By Chad Love

The building behind this bronze pointer is not a palatial home. It is, in fact, a palatial dog kennel—home to some 40 English pointers, labs, and even a few Boykin spaniels that belong to T. Boone Pickens, a legendary businessman and utterly obsessed quail hunter.

Last week I got the rare opportunity to spend some time with Pickens at his incredible 68,000-acre (Yes, that's over 100 square miles...) Texas panhandle ranch, Mesa Vista. If you're a quail hunter, you've probably heard of Mesa Vista. Starting with an initial purchase of 2,900 acres of overgrazed, worn-out Roberts County, Texas rangeland, Pickens has since tirelessly built Mesa Vista into perhaps the finest wild bobwhite quail hunting spot on earth. It is a truly remarkable place, and as a lover of all things quail, it was a high honor just to visit the place, much less talk quail hunting and dogs with the man himself.

By Chad Love

There are weird, spooky and unusual things out in the field. And it makes sense that hunters, especially upland hunters who tend to cover large amounts of ground while following their dogs, would find these unexplained things.

The dogs and I once stumbled across what appeared to be the contents of a lady’s purse in the middle of a huge swath of prairie, miles from the nearest town, road or footpath. How did it get here, in this utterly lonely and isolated spot that was rarely, if ever visited by anyone other than the occasional quail or deer hunter? Who knows?

But as I looked down at the weathered, dirt-covered items, I recalled an infamous local case about a young boy who simply vanished one day, never to be seen again. The boy’s mother was the prime suspect, and was later convicted of his murder, but a body was never found. I was a newspaper reporter back in those days, and covered the case from the time the boy went missing all the way through his mother's trial and conviction.

By Chad Love

Big news for bird hunters: The conservation group Quail Unlimited, which has struggled mightily in recent years with financial issues, management scandals, and declining chapters, announced last week that it is closing its doors permanently. In doing so, QU officials urged its former members and anyone else concerned with upland conservation to join Quail Forever, which has acquired Quail Unlimited's mailing list.

From this story in the Albany (Georgia) Herald: 
Quail Unlimited has folded, according to an e-mail sent out late Friday afternoon from Executive Director Bill Bowles, abruptly ending the national organization's existence. Our great staff and our great Board of Directors have stood the test and they have given their very best effort. However, the entire Board of Directors and I have made the difficult decision to cease Quail Unlimited operations and go out of business effective immediately," Bowles said in an email sent out Friday afternoon...."There are a few large challenges that we are about to be faced with," Bowles said in his first email. "Could we possibly overcome them?

By Chad Love

Some of us (myself included) put together our own canine first-aid kits based on unique needs, dogs, hunting styles, geographic locations, etc. But many of us probably don't have the time or inclination to assemble these customized kits. Instead, we're looking for one we can buy that will be adequate for the vast majority of canine medical issues we're apt to face while in the field hunting.

I've been using one such all-in-one kit this season: the Sporting Dog First-Aid Kit from Creative Pet Products. This compact, well-stocked kit comes with pretty much everything you need to administer basic first-aid to your dogs. If you encounter an in-the-field medical emergency that you can't, at least temporarily, doctor with the contents of this kit, then you need a vet, and fast.