Sorry I have been out of touch. In case any of you are still interested, my wife and I had a pretty good trip to Montana. We actually went all the way to Oregon to start and hunted for California valley quail for 3 days. First time after that species. Had a guide who put us on birds every day. Coveys are huge, as in 50 to 100 birds in a covey, also plenty of pheasants. In Montana, we hunt near near Rt. 2 from Shelby back towards Havre.. 4 days hunting with a couple days off for high winds. Found some birds each day but 2 to 3 coveys with low numbers of birds first 3 days. Then the last day, of course, was fantastic! Just so I will spend a bunch of money to come back! Found at least 9 different coveys maybe a couple more depending on whether it was a second flush or not. One small covey of 8, and all the rest were 15 to 20 with one huge covey of at least 25. Rare day for any year but actually got my limit. Wife got several as well. And of course had no choice but to leave the next day. So I think there is a long ways to go to get the hun population up to what it was a few years ago but if you happen to find the right pocket, they are definitely makeing progress.
Thanks all for checking in.. If you see a truck from Virginia with tag reading BRD HNT1, that's me.