Our best for public land quail hunting
Summer 2025
Articls and photos by Jimmy Jacobs
Peach State upland bird hunters are all to familiar with the collapse of bobwhite numbers across the state in the last half century. Much of that is due to loss of habitat due to the end of small-field agricultural activity. Thus, areas that hold quail and are open to public hunting have also declined.
Today, South Georgia has a handful of wildlife management areas that Georgia Wildlife Resources Division biologists rate as having high numbers of quail. Foremost among those is 8,100-acre DiLane WMA near Waynesboro. The history of this tract goes a long way to explain why it stands out.
Back in the 1950s, Henry Berol purchased the Davis-Kirkpatrick Plantations that comprised the acreage. He was the heir to the Eagle Pencil Company of New York, and thus had the deep pockets needed to develop the land as quail habitat. Soon after the purchase, he renamed the property as DiLane Plantation, deriving the name from his two daughters Diane and Laine.
Berol’s purpose was to develop a bird dog training facility and run top-notch field trail events on it. Up through 1978 such field trials took place annually. After a 10-year hiatus, such events have continued into the present.
Today the property is federally-owned, but overseen by the Georgia WRD. It continues to be managed as early successional habitat, with an emphasis on quail. Additionally, limited public quail hunting is allowed. Those hunts are provided using a quota system, allowing up to eight parties of hunters on 10 specific days in December and February. The harvest limit is 6 birds per person, with a limit of 12 per hunting party.
On two occasions I’ve been invited to join hunting parties at DiLane. Actually, I suspect it was my brace of bird dogs that were invited and I was included because of them. In both cases, the guys drawn for the hunts did not have dogs of their own. In any event, the dogs and I met the groups at the check station at 9 a.m.
That’s one of the appeals of quail hunts for me. They start at a ‘gentlemanly” hour in the morning, rather than before the crack of dawn. On our first such adventure, my dogs were Lulu, a 28-pound English setter and Quincy, a 2-year-old Brittany. Quincy was just learning the trade, and, though older, I had only recently acquired Lulu. I had no idea if either of them could handle hunting wild quail. As it turned out, Lulu held points on two coveys that day, along with a couple of singles afterwards. In each instance, Quincy honored her points.
Lulu on a covey at DiLane WMA.
The second hunt at the end of December 2024 did not go as well. This was just after Hurricane Helene had ravaged much of southeast Georgia. This time the recent weather catastrophe had left a mark on the quail, for we found no coveys that day. Talking with another hunting group that day, their results were only minimally better. In a previous year in which they had been drawn, their total of coveys flushed had been eight.
Also, a conservation ranger we spoke with after the hunt said that following the storm the quail had not been showing up in areas that he usually encountered them. I guess that’s why we call it “hunting.” No doubt, DiLane will recover. The excellent habitat there will draw the bobwhites back.
Click here for information on applying for the quota hunts at DiLane Wildlife Management Area.
Jimmy Jacobs is the editor of Georgia Outdoor Adventures, as well as being editor/publisher of On The Fly South. He also is a member of the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. He makes his home in Marietta with his English setters, Luke and Lulu. He can be contacted at jimmyjacobs@mindspring.com.