Upland Hunting Organizations

What orgs are you folks members of? What do you think of the work they are doing, to increase quantity and quality of hunting, are you happy with the affects of their efforts? How do you get personally involved in their work?

Just wondering and curious and looking for something to think and talk about, with the seasons being over and being stuck at home.

To answer my own questions, member of Quail Forever and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Others too but these as it relates to upland hunting. I'd like to see, here in Texas, more being done to open up more public land to bird hunting and that land being managed for more quality hunting. I'd like to see more mentored hunts happening too, this is the work I'm trying to get more personally involved in, having done it with TYHP.

QF and PF, we tried to start a QF group in San Antonio but after several attempts it just went away, they did one project at a WMA and it died right after that. The few meetings we had always had speakers Check out the Quail Coalition they always make a good donation to the Quail Research ranch

I've been in several. They have all failed.

That seems to be the way of so many orgs, they do a little and then it fizzles away. And as Bill said, they fail to really accomplish much of anything. We'd sure like to see that change wouldn't we. Kids and their bird dogs need some birds to hunt and places to hunt them. I don't know.....

The Texas Quail Coalition is going strong but the banquet tickets are pricey but it includes membership.
www.quailcoalition.org

I’m president of our Blackland Prairie Quail Forever chapter in Greenville Tx. I am also a member of the Ruffed Grouse Society. DU also but it’s not upland.

I'm a QF member but have been disappointed with the organization's efforts to create habitat at the local level. They use "your money stays local" when they sell you a membership but then the representative sent to the annual meeting wants to talk mostly about sending the proceeds from events to state and national lobbying groups instead of funding local habitat projects or mentoring programs.

I'm not ignorant of the value of having strong lobbying available for outdoorsmen but I would prefer that QF be true to their advertising and focus on local habitat creation and mentoring programs.

This is something I've been wondering about too. I hear lots on their podcasts about projects and think, what about Texas (and Oklahoma up there for ya)? I know we have been known as the private land state and lots they do is on public, but we need to change that public land opportunity too. We could and should have better or even really good public land upland hunting even here in Texas. I don't know what can be done to push change, just wondering beyond the obvious and seemingly ineffective, so glad for any and all input.

Same here. I'm a QF member and I believe in what they are doing, They have hard working forks at their core, but right now their efforts are on legislative action and national level work. But lets face it, TX has very little public land. The biggest thing that QF is doing in TX is providing private land owners better access to biologist and resources for improving habitat on privately owned lands. Their primary goal is not to provide more free hunting land, which is what so many folks think they should be doing....it's to help bring quail back in areas where they have declined. At the national and state level, QF does little to support the local chapters, other than demand greater and greater tidings to Caesar. National is also worthless in terms of assisting local chapters in raising money. They do wonders with getting the most out of conservation dollars. State is focuses on funding more biologist and helping landowners fund habitat work that would otherwise not happen. This is good work, but the organization cannot develop and hold members because they are focused on the future...there is really not much happening to help get dogs on quail now.

The QC folks seem to be about raising money to develop private hunting preserves for their members and funding what appears to be the only serious quail research in the country. If I had the money to play in that game, i'd be a member and at their banquets. Their work on relocating quail seems sound


The thing I do not understand is why the two organizations hate each other? Egos and $$ seem to get in the way of folks that should be all working toward the same thing.

i am a QF member here in Missouri and our chapter has spent the majority of our funds on creating habitat on private lands.
1162 acres of nesting habitat created and $19,300 on habitat restoration, basically removing trees and invasive species, spraying and burning. but we have gave a few thousand of our funds to the legislative action fund, basically gave the bare minimum. but yes i do agree that they ask for all they can get rather than letting us using it local.

I'm glad to hear from ya'll about this, though not too glad about the unsatisfying experiences. I don't know what can be done but something I hope. Ruffed Grouse Society is restructuring to meet some of the same dissatisfactions ya'll are talking about, maybe there will be some successes there that will be a model for improving what our quail groups can do. Especially on public lands. I still believe we could do something to have better public land bird hunting. I've been walking my Brittanies around the neighborhood more with all this self distancing, and folks LOVE bird dogs! And most of them talk with joyful laments about how they had bird dogs around when they were kids and how much they miss it. My 7 year old daughter even learned how to write "Bird dogs save the world" in Chinese characters, along with something about her being the cutest girl in the world, etc....

But these bird dogs and kids and remembering folks need something to hunt!

I’ll go out on a limb here and say for Texas private land may be the only place a local chapter may have the opportunity to do a project. Also on private land hunting can be controlled where on public land it can’t be nearly as well. You could have multiple coveys shot out on public land.

Yep

I'm not a fan of complaining about a problem without offering a reasonable solution. I encouraged my local QF chapter to "adopt" some solar wells on the local Wildlife Management Area and pay a local company to maintain them so they could run year-round and put water into already existing wildlife ponds. Quail love water in my part of the world. The state rep said the "action fund" needed money urgently and the board followed her recommendation.

It is my opinion that the way to change this is to have active, and intelligent, board members at the local level who are dedicated to truly "keeping the money local". I dislike the fact that the organization preys on it's own members willingness to blindly follow the reps. I strongly dislike the fact that the organization does so at the same time as they use "keeping the money local" as a primary selling point to new members. It feels dishonest.

I need to get on the local board and express these opinions at the annual meetings.

A local chapter doing projects on public land has to be the purpose in my opinion. Why would a chapter do work on private lands, why would that benefit or motivate a chapter? And really, though changes need to be made because of this, public property is ours, so we should not only be able to upland enhancement projects on publics lands, but if we can change the tide, be pursued to do projects on public land.

Kelulu, I love your example. And just an individual can promote upland enhancements on public lands. Thank you for your hard work and giving us this example. And thank you for saying you need to get on a local chapter board, I agree you do, because you are doing the work! And I guess so do I!