Why not quail?

[TTravis]

Yesterday I was hunting Pheasant at Atterbury as I have for several years. I love to hunt pheasant, don't get me wrong, but it is a bit unnatural because pheasant do not normally live there. Northern Indiana would be different, but southern Indiana is generally quail country. It is understood that the pheasant they put out will all perish one way or another before the next season.

My question is why not put some quail in the mix. At places in southern Indiana like Atterbury, given the right preparation, the quail might establish coveys and multiply.
Hunting put and take quail where you are paying for more birds than what you take, might seem like I was actually investing in something. Quail populations are way down in Indiana and flushing a covey of wild quail is something many younger hunters will not get to experience unless we get the population back up. This might be a way to help.

I will be back at Atterbury Sunday and I intend to ask the DNR people who I can talk to about this.

 

[TTravis]

And BTW: Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[soupy]

Up here the hawks eat them faster then you can turn 'em loose.

 

[MarkRW]

I've been wondering about the Hawk population.

I started commuting between Indy and Bloomington 8 years ago. At the time, I would see a hawk every now and then. Like, one a week.

The last 3 years the population has seemingly exploded. There are days when I see one every two miles. I have also seen them lately in my neighborhood, near Ruster Park (Eastside).

I have also seen a Bald Eagle within the last year within 5 miles of my house on a couple of occasions.

I do alot of cycling, so I am out in the countryside a couple of times a week at least. The feral cats are not rare either.


So, between the Hawks, Cats, Coyotes, and cars.... the small game must be taking a beating. I wonder about the rabbit population as well.

??

 

[Yeah]

I'm finding rabbits where there is good cover, but the grassy ditches and such are pretty bare. I built about two dozen elevated brush piles around my fields this spring to hopefully provide safe haven.

 

[mike4sigs]

I built about two dozen elevated brush piles around my fields this spring to hopefully provide safe haven.

Let be one of the first to thank you !!

 

[Field King]

Yesterday I was hunting Pheasant at Atterbury as I have for several years. I love to hunt pheasant, don't get me wrong, but it is a bit unnatural because pheasant do not normally live there. Northern Indiana would be different, but southern Indiana is generally quail country. It is understood that the pheasant they put out will all perish one way or another before the next season.

My question is why not put some quail in the mix. At places in southern Indiana like Atterbury, given the right preparation, the quail might establish coveys and multiply.
Hunting put and take quail where you are paying for more birds than what you take, might seem like I was actually investing in something. Quail populations are way down in Indiana and flushing a covey of wild quail is something many younger hunters will not get to experience unless we get the population back up. This might be a way to help.

I will be back at Atterbury Sunday and I intend to ask the DNR people who I can talk to about this.

I like the idea of some Quail put/take hunts! The idea of using pen raised Quail to restock the natural supply has been shown by studies to not work. The problem is more complicated than I have the knowledge to explain but I have done some reading/study on the subject, as for wild quail, hawks are only a small problem, weather and habitat are major factors, the more people like you and I who become interested and take action will help alot, rumor has it the DNR is finally considering some quail/upland restoration projects in the southern half of the state at fish & wildlife properties including Atterbury, I am keeping tuned in for more information and will pass it on to Ingo members as if I hear more! Here is a link to some great information on restocking vs. habitat restoration. http://texas-wildlife.org/files/Roost%20Site%20Selection%20and%20Survival%20of%20Pen-Reared%20Northern%20Bob.pdf

 

[J_Wales]

I've been wondering about the Hawk population.

I started commuting between Indy and Bloomington 8 years ago. At the time, I would see a hawk every now and then. Like, one a week.

The last 3 years the population has seemingly exploded. There are days when I see one every two miles. I have also seen them lately in my neighborhood, near Ruster Park (Eastside).

I have also seen a Bald Eagle within the last year within 5 miles of my house on a couple of occasions.

I do alot of cycling, so I am out in the countryside a couple of times a week at least. The feral cats are not rare either.


So, between the Hawks, Cats, Coyotes, and cars.... the small game must be taking a beating. I wonder about the rabbit population as well.

??

I absolutely detest feral cats and make every effort to eliminate them when I come across them.... which in the areas I have property is frequently.

 

[42769vette]

we usto have alot of quail in my area. my father even bought a bird dog. he bought it the year before the blizzard of 76 (i think thats the year) i guess it killed all the quail. every year we jump a covey or 2 on the farm buy never shoot them in hopes they repopulate.

 

[hoosierdaddy1976]

used to jump a covey or two each pheasant hunt when i was a kid. don't see much of anything anymore, except wide fields with no brushy fencerows, grass strips, etc. i think it's put a hurt on all the small game here. i know they've cut the bag limit for quail at the state properties around here the past few years because there are so few around. my buddy who pheasant hunts quite a bit has jumped a covey the past two years but not shot- kind of a catch-and-release hunt.

on a good note, i did hear a couple coveys each time i went to the blueberry farm just down the road from my house this summer. hope the winter doesn't get too rough for them.

 

[Field King]

used to jump a covey or two each pheasant hunt when i was a kid. don't see much of anything anymore, except wide fields with no brushy fencerows, grass strips, etc. i think it's put a hurt on all the small game here. i know they've cut the bag limit for quail at the state properties around here the past few years because there are so few around. my buddy who pheasant hunts quite a bit has jumped a covey the past two years but not shot- kind of a catch-and-release hunt.

on a good note, i did hear a couple coveys each time i went to the blueberry farm just down the road from my house this summer. hope the winter doesn't get too rough for them.

My dog pointed and I flushed a large covey last year in Benton county just south of you, I had never seen any there before so they took me by surprise when I stepped in front of my dog expecting a single Pheasant!

 

[Slow Hand]

we are still finding a few quail when we go out, but it's not good. I'd say that modern farming practices have put as much of a hurt on teh quail (and other wild game population) as cats and hawks have.

 

[hooky]

As a kid, I'd shoot quail quite a bit. The blizzard of '78 seemed to put a big dent on them along with a couple of bad winters in the early 80's. Coyotes never seemed to give them a chance to recover either. I haven't seen a quail on the home place for 20+ years.

 

[ABolt243]

If I may be so bold as a OOS guest here, I'll pass on what knowledge I have, mostly from listening and watching my younger son. He's a wildlife management biologist in SE MO and is working to restore quail habitat on a few thousand acres there broken up into several conservation areas. He's been working at it for 5 years now and covey counts have gone from 1-2 per area to a dozen+ coveys heard/seen on each conservation area.

A former poster was right, pen raised quail have a very low (nearly 0) survival rate. Wild birds have a very short lifespan but are very prolific, given the right habitat. That's the key, habitat.

My son is working very hard to establish "quail strips" of warm season, bunch style grasses around all the ag fields on the areas, as well as entire fields devoted to prairie grasses and wild forbes (wild flowers). Quail don't fare well in "sod" type grasses such as fescue as it doesn't give them the access to bare ground, grit and insects that they need to survive. Also, quail can use the clumps of tall grasses to escape the hawks and other natural predators. If you own or control any ground at all, try to establish patches or strips of big bluestem, little bluestem, switchgrass, Indiangrass or any other warm season grass that your local resource people recommend. Just a 20-50 foot wide strip along any timber that borders your ag fields will help. That area usually produces very low yields of field crops anyway.

The poster that talks about brush piles is right on the money. My son says one of the best things a landowner can do to encourage quail is to drop a tree about every 100-200 yards around a field border. Then next year, drop another in between those cut the prior year, then, start dropping trees on top of the old ones to enlarge the piles. The relatively bare areas under such trees give the birds a place to escape, feed, scratch and nest, all in relative safety from overhead attack by birds of prey.

It also gives them a place to ride out those blizzards that seemed to take out a lot of birds. During that time ('76, '77, '78) I was farming in one of the top pheasant areas of Illinois. Each spring we found birds that had died in the middle of open fields because they tried to take cover behind the only habitat avialalbe, a corn stalk sticking up out of plowed ground!

I won't pretend to know more than your own IN DNR folks, and certainly, I encourage you to work with them to improve your quail population. But I do know what's working in a similar area. We can't "put" enough quail in the wild to make a huntable population, but if we provide sufficient cover and habitat, the few that are there will populate it for us!!

Good Luck!!

 

[Field King]

Thanx for the information ABolt243, I think our Indiana DNR is starting to tke notice of the upland situation, I hope we can get some things going like your son has done in Mo.

 

[AGarbers]

A friend and I were just having this conversation yesterday. We were driving around Jackson County looking at all the farms. Every last one of them had clean fence rows. Thanks to Roundup and twenty HP mowers folks can keep their places as clean as a whistle. There was zero cover for miles. Nothing for any game animals.

Game animals can far out produce predators given the right habitat which means cover and food. Plus the cover can't be isolated patches. They have to be close or connect, like fence rows and woodlots used to do.

We also have to realize that old-growth forest is a desert for most game animals. The open understory has little in the way of food or cover. We need to work with land owners and forest managers to restore early succesional forest which means doing selective cutting and clear cutting of some areas, and do it every year to make sure there is always the right habitat available.

Ruffed grouse used to be found in 41 counties here in Indiana. Now only the lucky or the older hunters even know what a ruffed grouse looks like! Since the peak in 1983 we have lost 97 percent of the ruffed grouse population in Indiana and could lose the rest in the next decade. This is all due to the loss of the right habitat.

I would recommend joining the Ruffed Grouse Society, Phesants Forever, and Quail Unlimited. The dues help but you also need to get involved, write letters to leaders, and help with restoration projects. Everyone that has "Stop Logging In the Hoosier National Forest" bumper stickers needs to be re-educated on the unintended results of their lawsuits.

 

[ABolt243]

Good point AGarbers. I'm reminded of my trip to South Dakota several years ago on a pheasant hunt. Now I grew up in the proclaimed center of the pheasant population in Illinois in the late 60's early 70's. Birds were plentiful and easy to find. But it paled compared to what I saw in the Mitchell, S.D. area. We actually got to picking our shots to make the hunt last longer each day. And these were 100% wild birds!!

A Bush Hog salesman would starve out there!! Abandonded orchards were allowed to grow up. Roadsides were waist high in grass. Fence rows and CRP ground were full of birds. It looked to me like RoundUp was outlawed!!

Habitat is the key. And experts agree, planned, selective logging and some good prescribed burns are necessary for the health of a forest.

 

[Adrian8]

Quail are super sensitive to having the right habitat. Not too tall, not too short...and no fescue. Bushhogs and farming fence row to fence row have decimated the quail.