Bad news on the quail scene

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Steve Buoy and I journeyed out to western Oklahoma and enjoyed a fall turkey hunt.

We each bagged a gobbler as did one of Steve’s cousins, Denton, who happened to be out there and hunted with us.

It was good that we did harvest our turkeys, because the quail season in that area doesn’t look at all promising.

This year, because the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation changed the rules, we were allowed to hunt only gobblers. If I recall correctly, ever since I’ve hunted out there with Steve, we’ve always been able to shoot a turkey of either sex during the fall hunt.

We found some gobblers and had a good turkey hunt.

The outlook for the quail season in Oklahoma in that part of the state this year looks pretty dismal. As we drove the roads getting an idea of where turkeys might be hanging out, we didn’t spot a single covey of quail. We didn’t even see a single bob white.

We didn’t even hear a quail during the two days we out there.

That’s really pathetic. The quail season opened last Saturday, Nov. 14, and remains open through Feb. 15, 2021.

We were there 9 or 10 days before the quail season opened.

When Steve and I hunt, we drive the roads and walk and drive some of the pastures, not only to spot turkeys and get an idea where they might be, but also to see where quail and deer could be so we’ll know once those seasons open.

I’ve hunted quail since I was 12. During the last three years I haven’t hunted bobwhites. If I remember right, it was in January of 2016, which was the 2015-2016 season and that year was a good one.

It’s doubtful I hunt them this season. Once again it may be one of the worst I’ve seen in that area in several years with the exception of 2015-2016.

The last few years, especially a year ago and what I think this year will be like, remind me of when I was a young kid in around 1953-54 and my dad and his hunting partner stopped quail hunting.

It was so bad even, they gave up their bird dogs to friends and started duck hunting.

The deer are more than plentiful.

Turning back to quail, they’re scarce. It would seem all the elements were right, they have feed, they have decent cover, they had rain in the spring and throughout the summer.

But something is really wrong with this picture with the quail numbers. Let’s hope they improve.