It was one of those, just-soak-it-up moments in the outdoors. The mid-morning sun lit up the winter wheat field in front of me, and next to my jake decoy, I could see the feathers of a real jake blowing in the gathering breeze. Aesthetically, it was beautiful, and what made it even better was the nearly nonstop calling of a male bobwhite quail looking for a girlfriend.
That sound, which used to be far more prevalent throughout much of the South, is a rare treat these days. Yet, it’s not as rare as a lot of upland hunters would like to believe. I heard the same sound in Nebraska this spring, again on public land, and managed to flush a covey there recently on a deer scouting trip.
It was also enough to get me to look at my schedule for this fall to try to carve out a road trip with my Lab. Quail won’t be the only birds we target, but the opportunity to hunt them will add some extra flavor to the trip. That swing through Nebraska and Kansas, likely in the late season, won’t be the only time Sadie and I head out for a few days of hunting somewhere not close to home, either. Upland road trips are my favorite way to spend much of the fall, and they can be highly productive if you know how to plan them.
Forget What You Know
I spend all fall hunting big game, primarily whitetails, on public land. In between those trips, I hunt birds on public land, hard. The amount of times I talk to hunters who tell me you can’t find roosters in some state, or quail, or grouse, or whatever is mind-blowing. What we think we know about bird populations, and where they live, is maybe our biggest hurdle.
Most hunters seem way too comfortable talking themselves out of hunting public land for anything. I don’t get it, because if there is a bright spot in the public land game, it’s upland opportunities. For example, you have the no-doubt scenarios, like big woods grouse and woodcock. Where the former lives, and the latter stops on through during his worm-eating migration, you have unreal amounts of land with which to work.
When it comes to the birds that need a bit more agriculture, like pheasants, public land doesn’t get enough love. This probably stems partially from the South Dakota effect, where pheasants have been big business for a long time, and babysitting populations on private land yields decent paychecks for landowners and outfitters.
Pheasants favor good cover over everything else, and while they certainly will pile into a private chunk to avoid the masses, a hell of a lot of them won’t. They’ll just outrun, or out-hide, the hunting pressure on public.
Don’t be afraid to pull up onX and start dropping pins on public land wherever you may wish to roam. The odds are high that if you put in the work, the birds will be there. But, before that, you have to figure out the nitty-gritty of a road trip.
Trip Logistics
One thing to consider when you’re looking at a new state are the logistics of where you’ll stay. Motels and hotels have varying pet policies, but when you get into areas of the country far away from population centers, they tend to get more favorable for dog owners. But you can’t count on that. You’re going to want to know where you can get a room that will allow you and your GSP to crash for the night, before you hit the road, because in a lot of bird-heavy areas, lodging options are limited.
Maybe you want to camp. That’s great, but again, you need to research where to throw up a tent or park your RV. When I head out on a road trip, I usually have a couple of rough destinations in mind, and then lodging options bookmarked. This way, I can hunt some of the e-scouted spots and then work my way through without having to go out of my way to find a place to stay on any given night.
It’s also a good idea to make note of emergency veterinarian services in the areas you plan to hunt. This is just good insurance in case something goes wrong, because in some areas where you might flush your first prairie chicken, you might also not have great cell reception.
A last point I’ll make on this layer of trip planning is this: don’t get married to a location simply through e-scouting. If you plan a five-day trip to an area with a bunch of walk-in land that looks amazing on satellite imagery, you might show up to see that it has been grazed down to a putting green, and no self-respecting game bird would live there. Scout backup spots and locations within a couple hours of your primary destination. That way, if you need to pivot in the moment, you can.
From my experience, you probably will.
Plan to Hunt Differently
Whether you decide it’s big woods grouse or nothing, or sharptails and prairie chickens in the Sandhills somewhere, a good way to have an unsuccessful road trip is to hunt like everyone else. When you’re planning your trip and looking at potential hunting spots, consider how most folks will hunt them.
Ask yourself where they will access the properties, and the most likely routes they’ll take to get through them. Most hunters are predictable, and upland hunters aren’t immune to this. In the grouse woods, get off the two-tracks and hunt the soft and hard edges between different types of cover. For pheasants, forget the easy walking grass hunts. Get into the cover.
Do what you have to in order to go where most won’t, and then slow down. Your dog might be an expert at hunting pheasants close to home, but needs to spend some time sussing out how to find a few coveys of bobwhites. A lot of birds live to see another day simply because we hunt way too fast.
Plan to forge your own path, and slow down. If you do, the time invested, miles driven, and money spent will all be worth it.
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