Mr. green jeans experience while hunting.

[Lionheart]

“I bet 90+% of hunters knowingly violate game laws, including limits. It's disgusting. Yet when a resource gets abused to the point of effecting ALL hunters, they are the first ones to cry foul at the gubment.”

Wow. That’s a pretty big accusation. Sounds like something a liberal, anti-hunter might say.
Those disgusting hunters are the only reason any game is left in America...they are the best conservationists...it’s their dollars that brought back the turkey and deer to the southeast.

There was never a law against shooting a covey of quail with less than 8-10 birds in it...but my hunting buddies and I always made sure that late in the season we protected the covies with smaller numbers...we wanted them to survive till next year.

And my comment about current quail limits in Georgia was simply laughing at a DNR that kept the same daily limit for decades when quail populations were rapidly declining...and also scoffing at a limit that bears no relation to reality.

Having a daily limit of over a dozen quail is like setting a limit for 3 Elk per season in Georgia. Neither one is gonna happen cause they just ain’t there.

 

[GeauxLSU]

Since it's been alluded to, some who are unaware might be interested. http://georgiawildlife.com/bobwhite-quail

 

[Lionheart]

back in the day every predatory bird seen was shot on those plantations,poisoned to near extinction yet they still lost quail.

Fire ants

 

[BIKER13]

http://archive-srel.uga.edu/outreach/ecoviews/ecoview021014.htm. Old article from 2002 about poisoning wildlife on the plantations

 

[GeauxLSU]

“I bet 90+% of hunters knowingly violate game laws, including limits. It's disgusting. Yet when a resource gets abused to the point of effecting ALL hunters, they are the first ones to cry foul at the gubment.”

Wow. That’s a pretty big accusation. Sounds like something a liberal, anti-hunter might say.
Those disgusting hunters are the only reason any game is left in America...they are the best conservationists...it’s their dollars that brought back the turkey and deer to the southeast.

There was never a law against shooting a covey of quail with less than 8-10 birds in it...but my hunting buddies and I always made sure that late in the season we protected the covies with smaller numbers...we wanted them to survive till next year.

And my comment about current quail limits in Georgia was simply laughing at a DNR that kept the same daily limit for decades when quail populations were rapidly declining...and also scoffing at a limit that bears no relation to reality.

Having a daily limit of over a dozen quail is like setting a limit for 3 Elk per season in Georgia. Neither one is gonna happen cause they just ain’t there.

I'll stand my 'anecdotal evidence' about how stringently Georgia hunters obey the law as a group. Countless clubs and discussion forums have made me more than confident in that prediction. It's why I eventually spent more than I should have on a small piece of property so I could control who I hunt around. The funny thing is most hunters don't think they break the law. Let them talk for 5 minutes. They'll admit it. Sort of like your buddies who illegally shoot raptors.
Liberal anti-hunter huh? Yeah, you know me. What's that saying about the state of a discussion when the one resorts to calling the other a liberal? Yep, we're there.
Kudos to you for covey management. I hear time and time again how people will shoot a covey, drop a few and then go rejump the covey as many times as they can. Leaving less than a handful or if they're really 'good', none. I think I'll start referring to those type hunters as 'red ants'.

 

[Lionheart]

One habitat change I will completely agree has hurt quail is the transition of many counties from row crops to Bermuda pastures and cows....Morgan, Greene, and Hancock used to have lots of small soybean fields or corn patches...now mostly Bermuda pastures and cows.

 

[BIKER13]

http://www.southeastfarmpress.com/where-have-all-quail-gone

 

[GeauxLSU]

One habitat change I will completely agree has hurt quail is the transition of many counties from row crops to Bermuda pastures and cows....Morgan, Greene, and Hancock used to have lots of small soybean fields or corn patches...now mostly Bermuda pastures and cows.

And the average individual can do nothing about it. Well, they can but it's slow, hard, generally not rewarding and they might not live long enough to see the fruits of their efforts. We want immediate satisfaction, like in all things. Shooting a red shouldered hawk on the other hand makes them feel like they "did something". They did something all right....

 

[Lionheart]

Look, I agree there are slob hunters out there who break game laws. I just take issue with the 90%+ comment and then labeling that percentage of hunters disgusting. Exactly which laws are you talking about them breaking...my experience is that when the government has stupid laws then they tend to get ignored. Like an orange this or that on private land. Or people quickly learn the difference between the enforced law and written law.
I am a disgusting lawbreaker everyday because I usually drive 5-7 mikes an hour over posted speed limits. Especially when the limits are arbitrarily low for political reasons like “save the planet” emissions.

Maybe we just hang around a different type of hunter. My buddies plant food plots, burn pine forests and try to help game survive.

I guess I’m just gonna have to move out West where folks think more like I do about the right of government, any government, to enter a man’s private property withour permission for any reason - much less to see how many shells are in his shotgun hunting game that he has worked to provide habitat for...

 

[Lionheart]

http://www.southeastfarmpress.com/where-have-all-quail-gone

Good read, thanks for link.

2 thoughts on this article.

The avian flu angle is interesting...especially if it came from poultry houses that have dramatically increased in southeast.

Nobody talks about the disappearance of the songbirds either...when we had quail we also had blue jays, Redbirds, catbirds, etc. They are largely gone now also. Disappeared the same time as quail...a ground nesting bird. Why?