It’s understandable why Oklahoma’s quail hunters are itching to start the season.
With the state’s quail season always opening on the second Saturday in November, and the way the calendar fell this year with the first day of the month being a Sunday, the opener is as late as it can be.
“Everyone I know is counting it down,” said Laura McIver, Oklahoma regional representative for Quail and Pheasants Forever. “I know I am.”
As far as the forecast goes, hunters can expect to find about the same number of birds they have the last couple of years in northwestern Oklahoma, the heart of quail country. Statewide, the quail population is down overall but there will be pockets of decent hunting.
“For the most part, it’s going to be kind of a lather, rinse and repeat of last year,” said Tell Judkins, upland bird biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. “It’s not the numbers that we would like to see, but it’s not the worst news ever.”
Based on the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation’s roadside surveys in October, there appears to be a slight decline of the quail population in northwestern Oklahoma from last year, while southwestern Oklahoma looks bleak.
In August and October each year, state wildlife officials survey 83 routes in the state — each 20 miles in length — to monitor the quail population and provide a glimpse of the upcoming hunting season.
This year, in October, they counted about three birds on each route in northwestern Oklahoma but not a single bird in southwestern Oklahoma which has been gripped by drought. But that doesn’t mean the birds are completely gone from southwest Oklahoma. It just means state wildlife officials didn’t see any birds on the day of the roadside surveys.
