When you begin to talk about hunting the bobwhite quail these days most hunters get that nostalgic look in their eyes and begin to long for the “Good Old Days” when fields had hedgerows and nearly every field had its resident covey of quail. As with the days when the skies our coastal area were darkened by the vast flocks of canvasbacks and bluebills, the days of the native bobwhites thick on the hedgerows are largely a thing of the past.

Modern high intensity farming and a host of associated activities have resulted in the population of this valued game bird’s numbers becoming slim. Wildlife managers point fingers at habitat loss, hunting pressure, pesticides, herbicides and an ever-growing population of predators as prime reasons for the decline of the bobwhite quail.

It may be many years before we see the quail populations as good as they once were. In the meanwhile, quail hunting in our area relies largely on the private artificial propagation of the bobwhites in order to supply live birds for sportsmen.

The scarcity of native quail has resulted a number of commercial and private shooting preserves that have the privilege of having unlimited daily bag limits and extended seasons on pen raised bobwhite quail. For bird hunters who like to enjoy the type of quail hunting for which the South is noted these shooting preserves offer excellent hunting in the way it “used to be in the good old days.”

There aren’t many of today’s hunters who haven’t read Robert Ruark’s books The Old Man And The Boy and The Old Man’s Boy Grows Older. The book is a collection of stories by one of North Carolina’s best-known writers of the mid-1900s. The originals were serialized in Field and Stream magazine and later compiled into two books.

Ruark was from Southport, N.C. and was mentored by his grandfather in the sports of hunting and fishing. The way his grandfather taught young Ruark is a classic lesson in outdoor ethics and conservation of our native wildlife.

In the book, The Old Man And The Boy, Ruark tells how his grandfather described how a hunter should think about our bobwhite quail. “This little bobwhite, the Old Man told me, was a gentleman, and you had to approach him as a gentleman to a gentleman. You had to cherish him and look after him and make him very important in his own right, because there weren’t many of him around and he was worthy of respectful shooting. The way you handled quail sort of kicked back on you.”

Not far away from where Robert Ruark spent many happy days hunting and fishing in eastern North Carolina is one of the shooting preserves that are in the forefront of keeping the sport of quail hunting alive and well. Historic Oakland Plantation lies along the Cape Fear River in Bladen County near the community of Carver. It is not open to the public as a place to hunt. It is there as an active, successful farm, with hunting and fishing available only to family members and invited guest.

Rick Neisler is General Manager of the sprawling Oakland Plantation’s 10,000 acres of farm and hunting preserves. The largest product from the farm is turf grass but the activity on this land that is closest to the heart of most of the Neisler family (owners of the plantation) is the wildlife found there. Their deer hunts are models of the old time southern traditional dog hunts with family and friends gathering around the plantation home for socializing, hunting (shotguns only from designated stands) and food prepared the way it was many years ago.

Quail hunting is quickly catching up to the deer hunting as a popular activity at Oakland Plantation.

Taking wildlife management to a new level Neisler starts his management of quail at the basic level. Gathering fertile eggs from laying hen bobwhites, the farmers place the eggs in high capacity incubators until they are hatched. The young chicks are then placed in pens designed especially for quail production where they are raised until they are fully flighted (able to fly as a wild quail should be). At any given time during the extended shooting preserve hunting season, Oakland would have as many as 2500 flighted quail ready for stocking in the designated hunting areas.

On the mornings before family members and guest begin the quail hunt, the guides and dog handlers gather a predetermined number of quail for releasing. Fifty quail per hunter is the usual number of birds to be released for each hunt.

Driving ATVs through the pine woods the guides scatter the quail out as wild birds might be distributed under ideal conditions. Singles, doubles and even small coveys will be found in recently stocked areas.

The usual assignments are for two hunters shooting under the direction of the experienced guides and dog trainers.

As any quail hunter will tell you, watching the bird dogs working is as important as actually killing birds. To watch a trained quail dog point, stand and back another dog and then retrieve the downed bird to the hunter is a joy. Just as deer hunters with dogs enjoy hearing the dogs run, quail hunters enjoy watching their dogs show their skills at pointing birds.

Oakland Plantation has large, well-maintained kennels with a variety of hunting dogs. Their bird dogs and deer hounds are among the best you’ll ever see.

Since the ground cover in the shooting areas is very thick up to about waist level it could be easy to miss spotting one of the dogs as it points birds. Some of the Oakland’s dogs will stand on point for a long time unless the hunters come in to flush the birds and shoot. Because of the often-thick ground cover, modern electronic aids will aid the hunters in tracking the dogs. Some dogs wear collars that emit an audible beeping signal when the dogs stand still on point for a few minutes while other collars bear GPS transmitters that instantly convey their positions to the handheld unit the handlers have.

There’s no question that every shooting area has a lot of stocked birds in it where hopefully the hunters will take virtually all the quail home with them. No matter how well the hunters shoot however, there will always be a few of these birds that survive the hunt.

Rick Neisler estimates that about fifty-percent of the quail that survive after the hunters harvest their share will stick around and breed in the areas surrounding the designated shooting preserve.

Since wildlife management is quickly becoming a positive factor in the economics of the modern farming operation, habitat improvement across the entire Oakland Plantation is of vital importance. The birds that survive after the hunters, the natural predators, bad weather and toxic chemicals find good habitat and this restored breeding population of quail my stick around and be big factor in the recovery of the bobwhite quail. Oakland Plantation is surely doing their part in the recovery efforts.

At the conclusion of the day’s hunt all hunters are invited to the plantation house where they gather around the trophy room for refreshments and good conversations about the day’s hunt. Dogs recline in front of the big open fireplace and hunters relax. The ringing of a dinner bell summons everyone to the big dining room where home cooked meals that epitomize good southern cooking are served. If guest have enough energy after the meal, more time is spent around the fireplace and just relaxing. Eventually tired legs and heavy eyes send hunters to their assigned bedrooms for the night.

It’s a fitting end for a successful quail hunt as it should be on a historic southern plantation. There aren’t many places left where one can still enjoy this experience.