Birds at flush

In an attempt to keep conversations going on the Upland Bird Hunting thread, was it just me or did you notice that quail flushed a lot wilder this past season than in years past? I hunted all over Texas this past season and there was no difference anywhere. Birds were flushing 50-60 yards out ahead of dogs that were stacked up rock solid. It was like this 80% of the time. Very few times did I get a chance to flush through a covey of birds or even singles. What was your experience(s)?

We had bad days and good days in that area.

Bill,
What do you think was causing this? I talked to a lot of hunters that were having the same problem. With the cover as high as it was, I did have beeper collars on my dogs, but usually that has never had a negative impact of spooking birds. I have even talked to hunters that had dogs wearing the GPS collars or no collars and they were experiencing the same thing? Is this new age of bird smarter? I don't have the answer but I am looking for the solution to getting closer shots for next season.

I'm with Bill on good days and bad. We had a lot that you had to kick around in the grass to flush and others would fly out front, but not at the distances you were stating more like 20-30 Yds.

Towards the end of the season the birds on our place flushed early. Crashing through shinnery makes a lot of noise so I'm guessing they heard us coming and after 3 months of constant pressure they learned

Didn't see a lot of birds flushing 50 yards in front of dogs. Did see a lot of running birds late in the season. A lot of this is due to cover though. Generally when you have birds flushing that far in front of the dogs noise is a factor. It used to be that we talked as we approached dogs on point --- we learned not to do that, too many wild flushes. We did have a lot of situations where dogs relocated several times before the birds went up and a number of times when the birds ran behind the dogs and they got up as we approached.

We did have some wild flushing but walked up a majority pointed. Of course windy conditions cause birds to be nervous and that is as it has always been. Noisy hunting rigs and hollering don't help either.

Hot, Dry, and Windy are three things you don't want when hunting upland game. 2015-2016 opening day and weekend for Kansas and Oklahoma had all three. The birds were flushing wild and out of range in both states.
Back in the day, when I was hunting draws (erosion gulleys) in Nebraska, I would carry a hawk whistle on hot and dry days. If we saw the pheasant trying to leave the draw as we approached I would hit the whistle for three quick blast. Usually, but not always, that would cause the bird to go back into the cover of the draw. However, they might run further down the draw and flush out of range of the gun. The hawk whistle was the only thing that seemed to work, even then it wasn't 100% effective.

I had a brace of pointers that would cut them off. One would hold point while the other one would make a big loop and come in from the other side.

I have a pointer that started to cutoff runners this year--she's not a 100per cent but she does stop some of them. I don't think it is something you can teach--it comes with lots of bird experience.

We hunted without dogs and most quail flushed at our feet or within 20 yards. These were wild birds, three of us shot 27 one day.

The Blues were wilder this year than I've ever seen them. I saw the same things you guys did. We had to flush them three times before they would sit. The last trip I broke out the 12 gauge full choke and high brass #6. When we hunt blues we drive around oilfield roads until we see a covey and then throw out the dogs. There were plenty of bird. We usually didn't go 15 minutes between coveys.