Make it, take it

Private game preserves offer old-style hunting

Before big game hunting of whitetail deer and Eastern wild turkey became the flagship species for hunters in the southeastern United States, bobwhite quail was king. 

Back in the days when boys used to roll up into the high school parking lot with shotguns perched in gun racks in the back window of the truck (and no one minded), it was common for the young hunters to stop along the way to school and kick up a covey of quail before heading to class.

Back in those days, the “waste lands” that made the area much more rural consisted of cut over fields and farm lands. Those areas were perfect habitat for rearing quail, rabbits and other small game species. 

Unfortunately, changes in land use from farming to timber management and urban sprawl have also changed the landscape for the hunter. The fields and farms that once held abundant quail and other small game are too few and far between, and the small game animals were unable to adapt to the changing landscape the way deer and turkey have.

But does that mean that upland game hunting is a thing of the past? The answer is a solid no.

Plan it out

What has replaced the old days of quail hunting on the lands of your relatives and neighbors where permission was never needed is a more organized and more planned version of upland game bird hunting. It’s called a hunting preserve.

Hunting preserves began showing up in the Southeastern United States when it became abundantly clear that the bobwhite quail was fighting a losing battle for habitat. A typical preserve may encompass 500 to 10,000 acres of land and provides guided hunts for a fee or required membership to the preserve.

Wildlife habitats on these preserves are well maintained, but not to the point that they can sustain the number of birds hunted. The solution is to use pen raised birds, either purchased from upland bird rearing facilities or reared on site. Prior to the hunt, a pre-designated number of birds are released or “planted” in the area to be hunted. 

As upland birds prefer to hide in cover rather than fly off as other birds do, the game remains in the planted vicinity when the hunting party returns to the area. Pointing and retrieving dogs are used, just as in the old days of plantation hunting, to point, flush and retrieve shot birds.

Steve Sinicropi is a Carolina transplant who grew up hunting upland game in the western US, and, while sorry to leave those fields behind, was pleasantly surprised to discover several shooting preserves in both North and South Carolina.

“I have hunted quail, pheasant and other upland game birds in both Iowa and Nebraska, and the hunting here is every bit as good and as challenging as what we had out west without having to walk 10 miles to get to it,” he said. 

One of the benefits of this type hunting scenario is that not only can Carolina hunters hunt quail in the same surroundings and environment of days gone by, but additional game birds not native to the area such as pheasant, an immigrant game bird originally from China, and chukar, a Eurasian partridge, can also be hunted. 

It’s plenty challenging

The typical hunt is a combination of walking through mowed fields behind pointing dogs working coveys of quail, or hunting in stands of thinned pines ferreting out single birds that have broken from the field covey.

Sinicropi also addresses the most common criticism that he hears about hunting released birds – that they don’t flush and fly as well or don’t “act” like wild birds because they are pen raised. 

“That’s not been my experience,” he said. “The birds I’ve hunted here are probably smarter, or at least wilier, because they’re not frightened by the sight of a human. They’ll try to sneak past you and then bust out when your back is turned. It’s quite a challenge to kill a limit.”

Preserve hunting is not limited to upland game either. With the Atlantic Waterfowl flyway often overshadowed by more consistent flights and numbers of birds farther west, private waterfowl preserves have also seen an increasing wave in popularity. Whether you join an established preserve as a member or decide to build your own private preserve, consistent waterfowl hunting is well within reach. 

With your own facility, deciding where to hunt is a no-brainer. But solving that problem doesn’t exactly make duck hunting a cake walk. It still takes plenty of preparation to get and keep the birds within gun range.

Control your own hunts

Roger Wilson from Pacolet, SC spent most of his younger years either flying out west to hunt in Arkansas and Missouri on the Mississippi Flyway or occasionally taking trips to South Dakota, hunting ducks fresh off the prairie pothole rearing grounds. After he reached his late 50s, he decided he’d try his hand at creating his own duck impoundment closer to home. 

“I had a 5-acre pond built on my property 15 years ago, so I pretty well knew everything I’d need to control water to draw it up and down,” said Wilson. “When it’s drained in the summer, we plant it pretty much like any other food plot, except we use a drill and put in corn and millet.”

Wilson said his impoundment draws a lot of wood ducks, plus he sees a few ringnecks that come off the big waters along with a variety of local waterfowl, like mallards and Canada geese. 

A private impoundment also provides the luxury of putting up permanent blinds. Calling birds is more habit than necessity since ducks are coming to eat and his blinds are right in the middle of the flooded crops. 

“These days, I’d rather hunt here than about anywhere,” said Wilson. “I’m watching the birds as they come and go so it’s real simple to plan a good hunt without listening to an outfitter make excuses about dry weather, no rain and no birds.” 

How it’s done

The first step in having your own duck hole built is testing the soil to see if it will hold water rather than allow it to seep back into the ground. The US Geological website has an online reference guide available, or landowners can take in samples for testing. Then, after reviewing a topo map of the area to determine how to lay the pond out, it’s just a matter of deciding how big you want to go.

The basic setup is to create a 3- to 5-foot dike on the lower downhill slant of the pond, then dig a ditch around the interior outline of the pond. Some hunters don’t like having a ditch around the perimeter, but it makes it much easier to drain and dry a field so it can be planted. Make sure to mark the crossovers to prevent a hunter from stepping into the ditch and going over his head. After that, dikes are pushed up with land moving equipment and tamped to create a shallow, saucer like impoundment. All that’s left is to pump in the water.

Wilson uses a pump and well system to draw up flood water for his impoundment. The water fills the perimeter ditch, then spills over into the field which he prefers to plant with rows of corn millet and chufa. He’s considered borrowing water from one of his two creeks, but discovered creek water is not as reliable a water source as the well system, especially during times of drought.

“There’s nothing like going into the pump house and flipping a switch in late October,” he said. “I’m always surprised how quickly the local duck population discovers there’s a new hangout in town.”