Going Places

    In many ways Quail Country Plantation is a typical upper-echelon Georgia hunting preserve. In many ways it isn’t. Quail Country certainly has time in rank. The land has been in the same family for a century. Fifty years ago the plantation was awarded the third commercial hunting preserve license ever issued in the state.
    Today clients hunt 3,500 acres of carefully managed quail habitat located about 40 miles west of Albany, southwest Georgia’s quail epicenter. The plantation offers diverse hunting plots from open fields to sun-dappled pine groves. Controlled burning is used to curtail the undergrowth and permit sunlight to flood the woodland floor. This in turn promotes ideal habitat for QCP’s birds.
    Careful habitat maintenance nurtures Quail Country’s native birds. These are joined by the unharvested liberated birds from the previous year that have become wild. A third source of birds is “surrogators”—little quail hotels set throughout the property where day-old chicks can live completely protected before the season starts until they mature, imprinted at that particular site. There are also less-protected Covey Base Camps where birds released at 12 weeks can find food and shelter. The result is that a guest can expect to see around 20 vigorous covey flushes per day with 12 to 20 birds per covey.
    The main lodge at Quail Country is built on the banks of spring-fed Mill Creek. For our visit last January, the creek was picturesque in flooded cypress festooned with Spanish moss. The main house has 14 double guest rooms, each with its own bath. There is a comfortable living room and open bar for pre-dinner conversation. Decoration is strictly upscale quail.
    We expect good food at a plantation of this caliber, and Quail Country does not disappoint. While not exactly a haven for anorexic vegans, it wasn’t all corn pone and gravy grits either. Our menus had just the right mixture of Southern comfort and quality. The fried quail was ethereal.
    Normally when I visit a hunting destination, the first thing I do is check out the kennels. If the dogs are treated right, you know that everything else will fall in place. This is especially important on some quail plantations where the raw-boned pointers are treated more like farm implements than cherished hunting companions.
    It’s different at Quail Country. Before my first trip there, I learned that Bill Bowles recently had become manager. His 20 years of experience running plantations was assurance that the dog operation would be both extensive and first class.
The Quail Country kennels are state of the art with heart. An example of the art is that the Auburn University School of Veterinary Medicine chose Quail Country’s kennels for its new study of dog health, strength and conditioning. The heart is more easily seen in the loving care that every dog receives, from a special diet depending on need to a careful bath and grooming after each day’s hunt.
    The spotless, modern kennels hold examples of just about all of the pointing breeds and most of the flushers. QCP guides keep a flusher at heel to roust the pointed covey and ensure the most sporting bird presentations. While Labs and springers do an excellent job, Bowles has popularized the English cocker. The personable little cockers are quite sought after, and the kennel has an active breeding program using the best UK bloodlines.
    The guides I’ve met at QCP have been unfailingly competent and polite. I still marvel at how they can precisely remember the location of multiple birds marked down two coveys previously when we loop back to pick them up. Gun, guide and dog really are a team.
    If you want to get in some target practice before your hunt or just check your gun’s fit, the plantation has sporting clays, 5 Stand and wobble trap in addition to a proper pattern plate. The Orvis pro shop carries good-quality hunting gear, and the gunroom has a wide selection of Caesar Guerini over/unders for rent and purchase.
    At press time I am looking forward to the second Shooting Sportsman Readers & Writers Adventure at Quail Country. I can’t wait to watch that little cocker blast in past a staunch setter and ignite those quail. I can already hear the whirr of wings as my barrels try to catch those rocketing brown blurs. It just doesn’t get any better.
    For more information, contact Quail Country Plantation, 866-597-8245; www.quailcountry.com.