By Roland Lewis

As many of you know, there is nothing quite so meaningful as raising a son or daughter to hunt, and to respect the outdoors and wildlife. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have a son that loved to follow me on hunts from the time he was old enough to walk and still hunts with me as a young man of 22. He has become an avid hunter and excellent marksman who has taken numerous trophies of deer and turkeys, but there was one hunt that was missing. He had never been on a quail hunt.

Property with a huntable wild quail population is next to impossible to find, so we decided to hunt on a local hunting preserve. Mountain View Hunting Preserve located in Delta, Alabama near Cheaha Mountain is owned and operated by Richard Sprayberry. His family property is nestled is the hills of the Appalachian Mountains and from the lodge, there is a scenic view of those nearby mountains. Hence, Mountain View Hunting Preserve.

My good friend Butch Smathers, my son Chris and myself decided to drive to the Preserve after work on Friday, to spend the night. Richard greeted us upon arrival at the lodge where our meal was being prepared. Our dinner consisted of large, thick, ribeye steaks grilled to order, along with baked potatoes and a salad. Excellent!!

The lodge was well furnished with three bedrooms and two baths. The bedrooms each had two double beds. The great room had plenty of comfortable places to sit and swap stories along with a fireplace, satellite TV and a regulation pool table. Several really nice mounts, whitetail, mule deer and wild boar adorned the walls. A couple of the whitetails that were taken on the preserve property were really impressive.

The next morning an excellent country breakfast was served. While we were getting ready for the hunt we watched a short required safety video on quail hunting. After a quick warm-up round of clay birds, we headed to the fields behind the lodge to hunt the real thing. There was plenty of food cover which held a large number of birds. Each time there was a point, we had no idea how many birds would rise or which way they would fly! The birds would range from singles to covey's of eight or more so the shooting was fast and furious. This really made it exciting. We all had plenty of shooting, good shots and more than enough misses.

Before heading home with our cleaned and packaged birds, we enjoyed a great barbecue lunch with all the fixins. Chris's first quail hunt was a roaring success and we're now looking forward to a return visit to hunt deer this fall and turkeys in the spring.