Your First Quail Hunt: A Beginner’s Guide

Your first quail hunt doesn’t take experience. It takes a Georgia hunting or shooting preserve license, the right gear, and a guide who’ll walk you through the day.

At Sandy Hill Quail Hunts, just outside Bainbridge, GA, plenty of our hunters have never walked up behind a bird dog before. Josiah Austinson has guided hunts on some of the South’s best-known quail plantations, and he’s glad to show newcomers the ropes.

This guide covers what you need before you come, what to bring and wear, how the day goes, and a few tips for your first covey rise.

Before You Come: Get Your License

Every hunter needs either a valid Georgia hunting license or a Georgia shooting preserve license. If you don’t already have a hunting license, the preserve license is a quick, inexpensive option. You can buy either one online at Go Outdoors Georgia in a few minutes.

Get it well before your hunt date, so there are no surprises the morning of. If you’re bringing a son or daughter, check their requirements too.

What to Bring and What to Wear

You don’t need fancy gear. Here’s the short list.

Bring:

• Your Georgia hunting or shooting preserve license
• A shotgun and three boxes of shells (more on that below)
• Eye and ear protection
• Water
• A cooler with ice for your birds

Wear:

• A blaze orange hat and vest
• Broken-in boots (new boots and a full day of walking don’t mix)
• Brush pants or chaps, because wiregrass and briars are part of the country
• Layers, so you can shed one as the morning warms up

Your Gun and Shells

A 20-gauge or smaller is preferred for bobwhite quail, and break-open shotguns are preferred over semi-autos. Pick whichever one you shoot best and can carry comfortably for a few hours.

Plan on three boxes of shells per hunter, in light field loads in #7½ or #8 shot. Quail are small, fast birds, and these loads hit them well without beating up your shoulder.

If you’re not sure what to bring, just call or text before your hunt and Josiah will help you sort it out.

How the Day Goes, and How We Keep It Safe

A full day at Sandy Hill runs seven hours (here’s how the day goes, hour by hour):

1. A safety talk and a 30-minute warm-up on the skeet range
2. Five hours of hunting behind the dogs
3. A 1.5-hour steak lunch

The skeet range is a real help for first-timers. You get a feel for your gun and your swing before a bird ever gets up.

Safety comes first all day long:

• Everyone wears blaze orange.
• Each hunter keeps to a safe zone of fire.
• The guide calls the shots.
• Guns stay unloaded around the dogs, the trucks, and the lunch table.

You won’t be left guessing. Josiah walks with your group the whole time and tells you when and where it’s safe to shoot.

Tips for Your First Covey Rise

The dogs find the birds. Our pointers, an English Setter and German Shorthaired Pointers, range out ahead and freeze on point when they smell a covey. Dolly, Todd, and Copper, our English Cocker Spaniels, work close and flush birds out of thick cover. Meet the dogs.

A few things that help first-timers:

• Walk up steady. When a dog locks on point, the guide will bring you in. Stay calm and keep your gun pointed safely.
• Expect the noise. A covey rise is a burst of wings all at once. It startles nearly everyone the first time.
• Pick one bird. Shooting at the whole covey usually means hitting none. Pick out a single bird and stay with it.
• Let it clear. Give the bird a moment to get up and away from the dog before you shoot.
• Don’t worry about misses. Everybody misses. With 100 birds released for your group, you’ll get plenty more chances.

What It Costs and How to Book

A full-day hunt is $1,600 for 1–4 hunters, which works out to $400 a hunter with a group of four. That price covers the skeet warm-up, five hours of guided hunting, and the steak lunch.

100 birds released. Birds included. There are no per-bird charges and no add-ons at the end of the day, so you’ll know exactly what your first hunt costs before you come.

Pick an open date on our booking page, call or text Josiah at (229) 442-2333, or email Josiah.

Sandy Hill Quail Hunts
342 Eddie Avery Rd, Climax, GA 39834
(just outside Bainbridge, GA)

“Come hunt with us. I think you’ll be back.”— Josiah Austinson

NO EXTRA FEES. NO EXTRA CHARGES.