Page 34 - 2020 Jan/Feb Outdoor Oklahoma

He said the bag limit back then
ProViDeD was 10 birds a day.

“Once I learned to shoot, I’d get
a limit just about every time I went.
My mom would cook ’em up for
breakfast with biscuits and gravy
and quail. Not only would she cook
them, she’d clean them! Pretty hard
to beat!”
The 1970s also brought quality
quail hunting, Knipp recalled.
“You could find places out in
western Oklahoma where you’d
come up behind your dog on point,
the birds flush and you shoot. They
fly out across the terrain, and about
halfway across there, they’d pick up
another covey that would just get up
and go with them.
Most years of his adult life Knipp made a
trip north to enjoy some pheasant hunting. “And they’d land on a hillside, and you’d head out towards them. And
before you could get there, your dog had pointed a third covey.
“It was really easy to limit out.”
Knipp went quail hunting every chance he could get, and he’d take vaca-
tion time scheduled around hunting. As a pipeline worker, he had jobs
across the country, and he was able to learn how hunters in other states
pursued quail.
“Once I learned
to shoot, I’d get Dogs and Decline ProViDeD
When he was about 10, Knipp
a limit just about was given a hunting dog called a

every time I went. “dropper,” which is a half-pointer
and half-setter. “And that’s when
My mom would I really got into it. All I really
cook ’em up for wanted to do was mess with that
dog and watch him hunt quail.
breakfast with “Even if we didn’t get any

biscuits and gravy birds, as long as I was following
my dog, I was happy.”
and quail. Not Knipp was caring for 27 dogs
At the height of his “dog days,”
only would she (counting two fresh litters). “It’s

cook them, she’d a lot of work, but that way you
don’t wear down dogs; you can
clean them! Pretty always change out dogs.”
In the good days of the 1960s
hard to beat!” and early 1970s, Knipp’s dogs

got plenty of work. But then the
number of birds started dwin-
dling. Quail hunting was slow in Knipp enjoys most all types of hunting. He once
took two turkeys with one shell.
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