Poaching Season

[Quillback]

THERE IS QUAIL IN MISSOURI ???? WGERE ???

My point is there are few quail left compared to 50 years ago. And 50 years ago they thought quail would always be abundant.

[Feathers and Fins]

I got it Quill, I was being sarcastic. Quail hunting is one of the very very few things I miss about California, busting super coveys (200 + ) birds was always fun. Granted average covey was 20 to 40 birds but I knew where when the first snow fell the coveys congregated and seeing an entire valley erupt with I kid you not a thousand birds from all three species was insane.

[Fishslayer88]

There are a lot of things working against quail other then hunting pressure fox, coon, coyote, hawks, snakes, habitat destruction, just about anything that eats meat in this state will chow down on a quail.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Habit destruction being by far the greatest threat.

[exiledguide]

Right chief we are our own worse enemy. I ended up living in a subdivision in St Louis county in the 70s where my dad first took me hunting for rabbits and quail in the late 40s I guess that is progress.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, all those predators were always there, but the quail had good places to hide from them.

I have a brother in law who is big on killing predators to protect the quail and rabbits. He used to have huge numbers of rabbits and pretty good numbers of quail on his farm, but back then he had just cleared the cedars off a couple of hillsides, leaving the tops lying and even hinging a lot of them so that they stayed alive but on the ground. Well, the predators moved in because there were so many rabbits to eat, but for a number of years he had high numbers of rabbits plus coyotes and bobcats. Then all those cedars died and rotted away and the hillsides were pretty bare, and the rabbit and quail numbers dropped. He blamed the predators, and he was right...except the real reason was that there just wasn't many places for the rabbits and quail to hide anymore.

[oneshot]

Habit destruction being by far the greatest threat.

Yea I remember in Ozarks we raised plenty of Grain Crops, lot of work but did anyway. Warm Season Grasses for Hay. And we burnt the woods every Spring.

Plenty of Quail and Rabbits.

oneshot

[oneshot]

I see plenty of big red horse on the Gasconade. While they are fun to go gig, I'll take the 10-14" suckers all day long for eating. If you couldn't gig suckers, there would be very few harvested. I don't recall hearing many guys standing around talking about fishing for suckers with rod and reel like you do bass, catfish, crappie,etc.

You mention that otters have been around for over a decade and there are still fish in the streams. People have been gigging for a lot longer then that. So if you are saying otters aren't a problem then giggers must not be any problem as well since there are still plenty of fish in the stream?

Speak for yourself some of us Love using Rod and Reel for Suckers

oneshot

[LittleRedFisherman]

Same thing has happened here over the years, we saw a small covey of quail this spring on the farm, and we were more excited than seeing a 10 point buck or a 5 pound Smallmouth. Many of the fence rows have been tore down, and even the rabbits are suffering. We try to keep them on our own farm if the landlord will allow on there's as well, I personally like them for a wind break as much as habitat. I still have my beagles, and hunt rabbits, but it's not like it used to be, but some of the fence rows we've kept are the sought out places to rabbit hunt. Predators are to blame here as well. Coyotes are thick, and so are the redtail hawks, they are protected, but there's to many of them here IMO, when running a combine, we try to purposely harvest the field from the middle out, to herd the rabbits towards the fence lines. One time I didn't to that, they the hawks had a field day on about 5 rabbits, they didn't stand a chance.

As far as the smallmouth and gigging issue, I haven't witnessed the things some of you have, but I've seen the pics and know that it happens. I admire the passion of folks like Smalliebigs and others to bring attention to the problems. I've seen guys take advantage of snagging here on my home river for Flathead during the winter season, as a limbliner, which is a far bigger "tradition" here for catching flathead, than snagging ever will be, I'd like to see the snagging shut down personally. Snagging was opened up on the St Francis here for the first time just a few years ago, it's not a tradition like the gigging is, so I'm not saying i'm for banning gigging. But when a few guys were keeping 20 instead of there 2 per day, out of the same wintering hole, it was brought to the attention of our local agent, he staked out the hole, had sound and video equipment, and nailed those guys! That's the best thing I reckon we can do to report acts like this is when you see it, report it, and take pics and vids if possible in the age of smartphones.

[Seth]

I've caught my share of suckers on rod and reel as well. Taneycomo is loaded with them and we have caught tons of them on night crawlers while trout fishing. My point was that there are way more suckers gigged than caught on rod and reel.