them down on the cooler for a pic.

According to a biologist that works there, there have been over 3500 birds shot off there this year. I wonder how long that place can survive that kind of hunting pressure before it's shot out.

Yes it's kind of sad. I wish the limit was 8. It's not like doves where they migrate in. It shouldn't be so high. 3quail is a decent meat so even a limit of 6 would be a great time/hunt

I agree 100%. Especially since it's public land and anybody and everybody can just show up and start shooting. I wish statewide the limit was 8-10 per day. Texas has the most liberal bag limit of upland birds of any state and any bird in the entire country to my knowledge. 8-10 and the season needs to run from 2nd week of November through the last weekend of January.

I've read studies that show how little impact hunters have on the population.

Why the last weekend of January?

Final count for this weekend....45!! Two hunters and no quail.

Might want to recheck the arithmetic, that is just over 0.1 birds per acre.

Are we sure it's not 8.14 acres per bird?

You are correct, sir...

You are correct. That's what I get for copy and pasting someone else's response from another forum

On the overall population, it may not have a huge effect. But that many birds being shot off of 28,500 acres will. There's no way it wouldn't, and there's still another 2 months for that place to get shot up. My thought would be to lower the limit and have more carry over birds for nesting season. I agree that quail don't live that long and mortality rate on them is very high but having a higher number for carry over seems like a good idea.

And last weekend of January because I've read in some places they're pairing up in February at times. Oklahoma Parks and Wildlife is doing a study on it and is supposed to put some info out on it soon. And a 4 month season is just flat out long. But as you can tell I lean more towards the conservative side of hunting. And it wasn't something I just picked up naturally or learned myself. Tailgate pics full of birds used to excite me, trying to get my limit, caring more about birds shot than coveys found. Then I started hunting with more experienced, conservative hunters who taught me how to really quail hunt more ethically. I'm in it for the dogs and dog work first and foremost. I'd rather see dogs on point than birds stacked on a tailgate. But to each his own!

CinchMan,
I appreciate the way you think. I feel the same way and have been down the same road.

I have read to shorten it a week due them to start pairing up at that time in February.

I'm in. I no longer shoot.

I think if you don't want to kill a limit and just like to watch your dogs work, then don't kill a limit and have fun watching your dogs. I like to kill and eat quail. I like good dog work but my dogs are a tool to kill more quail.
My philosophy on quail is, kill all you want to when there's plenty of them and worry about conserving them in drought years. No matter what you do or how few quail you kill, some years we just aren't going to have many bird.

I was there with Dash today and hunted about 4 hours. Had no problem finding birds. Very crowded for a mid weekday. Hunters I encountered were experienced hunters, courteous, helpful finding birds, and worked with others to not work the same areas. Grass burs and cactus were bad where I was. The figure I got was at least 5000 birds killed this season and the wing bucket was full. I can't imagine it lasting considering the pressure. Reminded me of DFW public duck hunting. Hard to find an area not being hunted.

How many more days are left for quail hunting there?

For what it's worth, direct from the Matador WMA staff on their own FB page, "For comparison we harvested over 4,700 quail last year. In 2005, another boom year, harvest was over 7,500."

This was their own reply in regard to similar questions/concerns about the breeding population, which were made after they posted a nice tailgate pic on their own page.

Per the public hunting map...

Quail: Oct. 29-Nov. 6, Nov. 19-Dec. 6, Dec. 22-Jan. 31.

I'm going to need them to kick everybody off until the first week of January..

If you need meat go deer hunting. we should respect what we hunt. If you jump a covey of 4 or less birds it's obviously been shot up so the right thing to do is leave them alone. It's no different then passing up young bucks or not shooting jakes or not keeping bass on the spawn. It all comes down to ethics. It's just a respectable way to be. I know there are guys out there who don't have respect..actually we all know who you are by what you post and how you respond on here. You guys are why we spend a fortune to hunt private.

Wow...

We know who the ''elites'' are around here too. I never understood why some people criticize other outdoorsmen for legally taking game. I shot 12 wild quail last year and I only got to go once. I may not even go this year because work keeps getting in the way. What's the difference between me going twice and killing 30 birds and some retired guy going 10 times and killing 30 birds because he only shot 3 each time? Since we're being critical here, maybe the state should outlaw using dogs to hunt quail? Seems kind of like cheating to have a dog show you where the bird is hiding. Just sayin'.

Been going once a week as long as they are open. 2yr old Brittany female and an 11 month old Brittany male. have yet to find less than 12 coveys in a day. Have also yet to walk less than 7 miles a day! If you want to find the birds, you have to put in the miles. There is a lot of pressure close to roads. Hunted the last day they were open, 7 Dec, and jumped birds that had never been hunted. Flew up in the trees and only went about 20 yds when they did fly. Then again, we had never been in this area either