Over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to hunt quail. That word – "hunt" may be a bit misleading. I've shot pen-raised quail, which is a far cry from earlier hunts two or three decades ago when our part of the world actually had a good population of wild quail.

If you grew up in the country as I did, your dad, your granddad and all our neighbors had a truck patch where peas, corn, tomatoes et al were grown. Chances are there was a fence row around the patch left uncut where native weeds and grasses flourished. Many times I've gone out to the family garden and flushed a covey of quail from their fence-row living quarters.