Conservation,Hunting  |  07/18/2017

Summer Quail Report: Oklahoma


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Oklahoma
 
“We have not yet released the hunter harvest data for the state of Oklahoma for the 2016-17 hunting season,” reports Derek Wiley, Upland Game Biologist with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. “As far as quail the harvest, it was hit or miss in places.  Some hunters did exceptionally well while others did not.  We had anticipated an excellent year across the board and many feel that the hunting in the 2016 season was not as good as the 2015 season.”
 
“Our winter was warm and dry in most areas,” says Wiley. “We did have a few storms come through, but the precipitation did not stick around very long.  Overall it seemed to be a fairly mild winter.”
 
“Early spring brought decent rainfall to much of Oklahoma,” he says. “However, it has dried up considerably.  Temperatures have soared in some areas.  We are hoping for good production but will not know more until our August/October surveys.  The season outlook will come out at the end of October/beginning of November.”
 
“The western region of the state has our best bobwhite populations,” says Wiley. “The Southeast has a few large tracts of land that hold good populations of bobwhites.” 
 
“Quail Forever does an excellent job in Oklahoma of supporting our Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs),” he adds. “They have provided multiple thousands of dollars that go to on-the- ground habitat work."

Tom Carpenter is Digitial Content Manager at Quail Forever.

Photo credit: Kevin Paulson, HuntingLife.com.