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HOW TO HAVE MORE QUAIL
What Quail Management Can Do for You
 EDITOR’S
NOTE: You can hunt quail as well as deer and turkey
on your hunting lease or at your hunting club with very
little investment and not much work. According to Dr.
Bill Palmer, game bird specialist at Tall Timbers Research
Station in Tallahassee, Florida, "Most outdoorsmen
will be satisfied to go out with their buddies and a
bird dog and find two to three coveys of quail in a
half-day's hunt. Hunters can create this type of hunting
ground on all kinds of forest land with minimal effort."
This week, we’ll learn how to have more quail
on the property where you hunt and the history behind
why the quail populations across the U.S. have declined.
 When
you decide to begin to manage your hunting lands for
quail and turkey, never forget that the differences
inherent in all forest lands will keep you from accurately
predicting how any management tool will affect a specific
parcel of land. However, you can anticipate some possible
general results of effective quail management by increasing
the number of quail on your property.
* One bird per 10 to 20 acres equals an average of zero
coveys of quail flushed per day of hunting, the results
of no management of the lands for quail.
* One bird per 2 to 5 acres equals one to three coveys
of quail flushed per half-day of hunting.
* One quail per acre equals finding quail every time
you hunt and flushing five to seven coveys in a half-day
hunt.
* Two to four birds per acre equals flushing four to
seven coveys per hour of hunting, or in a half-day of
hunting flushing as many as 20 coveys.
 However,
this type of quail management may prove too costly for
most hunting clubs and/or leases to consider. Having
two to four birds per acre will require a commitment
by the hunting club of predator control, supplemental
feeding of the quail and such intense quail management
that most hunting clubs will find this regime cost-prohibitive.
TOMORROW: WHY DID QUAIL POPULATIONS DECLINE?
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