Nixa man's quail obsession endures 67 seasons

Don Walker hasn't missed a quail season opener since he was 8 years old. His experiences mirror the fortunes of the bobwhite quail in Missouri.

NIXA, Mo.--Think of Don Walker's life as a book, and each of his 75 years as a chapter. Browse through the past 67 chapters, and you will find a common thread--bobwhite quail. Reading between the lines, you can learn as much about quail management as quail hunting.

Walker grew up in the Ozarks during The Great Depression. In those days, farm families couldn't afford frivolous activities like hunting birds that barely produced a mouthful of food. But Walker had an uncle with a steady income and impractical bent. On Nov. 1, 1929, the uncle pulled up to Walker's school in his ice truck and declared his intention to take little Don quail hunting.

"The teacher didn't know anything about quail hunting, so she said, 'Well, okay.'"

Having spirited Walker away from academic pursuits, the uncle began another, longer-term education. On their way to the Walker farm with a big English setter named Bird riding shotgun, Don's uncle asked if the boy knew where there were any quail.

"There were birds everywhere then," recalls Walker. "I told him 'Yeah, I see them every morning walking to school. They're down there in the popcorn patch."

Parking at the edge of the neighbor's failed popcorn field, his uncle handed Walker a 20 gauge Remington shotgun that had been sawed off at both ends to fit a boy.

"He turned his old dog loose in there and he didn't go 30 feet and he was pointing. My uncle said 'You have to be pretty quick.' When they got up it scared me so bad I didn't shoot.

"We fooled around that popcorn patch and I think we found five coveys. I never did kill one, but I finally got off a couple of shots. That's what started it. He would come every year wherever I was for 44 years, until he passed away. Everybody knew we were going to hunt on opening day regardless of the weather. After he died, I kept up the trend, and I've gone every opening day now for 67 years. Hope to go another 15."

Some things have improved since Walker began hunting quail. One is the economy.

"When I was growing up in the 1930s, I couldn't afford to buy shotgun shells. My uncle would bring me shells. When I went to the store, I would buy .22 shells for a penny apiece. I might get to buy three to squirrel hunt with. When I first told my dad I was going quail hunting, he said, 'You can't afford to shoot those shells at quail!' He was serious. He thought I was nuts. When I got older, I used to have to bring him shells just to take him hunting. It was a pretty tough living back in the 30s."

Besides opening every season for nearly seven decades, Walker has hunted the last day of most seasons as well. Some years he hunted every day of the 2 1/2-month season.

"My wife didn't hardly know how to put up with it when we were first married," Walker says with a wry smile, "but she adjusted. She said 'We're going to starve to death.' I said, 'No, we'll eat quail.'"
Walker was self-employed by then, building houses in Springfield. During quail season, he bought groceries and other essentials on credit. When quail season ended he would work harder than ever to pay the bills he had accumulated.

As the years went by, Walker came more and more under the spell of quail hunting. He got involved in showing pointing dogs and setters, then breeding and selling them. When he began running his dogs in field trials he bought horses and eventually bred, showed and sold them, too. He still has one setter and a few horses. He is considering selling his horses on account of a stroke he suffered in late November.

Walker still owns the Douglas County farm where he grew up, plus some adjoining acreage he has acquired through the years. He no longer hunts there, however. The quail, once plentiful, are gone now. He finds this puzzling, because "Nothing has really changed."
The decrease in quail numbers is not unique to Walker's farm, the Ozarks or even to Missouri. He remembers the time when every small-town café in Missouri was mobbed by quail hunters on Nov. 1. Now he has no trouble finding an open table on that date. He also remembers when practically every back yard in Nixa, where he has lived for 40 years, had a dog kennel. Now he doesn't know another person in town who owns a bird dog.

All this reflects the fact that bobwhites have been in decline throughout their range in the eastern United States for more than 30 years. Although Walker sees nothing different on his farm, the causes of the bobwhite's demise were apparent during a recent visit to his boyhood home.

The popcorn patch where he found five coveys on his first quail hunt now is full of pole-sized oak and hickory trees. Steep draws between fields--places that used to be filled with low, brushy growth--now support mature trees and have open, shady floors.

Invasive exotic plants have taken a toll on bobwhite habitat, too.
"The serecia (lespedeza) has been a bad deal down there on the farm," said Walker. "Serecia and fescue is all that's in those old fields anymore."

The imported plants form dense mats too thick for quail to penetrate and produce no quail food, unlike the native grasses and wildflowers they replaced.

Like many landowners, Walker is puzzled by the disappearance of quail from familiar haunts. He says he hasn't changed anything on the farm. In fact, he set aside 240 acres for wildlife, "just kind of let it grow wild. They always say habitat is what birds need, but I guess this is too much habitat, too much growth."

Here he is on the right track. Quail thrive in a patchwork of crop fields, open pasture of native plants and wide, brushy borders. That is exactly what existed on his property when it was a working farm, and when quail were abundant.

Walker himself mentioned that when he was young, farmers burned their land every year to keep down woody growth and kill ticks and insects. That hasn't happened for decades. Farmers also used to cut trees out of field borders to make fence posts. Now fence is strung between metal posts, and trees grow tall along field edges.

Without burning, tree cutting and other continuing disturbance, the farm has reverted to oak-hickory forest. Walker's 340 acres now are almost entirely covered with woods. Asked how much of this was open when he was a boy, he answered without hesitation, "All of it."
Other things have changed during Walker's quail hunting career. He remembers the day, some time around 1947, when he saw his first white-tailed deer. That was a clue that the landscape was changing. Deer and turkey have very different habitat requirements than quail.
"My son Terry lives on our farm now," said Walker. "He hunts deer, but not quail, because there are no quail any more."

Walker hunts quail with an ancient 12 gauge Remington Model 11 shotgun. The barrel is stamped "Full" choke, but the muzzle of the 25 1/2 inch barrel bears the ragged marks of the hacksaw that turned it into a wide-shooting quail gun. Decades of handling have polished away the factory finish so metal parts shine bright as a new nickel. It still serves him well, though.

"I bought that gun on credit when I was 13. Paid $35 for it. It will still shoot every time if you keep it clean."

The gun could be a metaphor for its owner. A balky right leg--the result of his stroke--cut into Walker's hunting this year, but he is determined to continue.

"If I ever get this leg to working right I'm gonna go a few more times this year," he said early in January. "I think if I get a brace on my ankle I'll be able to hunt for four or five hours. I'm going to buy me a pointer pup when I get to feeling a little better."

In spite of all the quail hunting that Walker has behind him, he remains focused on the future. He and his son hope to work with the Missouri Department of Conservation and Quail Unlimited to restore quail habitat to their farm.

"I would definitely be interested in quail hunting if we could get them back here," said Terry.

That could be the first chapter in a new book.

-Jim Low-

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