On the Up and Up with Upland Game

Written by Mark Carroll, Land and Farm Specialist

    The holiday season brings on a sense of nostalgia and reminiscing about the good old days for many people.  Upland game hunting seems to be one of those things associated with memories of cold days spent behind an old bird dog.  The rise and fall of the bird dog appears to be back on an upward trend once again after many years of falling quail populations. I was born in the late 80’s and did not grow up hunting behind grandad’s pointer.  Turkeys and deer consumed my outdoor interest for the majority of my life.  Quail just weren’t around the family property or nearby WMA lands in numbers high enough to spur on the ownership of a pointing dog.  It was a lab for me.  I spent my time in the swamps and rivers of the Piedmont chasing wood ducks and the hopeful teal, gadwall or mallard that may pass by.  It wasn’t until I began managing land professionally that I fell in love with the process and rewards associated with managing upland habitats for small game.

    Memories of a day in the field behind an old bird dog have been long detached from a landscape suited for plentiful quail, rabbit, and other small game.  Summers on the porch listening to bob-bob-white across the field in the old fencerow where the farm transitioned to forest are gone with the brushy hedgerows that are now maintained in a permanent manicured state in the name of “aesthetics”.  Landscape level conversions in land use from small family farms to densely-stocked and unmanaged tree farms, fields full of pasture grasses, and unmanaged mature forest brought about the fall of the quail.   

    However, the last several years of concern in declining quail populations have spurred a revival through cooperative partnerships among private landowners, government agencies, and non-government agencies.  Landowners are incentivized with financial assistance to manage their properties in a combined effort to expand the reach of the management activities conducted on focal areas based on government lands.  Prescribed fire, planting native grasses and forbes, herbicide applications to manage understories of pine plantations, and winter disking are a few activities that landowners often dabble in to improve quail habitat.   Quail habitat management is hard work.  Many landowners pride themselves in the changes brought about on their properties and often look to the future of that summer afternoon on the porch listening to bob-bob-white across the field in the old fencerow.

If you are interested in buying or selling, contact our Land and Farm Specialist, Mark Carroll.