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.