Because it looks like 2017 will be another good year of quail numbers out West. We were sitting out side have a couple ice cold beers and I was trying to count all the directions I heard birds calling from. It was at least 5 or 6, including this guy watching out for deplorables!
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Start making plans to head West!
- Thread starter Jetjockey
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Killinstuff
Senior Member
I was pretty dry late winter and early spring in south KS, OK panhandle and north TX with a number of fires back in March. Kinda waiting on the reports from that part of the world on nesting and re-nestting success. Glad to hear CO had good weather and the birds did well.
Talked to a landowner in the TX panhandle yesterday. He said more birds this year than last year, and last year was the best that anyone remembers. I might just have to make the 6hr drive down to the panhandle and hunt TX this year.
No more "might" about it, we are heading to TX in January. The final straw in the decision was adding a few days of hog hunting ontop the quail hunt. I can hunt plenty of bobs on public land in KS, NE, and CO, but the ability to smoke some pigs as well was the tipping point.
28gage
Senior Member
Good plan, we have had good rains in the rolling plains and pan handle but have been spotty.. Some areas look good and some not so good. If it's better than last year I'll be a happy but a surprised man. Last year was about as good as it gets.
Just got back from another trip to SE NE. Quail numbers will be huge this year. The pairs probably won't need to covey up since the hatches went so well. The weather has been about perfect for quail...... Now for the bad news. SD is so dry that the farmers are having to worry about starting fires with their tractors when harvesting. When in NE this weekend, we got a text from a farmer in SD with a picture of a field that lit up by a spark from the combine. It's that dry!! I'm guessing bird numbers will be down a fair amount from last year... I've driven back and fourth through KS several times in the last few weeks, and I just haven't seen the pheasants that I saw last year. With that said, I did see a few and I was driving through the middle
of the day vs last fall and winter when I was driving through the evening during prime Pheasant moving hours, but I just can't say I've seen a ton of birds. With that said, CO and Western KS have seen average amounts of rain so the weather has been good, and there has been no major hail storms to kill chicks. Contrary to what I've seen, that speaks well for good pheasant numbers in those states, so time will tell.
https://www.weather.gov/unr/drought
of the day vs last fall and winter when I was driving through the evening during prime Pheasant moving hours, but I just can't say I've seen a ton of birds. With that said, CO and Western KS have seen average amounts of rain so the weather has been good, and there has been no major hail storms to kill chicks. Contrary to what I've seen, that speaks well for good pheasant numbers in those states, so time will tell.
https://www.weather.gov/unr/drought
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