Shady Meadows Outfitters

Exclusively Wild Birds - No Canned Hunts!!

Great News!!
For the 2008-2009 Quail Season

Last year Shady Meadows Outfitters leased ground from a friend in central Missouri to run our quail hunts on. We moved between 10-12 coveys on average on 1/2-2/3 day hunts. That's all wild birds on unmanaged ground. This year he enrolled 500 acres in the Missouri Quail Habitat Program and another 500 into warm season grasses and food plots CR 22 Program. He also purchased 2 surrogators and built 10 more twice the size and is releasing 4,000 birds on 1500 acres through them this year.

Click on www.quailrestoration.com and listen to what the surrogator does. This will give us 30+ covey days on wild birds! He has also implemented predator control measures, pushed up "covey piles" (a half dozen big trees laid over each other to provide overhead protection), encouraged Ragweed growth (yeah, we all hate that weed but quail thrive under it's overhead cover) and is leaving feed strips and wide fencerows on the farmed ground.

We have always been a wild pheasant guide service but I have a feeling with this new development that my time is probably going to be mainly devoted to quail now. Of course, we will still be offering our wild pheasant and quail hunts in central Kansas as well. This year the hatches and their survival rates were tremendous in both Missouri and Kansas and bird numbers are up over last year. Add to that the surrogator birds that after 2 weeks you can't tell from wild birds and we are looking at one heck of a wild bird season in both states.

Missouri hunts can start September 1st and run through the end of March although we really don't want to go out until the first part of October. Kansas hunts start November 1st and run through the end of January. We only schedule 1 hunting party at a time and alternate our weeks between states to ease the pressure on the birds. We have over 12,000 acres of private ground in Missouri and over 8,000 acres in Kansas so with only one hunt scheduled at a time, we probably won't even use all the ground. Our hunts are limited this way because we don't hunt for a living, we do it for fun and we don't want to over work ourselves and over pressure the birds. A hunt with us is hunting with guys that love what they do and are just out there to watch some good dog work and have some fun. We are not the average "just huntin for money" guide service. In reality, the fees barely cover our lease fees and our gas to drive to the hunting grounds (4 hour roundtrip in Missouri and 8 hours roundtrip in Kansas - clients stay on site. We stay onsite once we arrive) so we are not just out there for money. Where we hunt in Kansas is about 3 hours from the Kansas City airport and 2 hours from Topeka, Kansas. The Missouri hunts are about 2 hours from the Kansas City or St. Louis airports.

We can put on the ground basically whatever you want to see in dog work. We have entire strings of dogs that will hunt close where you can just watch them work and enjoy a lot of walking and hunting singles over thorough, snappy dogs or we can drop dogs on the ground that we track with GPS and follow on trucks and 4 wheelers. You can see a dog on point 300 yards across the field and we can sit down to a tailgate snack and then go kick the covey up if you want to see dogs hold birds for a half hour. Whatever you want to see. Lunches and dinners are down home cookin. Fried chicken, quail, buffalo steaks or whatever the client wants. I know I for one am taking advantage of that. I don't get it most of the year! That's about my favorite part. Watching the dogs work, getting a ton of birds and breaking for lunch on the front porch (weather dependent of course). It's almost hard to go back out again!

Click here to read our hunts calendar from 2006 - 2007 and see what you can expect when hunting with us"

Shady Meadows Outfitters  brings to the field the finest gundogs of Shady Meadows Gundogs offering trips from $250-$350 per gun per day (3 gun minimum) depending on services and accommodations.

Accommodations range from a local hotel room to a high quality bed and breakfast. All meals are provided. Bring your own dog or hunt over ours.

Exclusively wild birds - No canned hunts!

 

SHADY MEADOWS GUNDOGS
SHAWN EISENHAUER
RR 1 BOX 51
HUME, MISSOURI 64752
(660)832-4233
(913)209-9647