TPWD WMAs confirm quail bust
Texas is not known for public hunting opportunites for quail. But TPWD does offer 3 WMAs that are popular destinations for resident and nonresident hunters alike: the Matador and Gene Howe WMAs in the Panhandle (Paducah and Canadian, respectively), and the Chaparral WMA near Cotulla. Each has been a perennial quail-producer. But not this year.
I received reports from the Matador and Chaparral WMAs that echo quail hunting sentiments across most of west Texas (and Oklahoma and Kansas), i.e., bah humbug!!!!
The following comments are from Chip Ruthven, manager of the Matador WMA.
"After the second best year on record in 2005, we posted the third lowest harvest on record and the lowest harvest since 1971. Hunter days were 806 and harvest was 296. I hope Mother Nature is more agreeable this year. We have had good winter moisture and have a good crop of cool season forbs coming along. Surviving birds should go into spring in good shape."
An earlier communique from Ruthven provided an age ratio of birds bagged through mid-January.
"Harvest on the Matador stands at 280 birds (0.36 birds per hunter day). Age breakdown is 88% adult, 12% juvenile. At the Gene Howe harvest is 74 birds (0.30 birds per hunter day). Age breakdown is 51% adult, 49% juvenile. Several J7s or less opening weekend at the Gene Howe suggesting they have had a late hatch. They did get some mid-summer rains we did not partake in further south."
David Synatske is manager of "the Chap" and provided the following harvest figures:
"We killed 17 birds with 509 hunters in the first three weekends and 16 birds with 73 hunters weekend before last so the 33 total is our lowest on record for the Chap although probably not the lowest bird/hunter. All 16 birds on the last weekend were adult birds so it confirmed the absolute failure of a hatch at all on the Chap this year. It's going to take a couple of years of ideal conditions to recoup from this. The 1984 harvest of 39 quail came back to a harvest of 12,000 Plus in 1987 but I don't know that we can count on three ideal years like 85-87."
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