Steve Snell’s Gundog Blog

We started hunting in Texas sometime around 1991 or 1992.  It took us a while to learn the ins and outs of it and we had to shift the way we did some things because of the differences between the way Mississippi Quail behaved and the way Texas Bobs played the game.  After a few years it all made sense and I spent the next 10 years hunting Bobs in Texas with my father.

I always heard the horrors of “Blue Quail.”  I couldn’t find a single quail hunter who liked them.  They ran; They would ruin a good bird dog.  They didn’t hold in a covey like Bobs.  They didn’t play fair.  Like most folks, I believed what was said and I stayed as far away from them as possible.  I spent most of my time around Childress, Texas.  In the 10 years I Quail hunted there I saw one covey of Blues.

In 2003 I went on a Horseback hunt around Gail, TX.  They had a mix of Bobs and Blues in that part of the state.

Everything I had been told about blues was true, except for the part about ruining a bird dog.  If anything, they force your dog to work at a much higher level.

Since then I spend as much time as I can hunting Blues.  Everything else is just something to do while I wait for Quail Season to open and the weather to get cool enough to hunt out west.

Here are some pictures I took one afternoon of a covey loafing in the shade around an oil well.