Tbar, when I managed the 3,700 acre place (7 years) in W. Texas, the quail populations varied greatly each yr due to the spring rains, as Dave and You described.
Tracy
The year this happened was 2006 or 2007. A small covey of Blues was 50 birds and a large covey was 100 birds. They came up in big dark clouds.....it was amazing. When we would shoot at quail rabbits would explode in every direction 5 - 10 at a time. There seemed like a cottontail or jack rabbit under every bush and I have a picture of my friend reaching down and picking up a live rabbit(They were seriously competing with the cows for grass). My friends wife liked to eat cottontails so he walked outside of camp and shot 9 in a ~ 10 minute hunt..... There were so many prairie dogs it wasn't even sporting to shoot them they let you get so close. We turned an 8 year old boy loose with a single shot .22 and he had hours of fun. The mule deer were not afraid of us(7 days out of season). They would come in and water at a pool 50 yards from our camp and would walk(not run) 75-100 yards ahead of our noisy jeep driving through the pastures. Your not going to believe this but I actually shot and killed two bobcats with one 12ga shell a 1/2 mile from camp. A HUGH animal population EXPLOSION followed by a CRASH to near zero in following years. I have lots of pictures.
