Some northern states have already opened seasons.

Texas will open regular quail season on 10/26, with some selected areas holding youth hunts on 10/19 & 10/20

I've been hunting quail over dogs for 46 years now, although I will admit to slacking for about 10 years, when I first got out of college.

Who here would rather hunt quail and pheasant instead of deer?  Where do you hunt, and how about pics your dogs?

I prefer this kind of hunting too.  Deer hunting can be boring but I have much better memories hunting with my father and my dogs than I do deer.  I love watching the dogs work and I don’t need to shoot anything to appreciate their work Attached File
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...and I see that you have more dog power already in training.

Yes. The younger one is a handful.  Both are great dogs.

Grouse and woodcock are my favorites.  We don't have quail but pheasant is fun once deer season starts and I need to stay out of the woods.

Quail season opens 10/26, but there is a special youth hunt 10/16 & 10/20 at one of the WMAs this weekend!!!  Forecast is for 80 - 85 highs...so the afternoon is too hot for the dogs to run more than a few minutes at a time, but the early morning will not be that bad. It will allow a good preview for next weekend.  The temps for forecast 10 - 15 degrees cooler

Pheasant is already open for us, I wont be out for another couple weeks. All pen raised unfortunately.

We really hunted a lot of grouse when I was younger. Most the quail were ended in the winter of '78 in Ky.
I have had 2 Vizslas ready to go for the last 23 years but the grouse have become scarce for me. We still do some put and take hunts every year but we probably only hunt 7 days.
It is amazing the dogs hunt as great as they do with the very limited amount of actual hunting experience they get.

There was frost on the grass this morning...43 sq miles of it.  Only 15 - 20  hunters on the property.

Perfect morning for the dogs.  We only have three dogs with us, so we were out of dog power by 11:30.

There are surreal moments in life...I wish there had been someone to snap a b&w pic as my buddy and I walked down a sandy road to the truck, with a pair of tired dogs at our sides.  It would have been the type of pic I like to see on hunting magazine covers

Dead tired and total contentment seldom go hand in hand but that was where we were, man and beast, just before noon today.

We drove about a mile to a windmill, to let the dogs cool off in a cattle trough.  We pulled a couple of bad gas station sandwiches out of the cooler for lunch.  As we ate, we started to see an occasional trace of safety orange coming up a steep ravine, headed to the windmill.  I tired, grey faced Brittany slipped under the barbed wire and jumped into the water trough.  A couple of minutes behind a older gentleman, my guess would be mid 70's, appears and climbs over the 5-strand barbed wire fence, and refills a half gallon water jug from the windmill pipe. We talk for a couple of minutes...he has been coming here every year since 1985.  His truck is about 4 miles away, through some of the toughest country TX has to offer.  We offer he and is dog a ride back...with the laugh of a teenager, he turned us down.  Says this is all he and his old dog have to live for...says they have till dark to make it back to his truck.

He never ask if we had killed or seen any birds.

Well, buzz-kill today.  Just talked to a good friend.  He lost his hunting buddy of 13 years while on a hunt in South Dakota.    Likely a stroke, Maggie crossed the bridge while hunting.  I hope I go that way...just not anytime soon.

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Just back from grouse camp in N WI.  Had a great time.  Saw birds.  Had some good dog work.  Didn’t kill a lot of birds, but got a few.

Another setter man here,great dogs.
FYI, if you are into hunting woodcock.
Bong wildlife area just over the border in Racine co
gets a good flight right now.
Just have to deal with the pheasant hunters.
@makintrax73

That's interesting.  I've been to Bong many times (years ago), but never knew there was good timber doodle hunting there.

Sounds about right on the migration.  I shot a limit of them up north about a week ago today, and was seeing good numbers.  Then we had a hard frost and they didn't disappear, but numbers were down a lot.

@Chukar

Air Force brat here.

60's and 70's.

Sharptail grouse, ringnecks and Hungarian partridge in ND.

Quail in AR.

Ringnecks in IL.

Quail (bobwhites and scaled) in west TX.

Ruffed grouse in WV.

Those were the days.

Ithaca M37 with a 28" barrel/modified choke.  Took an 1100 once.  Took my Win. M97 a couple times.  Took a Savage pump once.  The M37 Ithaca was pretty tough to beat.  Dad made sure each of us boys had one and got one from mom, too.  There were others around, but the M37's got carried 98% of the time.

Dogs were a mixed springer spaniel (just about the best dog we ever had), a short haired pointer (would never actually spend money to buy one of those), an English Setter (dad really thought a lot of that dog.)  A Springer Spaniel (stolen out of the yard when she was still a pup.) Another mixed breed spring spaniel that was easily as good as that first one.  The pups from the English setter and mixed breed springer.  One of the five was head and shoulders above the others.  Dad had a couple/three bird dogs after I left home and went in the Army that I never hunted with much.  Once the wild turkey population built up around home in the mid to later 70's his dogs were after those, too.

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I've done a lot of pheasant and deer hunting.  If God made me a bargain of the absolute best pheasant hunting or the absolute best deer hunting, but not both, for the rest of my life then I'd choose the birds.

It's been a great disappointment to see the loss of habitat and subsequent reduction in pheasant populations east of the Missouri River.  In my youth I hunted pheasant in Iowa, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania.  Now when I go back to those places, not a ringneck is seen.