Sad Day...Stupid Missouri

[hunterw/newhobby]

Today is one of the worst days in missouri. Basically every hunting season shuts down and my life gets boring for a while. Here's a couple of my thoughts for anyone who cares.
1. Recently I emailed Mo Department of Conservation and asked if they would consider releasing quail and phez to help supplement the upland population. The response I recieved stated the department tried that in the 40's and it didn't work. In my head I start to think of current situations like SD and other states that have done this. SD seems to have used it to their advantage pretty nicely. Especially in a recession, I would figure they would be more open to ideas to both help the ecological community they protect and bring in more money to the state. But what do I know....I'm just a science teacher who basically took the same college classes they did.

2. Kind of goes more in the training section of this forum but what are some ways you all use to help train your dogs on phez. My dog did good this year (her first season) on quail and now I'm wanting her to learn about the other bird. Any tips/ techniques would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance and anyone in the mighty MO write/communicate some way with MDC and lets try to get some more birds to hunt.
Ross

[vzkennels]

Just getting experience on wild Phez will probably do as much good as anything you could teach to work phez.

[BellaDad]

There are a lot of things that you can say need improvement from the MDC, I for one would like to see them better manage their wetland properties. Hunting moist soil just doesn't cut it, they need more crops. Too many refuges on state public land when you take into account federal refuges, etc. We end up with a lot of birds that don't move until they have to and then they fly south. Need more wetland properties as well.

Now as far as upland goes, they have a lot of properties that could be good upland habitat. Their "strategy" currently is to improve the habitat (and looking at this month's Conservationist they completed 103,000 acres of quail and bird habitat work on CAs). I think a lot can be said for improving the habitat, because without that it doesn't matter how many birds you release. Now that we're getting the areas better setup to support birds I would be interested to see if/how supplementing birds could further expedite the return of decent quail populations around here. I bet when they tried it in the 40's they didn't focus as much on habitat improvements.

[ezzy333]

If releasing pen raised birds helped then the area around the preserves that do release would be loaded .... and they are not. You can't find a single bird around most shooting preserves come spring. The Dakotas did it with wild birds being brought in and after they had a healthy population they supplement those birds with extra birds for shooting in the short term. That makes the hunters happy but doesn't do anything for the rwesident wild population.

Ezzy

[hunterw/newhobby]

Ezzy
That's exactly what I want MDC to do...supplament shooters to help lessen the effect on wild (smarter) birds. the habitat is there for the most part in some areas with some more improvement only helping more. My thoughts are its hard for a wild population to grow if every year they are hunted and pressured when we could be doing that with some released birds that may only be about half wild. just my opinion...it makes sense in my head at least (however the same head has been hit a lot over the years.)
ROss

[Ruffshooter]

In Southern Maine, they release pheasants just a couple three weeks before the hunting season. Come November/ December most of the time you can't even find a track not all that many folks hunt them. Those released birds are stupid and are not physically strong enough to evade predators. You go through a hunt preserve and find all kinds of piles of feathers. I have had some quail make it at one of my training grounds and they do get wild but it is maybe only 5 to 10% of what I put out. That is with us taking coyotes. Habitat with predator protection and supplementing a non hunting area for a few years would develop the quail populations, I believe.

Just observation.
Rick

[Meller]

I think you hit the nail on the head with preiditor reduction; that in my opion is what will help the Quail population in Mo. Coyote's catching is a problem but not near as bad as Racoon', Oposum's and Skunk's getting the egg's.

[setterbud]

well yesturday came to an end for the quail season went to mark twain lake went to 4 spots, in hte past could hacve found 7 covies, found one, the way the season has gone for it seems the last 10 years.

The mdc will not stock pin raised birds, tried it in the past they will not survive. the mdc does not in my opiion give a hoot about the quail , they give a good talk, and all they say is its the habit, well there is more habit than ever on the ca;s but there are less quail, they don't want to here that but there are less birds this season than last, but they blame that on the spring rains, the year before it was a drought, the bad winter, etc all they do is have a excuse , they are already workinbg on the one for next season. back in the 80's the farmers used to always leave 8 rows of corps on the ca's, now they don't, they have 1 acrs food plots they want the bird hunters to beleive that they are for the quail,. If we paid a 15 dollar quail tap we would have a lot, but we don't, therefore as much as they talk every ca is for the dder and turkey. even on the quail emphis ca's they are not all rated excellant populations.

I have copied a good story from writer Larry Dablemont

Some of the best upland game habitat in southern Missouri has been taken over by cockleburs. Thousands and thousands of acres of public land on Truman Lake once supported excellent numbers of bobwhite quail coveys. Today, those numbers have dwindled to a small percentage of what was there only 10 years ago.

The Director of the Missouri Department of Conservation, John Hoskins has retired. I will always remember a speech he gave at a convention of Southeastern Game and Fish Commissions several years back in which he gave glowing numbers of how many thousands of coveys of quail his department would increase in our state due to a concentrated quail management initiative. We now have far fewer coveys than we did when he gave that speech.

Twelve to fifteen years ago, we found some fairly good quail hunting on the public lands of Truman Lake, where about 118,000 acres was set aside as prime wildlife habitat when Truman Lake was first built. About that time, artist Tom Goldsmith came down from Canada wanting to see what quail hunting was like, and a friend and I took him to a place on Truman Lake near Clinton, Missouri, where we hunted from a boat. We had good dogs, and we found five coveys that day. It was about as good as you could ask for, but it wasn’t hard to see the writing on the wall. Predators were thick, red-tail hawks everywhere, and egg-eating raccoons were about to double in number. The habitat was declining, as food from native grasses was even then being replaced with the onslaught of cockleburs.

I asked the new director to come to Truman and let me show him what a priceless quail habitat that public land could be. To his credit, Hoskins came, and we went out on the lake in my boat. I showed him that very spot, telling him there were five coveys of quail there, and what a great place it was to manage with some intensity, without a tremendous cost. I was sure he would find cooperation from the Corps of Engineers, both with funds and access to the land. His answer was brief… there just wasn’t enough money to do anything. Not enough money! It would have taken only a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands MDC has wasted since then.

On Truman today, we could take five or six bird dogs to that spot and we might find a covey of quail somewhere, but if you found two in an entire day it would be akin to a miracle. The cockleburs have taken over, and the quail are almost gone.

Mr. Hoskin's speech about the glowing prospects for quail in Missouri surely exists somewhere, but I don’t think the MDC would help us find it. Maybe the new director will intensify the effort to increase quail numbers in Missouri, and if he does, there is all that land on Truman where someone might start. Of the total acreage, much of it is in timber, best for deer and turkey, of which there are plenty with no attention necessary. Probably only 40 or 50 thousand acres are suitable habitat for quail, but it is there, completely available still, and there is no better place to start in the Ozarks if you want to see if you can manage quail.

John Hoskins reminded me that day of another time he had visited with me, back in the early 1980’s when I lived at Harrison, Arkansas. He came there then as a supervisor of conservation agents in a section of southern Missouri. There was another agent with him, and we sat on my porch and drank tea and talked about another of his agents I had written several newspaper columns about, an agent who, with an accomplice, was breaking game laws himself. He and his friend were guiding float trips and turkey hunters, and he had another business he was operating. He was so involved in those two other jobs that he gave little attention to his duties as an agent. His partner was a local guy with a prison record, and I once watched him hunting from an ATV with a shotgun mounted on the handlebars facing forward. He snuck along old logging roads trying to shoot turkeys from the running ATV.

I started writing about the agent when two of his clients from Illinois contacted me that they had been advised they could take another turkey over their limit by paying extra, after one had killed a Jake on his “guided hunt.” Eventually the agent was released, but it took more than a year to get it done.

That day at my home in Harrison, Hoskins was also there because a friend and I had discovered some local men were launching boats on Bull Shoals’ Arkansas side and motoring up into Missouri after midnight, spotlighting deer off of a big green food plot in an area known as Quincy Refuge, where hunting wasn’t even allowed back at that time. It was a large area along Bull Shoals Lake that once even held some elk. I remember thirty years ago hearing a bugling bull elk in October as I fished near there, and hiking up into the area just to see him.

It was a place with lots of good bucks, with no hunting allowed. These guys, four of them in two big fast bass boats, were fairly well off, and they were interested in getting big antlers as trophies. My friend and I heard them shoot late one night while we were fishing and saw what happened. They spotlighted the south side, shot a buck and then put the deer into their boat, motored across the lake into Arkansas and with no lights, stashed the deer up in heavy brush above the lake until the next day. Then they would come back as archery hunters, cape out the buck, cut out loins and leave the rest. There were at one time eight or nine carcasses there in October, well before deer season began. Several were does, with nothing but loins and hams taken. Big bucks were mostly sought for the taxidermists. Legal as archery kills in Arkansas, the poachers were well covered.

We told Hoskins and his agent all about it, told them we would help them by letting them know when these guys headed to the lake, and it would have been fairly easy to get the whole bunch. Hoskins told me he was going to look into it, and I told him we would take them and show them the carcasses. But when he left that day, we heard no more about it. Today, there are a good number of big bucks on walls of homes near Harrison, which were taken from boats in Missouri at night by spotlight, always between 2 and 4 a.m. The guys were never caught

When Mr. Hoskins reminded me of that visit to my home in Harrison, I told him I remembered it. I remember it well. Like that day on Truman, I was expecting results that just never took place. All the years he was director, I hoped for better things.
Who knows what a new director might bring? I know the MDC has some good people working there who want to see changes, who want to see good things done. I recently talked with the MDC’s new director of enforcement, and I was extremely impressed with what he said. I think he is a bright spot perhaps in an area that has troubled me for years. I will write soon about our visit, and some things we can be optimistic about.

Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613. My e-mail address is lightninridge@windstream.net. If you want to get in on our winter, day-long hikes with a fish fry on Truman Lake when this weather breaks, contact Sondra Gray at this same address, or e-mail her at lightninridge2@yahoo.com

[gspmo1]

I have not had any personal experience with the game bird surrogator, but several of the MDC areas do have great habitat. I think if MDC would try to use the "technique" method of raising chicks in the wild and then releasing them at about 5 weeks through out the spring and summer, come fall there would a ton of birds. I have tried this on my training grounds and have had a little success, but I don't have the proper habitat. (Mainly a cattle operation) Anyway MDC could make the equipment for little money then start a breeding program for the birds to cut the costs of buying birds.

I think most upland hunters would pay a $5 or $10 for an upland habitat stamp. If they managed it similar to the trout parks/hatcheries the birds would be there and with continued habitat the birds would become wild.

JMO

[Boxa]

I think you hit the nail on the head with preiditor reduction; that in my opion is what will help the Quail population in Mo. Coyote's catching is a problem but not near as bad as Racoon', Oposum's and Skunk's getting the egg's.

I agree that predator reduction is a part of the problem, I'm told trappers used to get a premium for the pelts. However, I think the problem is multi-faceted.
1.) If birds have adequate habitat, they've evolved over many years to evade these predators. For farmers CP-33 and CRP would help add edge buffers and grass fields to habitat.
2.) Farming practices, do we know the effect of pesticides on the bugs that the little birds eat in the spring?
3.) Predator reduction, both avian and varmints (Oh, and don't forget to include feral cats in your list of varmints - they're death on birds)

Also, remember that you are also a predator. My dad and I have seen a steady decline on the places we have permission to hunt in MO, but less than elsewhere. Why? Unlike the hawks and varmints that kill to eat and survive, we have a choice to pull the trigger and usually scout our coveys before we shoot them. If they are less than 8 birds we will leave them alone, or just work dogs on them and not kill them. I have killed lots of wild birds in the past and in years where they are struggling, I have no problem working dogs and letting them fly. I'd be glad to pay an upland endorsement like the trout endorsement, but I'm not sure MODOC has a clue what to do with it. So, If I want to shoot a bunch of birds - I'd rather buy my own from a 1000 egg incubator where it is a renewable resource and spend my time after bird season at a preserve than bang away on the precious few wild coveys that I find. Let's be clear though - there is NO SUBSTITUTE for WILD BIRDS for the dog. They are a must, and we spend many days afield for just that reason.

[Big Dave]

Missouri Conservation employeees have told me that stocking birds will not work and that they are not going to that kind of expense even if it did work. I have worked at one of the oldest hunting preserves in MO and they have few if any wild birds, I have two friends who bought used surrogators and after being initially very excited by the results now feel that they failed, at least for this year. I have talked to many other people with similar results turning pen raised birds loose. No, I am not a big advocate for releasing birds. I have hunted MO Conservation areas in the past with consistently poor/fair results, I use Pony Express mostly to condition my dogs and it is the biggest disappointment to me. I have hunted state areas in Kansas where they have a good mix of warm season grass, strips of standing crops and downed tree structures all together in large tracts. MO Conservation is cutting it's work force by 10.7% and cutting $7.5 million from it's annual budget. No, I am not looking for MDC to make much of a positive change for upland birds. For the past several years I have been using conservation methods to try and help the native wild quail populations with slow progress. We have always been careful of shooting down coveys, hunting too late in the day and hunting them in severe winter weather conditions. Now we are taking information from conservation groups, Quail Forever, MO Dept of Conservation and our experience and really worked on private land habitat. My father, a couple of friends and myself all of been working on our farms. On row cropped farms we are seeing the best results from A) Downed tree structures, including edge feathering and covey headquarters B)Light fall disking the cool season grass edges around the fields or adding CP 33 around the fields C)Leaving some standing crops around the outside of the field or planting food plots near heavy natural cover or manmade downed tree structures. We also have planted shrubs, sprayed brome and fescue in some fence lines and in other cover areas and lightly disked in the spring then overseeded with a mix of clover and lespedeza. In CRP A) Downed tree structures B)Fall disking of strips C)Spring disking and overseeding with clover and lespedeza or left to grow up in weeds. I like some bare ground and some kind of seeds added to the CRP grass.D)Food plots near natural or manmade cover areas. I like CRP for buffer strips and in small corners much better than whole fields for quail. We are not as big on food plots as some people. We do not have many acres, but we are trying. We had our best year of quail hunting this year than in 5 or 6 years, but this was also on areas that haven't been managed too. There are things man has yet to figure out on quail survival.

[twofeathers]

Here in Iowa pheasant numbers are way down. I would agree with the taking of predators open limit for one year. And one year after that of no season. By predators i would also include predatory birds.

[bwire]

Here in Pennsylvania the state has been releasing pheasant for a long time. This past year they put out just over a 100,000 birds state wide, which is down from the 200,000 they did about 5 years ago. Some of these birds do survive to sping and even some of those will have chicks. But they don't know what to do with them and they die off. Pa is working on restoring pheasant numbers of wild birds and they are doing this by trapping and transfering birds from out west (Montana I think). This coming weekend I will be helping out with a flushing survey in one of the areas they released some wild birds. They use the flushing survey and a spring crowing count to see how the numbers are doing and if the birds are spreading out. The pen raised birds are good for the hunters in the fall but it does nothing when it comes to building a population.

[RBraddy]

I agree there are alot of different factors that have a had a large impact on poor quail numbers in Missouri.
1) predators - the pelts need to be worth more so people might be more motivated to get out and trap them or even kill them. such as coons coyotes possums........I wish people would start thinnin out the hawks and owls also. I don't really care if it is wrong or right, they got to go also.

2) farmers- leave a little bit of cover, don't farm everything from fence to fence

3)MDC- They could care less about the quail. All they are worried about is the deer and turkey. They say they are working on habitat but if the quail are all ready gone how are they going to reappear. In the overall big picture they are not doing a d*** thing to save or repair the quail numbers. something needs to happen soon or they all will be gone.

[CHJIII]

Wow...tough group here. First stocking birds will not work, has never worked, what a waste of money. Second, food plots arent necessary. Habitat is. Third, the MDC does a very good job with what they have to work with. Their budget is being cut, hence the reduced work force. Go to those Quail emphasis areas. They all hold birds. Are the numbers what we want? Nope...but they will rebound. You have to remember that these are habitat islands. the fragmentation of these habitats is hurting the quail's comeback. We need habitat coridors to enhance the comeback and that takes moer private landowners to jump on the program.

[gspmo1]

I do agree with the fact that stocking adult birds for a per-season release is not the answer. And that better control of the nest robbing predators would be very beneficial, however with all the hunting pressure I dont see how the birds are going to recover. I think releasing birds through the surrogator system through out the spring would allow the birds to come back in the numbers we would expect the habitat to hold.

Also limiting the daily limit to 4 or 6 would help these birds from getting shot out.

[BellaDad]

I'm not sure the bag limit has much to do with it. I've been out of public land easily a dozen times this year and the closest that I've come to a bag limit was 6, once. Generally it's 2-3, but zero has been more common than anything. I hunt the eastern side of the state so maybe that has to do with it. My best days have been when I've gone west but that's a drive.

How many people do you know that regularly bag out on public land?

[gspmo1]

I do see your point on the limit. I dont know of too many people who limit out on public land, but I'm there are people who will flush a covey of 12 and shoot it down to just a few birds trying to get to the limit. Also, I more or less meant limit the birds taken from the MDC land that utilizes the young bird release program I was talking about.

Does anyone who if quail reproduce anything like phez, does one rooster breed with more than one female?

[CHJIII]

Limits won't make much if any difference. Hunting pressure really doesn't have much influence on survival rates, period. Winter mortality alone is in the 40-60% of a covey depending on the severity of the winter.

[Brushbustin Sporting Dogs]

gspmo1 no quail do not reproduce like pheasants. Quail pair up and actually the male has a part in raising the chicks and will actually sit on the eggs as well. Quail can raise multiple broods in a year since they do act in this was pheasants will not. Quail are more a family bird where the roosters hit and run much like myself!!!!

Bag limits do not affect bird numbers point blank. As big and powerful as we are they only factor we can adjust to help birds survive is by giving them a place to live that fits the bill. Quail habitat is good pheasant habitat, great pheasant habitat probbily isn't good quail habitat.

[madduckdog]

Why does MO not have a upland stamp, they could use the money to rent or buy more land to manage quail....if they could be sucessfull they would draw bird hunters from around the USA makeing more money for the state and more money to spend on quail management...

but it sounds like they are like AR my state.... where upland hunting is so dead that (as far as number of hunters) that they cannot see the potential.

[vzkennels]

madm I have asked that same question about Ohio.The ODNR have proven they can bring back species that are pretty much extinct like the W deer & turkies here in Ohio but for some reason don't want to do the same with upland birds.They say the money & interest is in the deer & turkies,but I don't know anyone that owns a bird dog that wouldn't be more then happy to buy an upland habitat stamp if they used the money to improve habitat for upland game.Once the bird population improved to numbers worth hunting then the interest would also increase,even if this took place would not happen in my life time but maybe my grand children would see the results.My dad never got to see the results of the deer & turkey improvements not sure he ever got to see a wild turkey. situation.

[ezzy333]

I believe MO takes a tenth of a cent of the state tax to do what the rest of us have to do with a stamp. Nice to think that everyone pays a little instead of the sportsman supporting the whole agenda.

Ezzy

[BellaDad]

My grandpa saw plenty of wild turkey, just none in the woods.

I think the tax is actualy 1/8th of 1%, but the point is that there are a LOT of things to spend that money on besides quail. They have to keep nature lovers, bird watchers, fishermen, deer hunters, turkey hunters, duck hunters, and on and on and on....all of them want more money spend on them.

I started duck hunting this year and you should get some of the duck hunters started on amount of habitat and decent public hunting opportunities. There were days this year where 80 parties of 4 guys drew for 25 spots, most end up going home and back to bed. There are fees on top of the permit required to quail hunt (migratory bird permit and duck stamp) that should go to improving existing wetlands or purchasing more that don't. And this is at a time when there are many more duck hunters in MO than quail hunters.

Just my opinion but if duck hunters can't get the MDC to do much, what chance to quail hunters have?

[birdogg42]

Missouri Conservation employeees have told me that stocking birds will not work and that they are not going to that kind of expense even if it did work. I have worked at one of the oldest hunting preserves in MO and they have few if any wild birds, I have two friends who bought used surrogators and after being initially very excited by the results now feel that they failed, at least for this year. I have talked to many other people with similar results turning pen raised birds loose. No, I am not a big advocate for releasing birds. I have hunted MO Conservation areas in the past with consistently poor/fair results, I use Pony Express mostly to condition my dogs and it is the biggest disappointment to me. I have hunted state areas in Kansas where they have a good mix of warm season grass, strips of standing crops and downed tree structures all together in large tracts. MO Conservation is cutting it's work force by 10.7% and cutting $7.5 million from it's annual budget. No, I am not looking for MDC to make much of a positive change for upland birds. For the past several years I have been using conservation methods to try and help the native wild quail populations with slow progress. We have always been careful of shooting down coveys, hunting too late in the day and hunting them in severe winter weather conditions. Now we are taking information from conservation groups, Quail Forever, MO Dept of Conservation and our experience and really worked on private land habitat. My father, a couple of friends and myself all of been working on our farms. On row cropped farms we are seeing the best results from A) Downed tree structures, including edge feathering and covey headquarters B)Light fall disking the cool season grass edges around the fields or adding CP 33 around the fields C)Leaving some standing crops around the outside of the field or planting food plots near heavy natural cover or manmade downed tree structures. We also have planted shrubs, sprayed brome and fescue in some fence lines and in other cover areas and lightly disked in the spring then overseeded with a mix of clover and lespedeza. In CRP A) Downed tree structures B)Fall disking of strips C)Spring disking and overseeding with clover and lespedeza or left to grow up in weeds. I like some bare ground and some kind of seeds added to the CRP grass.D)Food plots near natural or manmade cover areas. I like CRP for buffer strips and in small corners much better than whole fields for quail. We are not as big on food plots as some people. We do not have many acres, but we are trying. We had our best year of quail hunting this year than in 5 or 6 years, but this was also on areas that haven't been managed too. There are things man has yet to figure out on quail survival.

Dave what you said is what is going on in my neck of the woods. The CSP CP33 and CRP has been in here for five years now. And i have seen a tremendous success. Before the programs were put in, all we had were thin fence rows that were farmed as close as you could get. We would walk all day and find two, maybe three coveys. Now i can hunt these very same farms and consistantly move 7-10 coveys.

Now our habitat is getting a little too thick. We will be burning close to a hundred acres of warm season grasses in late feb. we will be spraying what ever fescue that we can find. Making covey headquarters.

Just because you have crp doesnt mean it is good quail habitat. It has to be lightly disked or burned to keep it were you have some bare ground for young quail to be able to move around and evade predators. Habitat is the key, I have seen it first hand!

Mike

[Big Dave]

The best thing that I know that you can do is get several people togeter and do habitat work on your hunting ground. Habitat fragmentation mostly brought on by overpopulation is an uphill battle to say the least. If you can string some habitat on several farms together it is our best bet for quail. The 2C quail co-op in my area sponsored by MO Department of Conservation is trying to do this. I think CRP must be disturbed by either disking or burning to have much use by quail. We can't wait for a quick fix or the goverment to do it for us. Fifteen years ago when I was first talking to some biologist about quail numbers dropping I was told to buy a book of matches and a disc, that habitat work didn't need to be too complex.