Who's going opening weekend?

We are headed to our place Friday morning. Mostly just to ride around and shoot some hogs / varmints and see if we have any quail at all. Might not even take a dog on this trip. maybe one. Looking forward to sitting around a campfire. Who else is going opening weekend?

Our only scheduled hunt this year is Panhandle pheasants on opening weekend, 12/5 and 6.
Quail reports in the Rolling Plains, where we hunt, are just too low this year. You know how it goes.

I’ll be chasing blues with a couple buddies and my old dad. We will have more dogs with us than we need. I think we’re bringing 3 each.

I’m gonna give a try.

I've been bow hunting for 4 weekends in the rolling plains and after being on this place for 23 years this is the fewest Q I've ever seen

Good luck

Looking forward to your results. Fingers crossed.

Our pheasant hunt may not work this year #'s are low. Dang whats going on dove #'s were low also this year

Not planning any big trips.
I will probably do a little dove hunting.
Then run the dogs in a couple of pastures that hold quail.
I really don't consider it a hunt. If you're just brushing up the dogs, and take a bird here, or there.

The pastures in the Eagle Lake areas?

Bill
I haven't been hunting the Eagle Lake area for a few years.
There is a few places close to the Brookshire area, that holds birds.
We have been seeing, and hearing them call for the last 2 months.
Three years ago, I started thinking they might be gone, but the numbers are slowly getting better.

Truchard pastures?

Remember your first NSTRA trial in that area?

Yes, and went back a few more times.
These fields are not as close to I10, as the trial area.
Maggie met me out at one of the pastures I use, to tighten up her dogs on wild quail before a trial. That had to be 4 or 5 years ago.
We quit going out towards Eagle Lake, when goose hunting slowed down. Just not enough geese to make it worthwhile. It was fun to hunt geese that morning, and run the dogs on quail that afternoon.

There were a few duck ponds in the pastures I hunted in Wharton county. They were generally done we started. Funny thing, one of my friends red setters took up with a group of the dunk hunters and retrieved several ducks for them.

I wish they would go back to Deer and Duck opening on the same day.
Had some great hunts. Get a deer Sat AM then hunt Duck Sat evening and Sun morn.

We need the rain but I'm hoping it dries out some by Friday. I don't want to give Bill anymore "me stuck in the mud pictures". He likes them a little bit too much.

I would not want to be at your camp in wet weather. That looked like 4wd with chains on getting out of that place and I'm too old for that lol.Sure hope you have at least enough birds to work the dogs.

Warming trend here.

We ended up with a surprisingly good hatch......we've been spotting multiple coveys on TC and in person......average size has been 10 birds per covey.....hopefully you will have the same neighbor

Quail start out as a family unit. They later commingle into a really big social unit, they breakup again to smaller social units.

We hunted this morning for about 4 hours. Pretty damp. 2 coveys of bobs at the first stop. 1 covey of bobs 1 covey of blues at the 2nd stop. 1 of each at the 3rd and 1 covey of blues at the 4th. The cover is sparse and the coveys averaged 12-15 birds. Not as bad as I thought but less than average. I posted this because I knew you would
Be looking for reports Bill

Sounds like a winner to me.

I’m looking at some tired bird dogs. We didn’t have a great day in Crane county. We walked my best spots on 60K acres this morning. We found no bird walking good spots with cover. We found two coveys running dogs in front of the truck but both were in spots where there was only enough cover for a couple to hold. It was too hot to run dogs after 10AM. We drove around to try to find coveys bushed up but did no good in the heat. Opening weekend down here is always too hot but we always kill easy limits of dove over water in the evenings. No dove in the sky. I guess that’s why They make whiskey. It’s still a good time.

First time staying at this trailer park in Rankin. They have Elm trees with plenty of shade. Hunting always gets better after the leaves fall off the Mesquites and Cat Claws.

Don't study about it too much.

Quail hunting is like walking into and out of a beautiful painting all day long.

We saw what the temps were gonna be so we didnt even bring a dog. Hit 82 in Dickens Saturday. We have just driven around and ran a electric varmint caller a few times. We didnt leave the roads hardly any. Havent seen live animal other than a few ducks and turtles. We did get alot of chores done that we needed to do.

Still beats staying at home.

Nice setup. Looks like fun!

Trying to stay positive....We watched a couple of beautiful sun rises, saw some Mule Deer, and let the dogs get some exercise in the Panhandle this weekend.