Texas has two major fall/winter bird hunting seasons, quail and waterfowl, and while both are either completely or partially open, experienced hunters know it is still weeks and a lot of cold weather before the action peaks. For quail hunters the cold is needed to kill summer vegetation for improved dog work. For duck hunters it is needed to spur a full migration.
Bird hunting ranks a distant second to white-tailed deer hunting in Texas, but that is not to say it is not important to those who participate, as well as the economy in the areas they hunt. The problem is, unlike deer hunting, both types of bird hunting can be time consuming and costly because of the specialized equipment and dogs often required. However, coming with the effort and cost is a passion that can be unlike any other hunting activity.
Texas quail hunting has taken a hit in recent decades as quail numbers statewide have dropped and have been unable to sustain a long-term comeback. Last year an estimated 33,500 quail hunters took approximately 407,000 birds statewide. “We had approximately 260,000 hunter and harvested about 7.
8 million birds in 1987-88. In the boom of 2016-17, we had about 91,000 hunters and harvested approximately 1.9 million birds.
This is related to the distribution of birds, changing human demographics, urban migration, competing interests, access and opportunity, and shifting value sets of our younger generations,” said John McLaughlin, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department upland ga.
