Oklahoma’s Quail Season Opens November 11th

While most people refer to football in terms of the seasonal change, to some of us it doesn't feel like fall until quail season opens.

If you told me that you've never hunted quail, it'd be really understanding. It's not as popular as it used to be. Forty years of dwindling numbers due to all sorts of reasons ranging from agricultural herbicides to the willing introduction of whitetail deer and predators that prey on them, they've been hard to find for a long time.

Used to be, you could walk any fenceline or hedgerow in Oklahoma and flush out hundreds of these tasty little birds. Their populations really suffered great losses from the mid-90s to the early 20-teens, but they are bouncing back.

While you may not have much luck on the public lands offered to us all throughout the state, the private lands and leases are producing more quail than they have in the last twenty years. More than one hunter can bag their limit these last few years.

If you've never had them, I don't know how to describe the taste. It's a dark meat, but it tastes like chicken. So delicious any which way you cook it.

If you'd like to try your hand at quail hunting, locate the land you want to hunt. Get out there as early as possible, walk along the cover and flush them out. They're shockingly easy to bag since they almost always fly straight away from you. It'd really help to have a good bird dog too.

If you can't opt into public lands, or want to mess with the hassle of every other quail hunter wiping an area out, there are several quail reserves around the state that will rent you prime quail land for a few hours. They'll even sell you the quail you want and put them in the field for you.

Is it sportsmanlike to have a bagged hunt like that? Meh... but quail have been in such short supply for so many years, a turkey-shoot like that is better than not hunting at all. You don't even have to go out and hunt them, you can just buy your quail and walk out the door if you'd prefer.

Happy hunting. All the quail season details can be found here.