Bobwhite quail hunting has long been a favorite outdoor pursuit on Fort Bragg. Unfortunately the quail population has declined dramatically over several decades due to the massive decline in timber harvest on the installation.  This decline in timber harvest was a result of the restrictions placed on Fort Bragg in the late 1980s and early 1990s to recover the endangered red cockaded woodpecker.  Four years of bobwhite telemetry research in the mid 2010s clearly indicated that 50 basal area (the square footage of trees on one acre) is the upper limit that bobwhites will use on Fort Bragg.  Of the roughly 90,000 huntable acres on Fort Bragg, less than 20,000 are suitable to bobwhites.  These acres are also not contiguous.  The research also proved, despite our suspicions, that fire had minimal adverse impacts on quail nesting success. In the past five years, hunter trips have averaged about 520 per season, and the harvest steadily declined from 258 birds in the 2020-2021 season to 109 birds during the 2024-2025 season.  So on average for the last five years, a bird hunter can expect to kill a bird in a little over 3 trips.  Compare this to 1971-1972 when over 8900 quail were killed in a single seaon, and hunters averaged 2.5 birds per trip.  The numbers come directly from what has been reported over the last five years in iSportsman.  I have made no corrections to the raw numbers, however human diemsions/wildlife research has for quite some time shown that some hunters over report harvest (want to appear as good hunters to biologists/other hunters) while others under report harvest (don't want biologists/other hunters to know the area(s) where they find birds that could be passed on to "hunting competition").  I also know that some of our hunters will not shoot a covey rise or a single unless "the dogs do right", and some will shoot a covey of the last public holdout of wild quail (more or less) in North Carolina down to nothing if they can.  Lastly, there have been confirmed reports of and citations issued to individuals who have released pen-reared bobwhites on the hunting areas of Fort Bragg.  This is one of the worst things that a true wild quail hunter can do.  Through telemetry research conducted over decades in the Red Hills of Georgia and Folrida, there is proof that releasing pen-reared quail into or close to an established wild quail population contibutes to wild quail predation and the transmission of avian diseases.

     

The first step toward successful quail hunting on Fort Bragg is learning to identify the areas that have just the right mix of ground cover, escape cover and food resources.  The second and key step to a successful hunt is a good to excellent bird dog or two.  Fort Bragg’s quail are heavily pressured by hunters as well as intensive military training.  Coveys and single birds are hard to get pointed – let alone shot.

 

Wildlife Openings – Subject to the availablity of resources, Fort Bragg Wildlife staff maintain and enhance approximately 1100 wildlife openings scattered throughout the installation. Several hundred of these small fields are designated as “bird patches”, and are managed specifically to enhance quail habitat. Decades ago, the bird patches were planted to bicolor lespedeza which remains in many of the fields, but has faded away in others. In those patches that still support healthy stands of bicolor, management efforts are aimed at maintaining the stand by liming, fertilizing, and mowing. In the bird patches that have little to no remaining bicolor, preferred quail foods such as partridge peas are planted in prepared seed beds. These fields are also limed and fertilized. In years when native food is scarce, the bird patches are extremely important to quail as a reliable source of food.

 

Quail Call Counts - Past studies on Fort Bragg indicated a correlation between hunter success and summer whistling cock counts done in June and July. Each year biologists and volunteers conduct bobwhite whistle counts along specific routes across large areas of the installation. The data are then analyzed and used to determine trends in the quail population. Significant downward trends in one or more small game management area may justify closing, or limiting bird hunting for the upcoming season. The practice of closing areas has been shown to help the quail population rebound as early as the next season in the closed areas.  

 

Quail Age Study – Each year, biologists ask hunters to voluntarily record the date and submit one fully feathered wing from each bird they harvest during the season for age analysis. Throughout the entire season, each quail can quickly be identified as an adult (hatched the previous year), or juvenile (hatched in the summer). If a juvenile bird is less than 5 months (150 days) old, an examination of molting primary flight feathers can be used to determine exactly how many days old the quail is, and this information can be used to determine the date that particular bird was hatched. Age structure of the birds harvested during the season is a very reliable indicator of how good the hatch was, and this coupled with call count and other data is used to make management decisions. In a year with a good hatch, 90% of the birds harvested will be juveniles. If a large enough number of juveniles is collected, a clearer indication of temporal arrangement of hatch peaks can be ascertained. Some years there are 3 peaks in the hatch; typically July, August, and September.

 

 

 

For more information on quail management email jeffrey.g.jones3.civ@army.mil