Singles Quail Hunting

Upland Bird Hunts

With the advent of the internet and home computer information research capability we over the past years have blossomed as a traveling quail hunter's quail hunting destination from across the USA. This has brought us into contact with a good many quail hunters from a variety of background experiences always in search of better quail hunting and seeking to evaluate the quail hunting quality we offer.

Part of that quail hunting quality discussion has included singles quail hunting or the hunting of quail after the covey flush composed of smaller segments of the coveys and largely of single quail. This type of hunting while entirely familiar to us locals appears to be distinct from many home state quail hunter experience. I'll off two illustrations to further clarify this point one from Georgia and the second from Texas.

The Georgia example is to hunt areas after lumbering called cutovers or open spaces of downed tree tops within a larger wooded areas. Habitat and protective cover is thick while open enough to allow coveys to be somewhat effectively hunted, however to hunt after singles a futile proposition due to the cover dispersing birds and hunter energy at a rate greater than the dog point on quail action is gained.

The Texas example revolves around a different set of environmental conditions. Texas dry air and dust along with warm temperatures do not allow sufficient scent cone development from a single quail to allow for bird to hold to dog point.

These two Georgia and Texas snapshots into their quality of quail hunting are distinct from that of the central mid-west as the experience for many is to fully expect a half dozen or more singles point for every covey flush.

As most mid-west quail hunters hunt a brace and are by far the most conservationist minded hunters of any classification, bagging one bird each dog from one covey and moving onto the next covey is the common practice. Four coveys in one day entirely expected by those with good quail dog power making the 8 quail limit frequent enough to keep hunting the entire season.

Years ago had anyone told us we would have had this discussion we would have been skeptical. Today, we understand better how to express our quail hunting quality as a measure of delivering reasonable expectations. We have also come to conclude that anyone that requires 20 coveys in a day for a good hunt not to be the type of quail hunter we chose to work with.

We continue this quail hunting quality discussion with a different viewpoint that compares quail hunting quality in terms of the quail hunt quality itself rather than as coveys counted or birds in the bag evaluations.