Yeah ... a bit late. But hunting conditions don't change as much as fishing conditions.
Venue: Southern Woods Plantation, Sylvester Georgia (https://southernwoodsplantation.com/)
Participants: John and "Dr. Jim Beam" Hupp, Captain Dipaola, Phil Weglein, CDR Curt Toomer, son LT Josh Toomer, son-in-law Tim Canney
Purpose of the gathering: 40th anniversary of the Army-Navy Executive Committee, enjoying great food and beverages with friends, watching the Army-Navy game, upland bird hunting
Quarry: Quail
Weather: Sunny/partly cloudy skies, temps in the high 60s-mid 70s.
The lodge: About a 2 hour drive from Atlanta, also accessible by a commuter flight from Atlanta into Albany, and then a 20 minute ride. If you're into upland bird hunting, there is no better outfit than Southern Woods. An absolute first-class experience. Excellent accommodations, fantastic down-home southern cooking, and you could not ask for more gracious hosts than the Deloach family, who manage the preserve, and the staff and guides who were committed to making the weekend memorable.
The daily routine: Breakfast of eggs, bacon and smoked sausage, grits, and biscuits, followed by a morning hunt, lunch at the lodge, an afternoon hunt, cocktails, then amazing dinners of prime rib, bacon wrapped stuffed quail, smoked pork chops, followed by more adult beverages.
Pregame. As Thursday was check in day for the party, I had scheduled our first hunt for Friday afternoon, to give us a chance to "tune up" by busting some clay pigeons on the property. It only took a few rounds before all looked pretty dialed in and ready to hunt, or at least that's what I thought.
The Hunting. The lodge owns around 4000 acres, with some additional leased property to accommodate the 60 some odd hunters who were at the lodge that weekend. The hunting is for a mix of wild and released birds; over 200,000 are released during the season that runs from October to March. Our party broke up into two groups of four, and mounted the jeep-drawn carriers that would take us to various locations across the preserve.
The terrain was pine woods and switch grass, with the occasional briar patch. Not too difficult getting around, but we did quite a bit of walking.
For many of us, this was our first outing for quail. Unlike pheasants, which are loners, quail are normally hanging together in coveys; sometimes only a few birds, but in some cases the dogs would flush coveys of a dozen birds or more. And any sense that the birds would fly in a predictable fashion did not survive the first flush. These birds go in every direction and at every angle of elevation. It's a recipe for fast shooting, but also presents some serious safety issues. Fortunately, our guide Russell provided the experience that we needed to maintain a level of shooting discipline that ensured that the only targets were the birds.
Of course, the stars of the show are the dogs (the lodge owns over 200). Russell had two sets of four dogs that he rotated throughout the hunt. Two of the dogs were short-haired pointers. Once the dogs got on point, and Russell set us up on a shooting line, he'd send in two spaniels as flushers. It didn't take long for the flushers to do their job, the covey would bust, and the shooting commenced.
Over the course of two days there was a lot of shooting. As to the hitting, well, it's a good thing that the dogs couldn't comment. Many of the birds the dogs flushed lived to fly another day. Russell's constructive criticism ("great shooting," he'd often say, I think sarcastically) made for a truly enjoyable outing. I'm not sure the dogs would have been as kind.
We had one more hunt Saturday morning, with pretty much the same results; the spent-round-to-bird ratio improved slightly, which was good. But obviously requiring some more practice before heading back to south Georgia. Phil and Josh put on great performances in the field. For the rest of us, we settled for feeling that our outing turned out much better than sitting in a cold stadium, especially after Navy's, goose-egg performance on Saturday afternoon.
I'll take Southern Woods any time.
Shoot straight, and Happy Holidays
Mikey D Fishing
