Oldtimr

I have hunted both wild bob white and early release bob white in GA and I have hunted regular pen raised bob white in several states as well as using them for dog training. I have see wild bob white act no different than early release or regular pen raised birds by holding very tight. I have also seen wild birds and pen raised birds flush wild. There may be times you can tell the difference sometimes, if you have lousy birds that will not flush and fly but there are times where it would be very hard to tell unless you knew for sure. We had quail on the farms I started hunting on as as kid, probably between 12 and 17 before they disappeared. We never shot any because my dad would allow it. There were many times we would come to an edge with good cover and while planning how we would hunt it, a small covey would flush withing two or three feet from us and scare the crap out of us. I will agree on the whole you can tell, but not all the time if the birds came from a good breeder who wasn't just interested in how many quail they could raise and sell. Remember,back when the south had lots of wild birds, the dog handlers didn't carry those flushing whips just for show, they carried them for tight sitting birds. I have also many times come to the end of a field while hunting wild pheasants where there was no apparent cover to kick out and while standing there there a pheasant or pheasants would flush within a very close distance to us or almost stepped on a pheasant before it flushed, this was in the 50s and 60s when we had lots of wild pheasants. Wild birds will sit tight.