Guns Magazine: Sporting quails and casinos: bird hunting: southern style

It's no secret I'm a Southerner. I was raised in a very different time when it was possible to walk up to a farmer's door and be given permission to hunt. My grandaddy taught me the manners of hunting and an abiding love for the bobwhite quail. I will go out of my way for a chance to hunt "birds." In the proper language of the south when you say "birds" it can only mean quail. Anything else is called by name. Urban sprawl and changes in fanning methods have been hard on bobwhites. They need a combination of places to eat and safe cover. That sort of habitat is getting hard to find, but it can be done.

One of the highlights of my youth was the chance to hunt on some of the real southern plantations kept as corporate retreats for entertaining customers. Some were very elegant, but the two key ingredients were good food and good hunting. It was common back then to hunt from horseback or a mule drawn wagon. You just followed the dogs and when they pointed you climbed down and went to work. The really neat thing is places like that still exist and they aren't hard to find. To be sure you must pay, but cost s usually in line with any other recreational activity with the same level of service.

Vintage Civil War

I don't know about anyone else, but when I hear of Tunica, MS, I think of the premier gambling location between Atlantic City and Las Vegas. That's surely true, but the Mississippi delta has much more to offer. The region is the home of Blues music, and is steeped in the history of the river and, of course, the War of Northern Aggression. There is a lot to do and see outside the casinos. To that list we should add hunting--boy should we.

Tunica is the home of Beaver Dam Lake and duck hunting, immortalized by the great Nash Buckingham; and there is some very sporty quail hunting within sight of the casinos. But my first objective was a real plantation quail hunt at Fitch Farms in Holly Springs about an hour down the road from Tunica. This is one gorgeous place, with a main lodge and seven log cabins scattered about. Most are of Civil War vintage, care fully moved and upgraded with modern kitchen and bath facilities, but they still have the cozy feel only an open fireplace can give. One is the first house belonging to Civil War General Nathan Bedford Forrest. I think I mentioned food was an important part of the plantation experience, and we began with lunch of venison tenderloin, fresh green beans, corn and a bread pudding to die, for.

The plantation has 4,000 acres available for quail, turkey and deer hunting and we set out in a wagon drawn by a pair of brown mules named Jack and Jill. The dog work was incredible. All were field trial pointers trained by Randy Downs and the points were staunch and stylish. The only bad news was they were not allowed to retrieve. I think it's really neat to have the dog come drop the bird at your feet. There was one black and white pointer, Ch. Remarkable, I badly wanted to bring home with me. Just as an exercise we threw a dead bird out on the road. He found it quickly and froze in a classic stance, posed for pictures, got more than a few pats and attaboys and never once moved until Randy tooted his; whistle and picked up the bird.

You Can Too

The trip was an opportunity to relive some great hunts of long ago and only one gun would do. It's a Browning Superposed 20 gauge that belonged to my grandfather. He bought it new in 1952 and it has a special place in nay heart. A lot of my history involves that gun and it's much too long a story to repeat here, but you can find it in the 1989 edition of Gun Digest titled "My Grandaddy's Shotgun." It shows a little honest wear but is still tight and smooth. It comes to my eye effortlessly and quail fall before it more often than not. When they do fly away it's because I did something wrong.

It may be stating the obvious, but Tunica is on the Mississippi River and, coincidentally, right under an air route called the Mississippi flyway. Can you say duck hunting?

The next morning I fell in love with another dog. This time it was Molly, a black lab who owns Mike Boyd of Beaverdam Hunting Services. We greeted the dawn from Mike's blind on Beaver Dam lake and a steady stream of ducks, mostly Gadwalls and Mallards, that came to his decoys and call.

The gun was a new Remington 11-87 dressed in the latest fashion of camo and loaded with Remington's very remarkable Hevi-shot ammo. I chose #4s in 3". and while I had tested the loads on a pattern board this was the first time I had used them on live targets. I'm not a frequent duck hunter, but have lived through some of the difficulties faced with steel shot and this was like going back to the good old lead days. The first duck at 25 yards sorta stopped in mid-air before falling and later one close to 50 yards away tell just as hard.

Hevi-shot is an alloy of tungsten, nickel and iron 10-percent denser than lead or--more remarkably--54 percent more dense than steel. It's a bit mysterious too because when you look at the shot it is quite irregular in shape, and while the sizes do correspond to the standard numbering system some pellets look almost square. Conventional wisdom would say patterns would he irregular but, once more, conventional wisdom is wrong. Time and again I've shot or witnessed pattern tests perfectly symmetrical and with a density appropriate to the choke used.

Quail After Lunch

After lunch it was time for another quail hunt, this time at The Willows, which is adjacent to the Grand Casino and Resort in Tunica. It was different to have great hunting within sight of a couple of glamorous casinos.

This time the dog was an exuberant German Shorthair named Roscoe who skillfully found the birds and just as enthusiastically brought them back. It was a windy afternoon and it made for some pretty challenging shooting. The birds flew exceptionally well and with the strong tail-wind demanded my complete attention. Once more. Grandaddy's Shotgun did good work and, in fact, this was some of the best shooting on released birds I've experienced. The Willows is a full service shotgun complex with two fully automated sporting clays courses, and golf carts are included. They've also got skeet, five-stand clays and trap, and if you didn't bring a gun that's okay too. They've got a nice selection you can use.

There aren't many places where you can still hunt as I did in my boyhood, but that certainly doesn't mean we can't hunt at all. You just have to look around. For example I typed, "quail hunting" into an Internet search engine and got literally hundreds of hits. And there are loads of people out there who'd be happy to help you along. For example, every state has a web site or toll free number to get you started, or you can narrow the search by looking for a convention and visitors bureau in the vicinity of where you'd like to hunt. For example, this adventure began with a call to the Tunica Convention & Visitors Bureau. They had information about the Willows and Beaver Dam Hunting Services and directed me toward the Mississippi Development Authority who knew about Fitch Farms. One word of advice: good places like these are often booked far in advance so it's wise to plan far ahead. Costs vary depending upon the location and level of service, but are far from prohibitive.

Contact information:

Beaver Dam Hunting Services, P.O. Box

983, Tunica, MS 38676, (662) 357-0279,

miboyd55@yahoo.com.

Tunica Convention & Visitors Bureau, P.O.

Box 2739, Tunica, MS 38676, (888) 488-6422,

www.tunicamiss.com.

The Willows, Grand Casino, Tunica, MS,

(800) 39-GRAND, www.grandcasinos.com.

Filch Farms, P.O. Box 610, Holly Springs,

MS 38635, (662) 252-8855,

wwm.FitchFarms.com.