KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- When Johnny Everhart was growing up in Clinton, Mo., he never imagined hunting would ever evolve into what it has become today.
At the time, there were quail everywhere. Everyone had a bird dog, and fields were full of hunters on weekends.
Deer and wild turkeys? If anyone saw so much as a track, it was front-page news in weekly newspapers.
Now? It's just the opposite.
Deer and turkeys are thriving in Missouri's woodlands. And quail are few and far between.
"It's just unbelievable how much things have changed in my lifetime," said Everhart, 65, who lives near Blairstown, Mo. "When I was a kid, it was nothing to walk a half-mile out of town and kick up seven or eight coveys of quail. We'd always shoot our limit, it was just a matter of how fast we would do it.
"Now, we just don't see quail. They're practically gone. But we have deer and turkeys everywhere."
Everhart isn't the only hunter marveling at the changes. Once hunting season arrives, plenty of others reflect on how much things have changed in their lifetime:
--The quail once was king in Missouri. No longer. In the late 1960s, almost 4 million birds were shot annually in the state. By last year, that total had dropped to 191,172.
--Meet the new king, the whitetail deer. As recently as 1980, Missouri's deer herd was still somewhat limited and firearms hunters took fewer than 50,000 whitetails a year. But a population boom in the 1980s and 1990s changed that. Now, huge harvests are the norm. Last year, for example, firearms hunters took 237,253 deer.
--Missouri's turkey hunting also has changed drastically in a short amount of time. Consider that the first modern turkey season didn't open until 1960. Now consider that hunters have taken more than 60,000 turkeys in recent years, making Missouri one of the nation's best turkey-hunting states.
--In the 1970s, the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in north-central Missouri was known for its outstanding Canada goose hunting. Geese flocked to the refuge by the hundreds of thousands and hunters filled harvest quotas in as little as two weeks some years. Now, good luck shooting a goose there. Migration patterns have shifted and Canadas no longer go there the way they once did.
--Missouri isn't the only state experiencing quail woes. In Kansas, widely known as one of the best quail-hunting states, there also are problems.
In 1982, 166,000 hunters took 3 million quail -- a season about which many still reminisce. By last year, there were fewer than 75,000 hunters, and they shot 384,000 birds.
--Small-game hunting, once wildly popular in Missouri and Kansas, has become a dying pastime. Rabbits and squirrels are still plentiful, especially in Kansas, but wildlife biologists lament that the interest in hunting them has plummeted.
Get the idea? Things aren't the way they used to be for hunters in Missouri and Kansas.
For better or worse.
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So why the major shift?
Wildlife biologists credit -- or blame, depending on your perspective -- long-term habitat change.
During the 1960s, Missouri's landscape was a quiltwork of small fields bordered by brushy cover -- ideal habitat for quail. Deer and turkeys were still struggling to re-establish themselves after almost being extirpated in the area in the early 1900s.
Eventually, though, changes in agricultural practices made a difference. Small family farms gave way to bigger operations, "cleaner" farming removed brush and consolidated small fields into larger ones, and pesticides killed the bugs that chicks feed on.
That led to a steady decline in the upland gamebird populations in Missouri. The dotted line on the graph showing quail harvest and hunter numbers has been steadily dropping since the early 1970s.
The process has been delayed in Kansas, where there are still areas with a good mix of crops and cover. But there, too, modern farming practices have had an effect.
Southeast Kansas was once one of the state's best regions for quail hunting. Now it is one of the worst. Bobwhite populations have plunged as farming practices have changed.
The good news is that there are still spikes in the population when weather allows for good nesting and survival. This is one of those years in Kansas. Quail numbers are up and the hunting outlook is good.
But wildlife biologists still worry about the long-term implications of habitat loss.
"Sometimes, it's such a slow process that even hunters can't notice much change in the land. They can't figure out why there aren't as many quail on that property as there used to be," said Jim Pittman, small-game coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. "But those changes can be very subtle.
"What we're seeing is that some areas are transitioning into more woody cover, and that's made a difference. Maybe areas that once had brush and vegetation now have trees.
"That's good for the deer and turkeys, but not necessarily for the quail and pheasants."
Steve Rogers of Liberty knows all about change.
He remembers the days of his youth when he would go to Swan Lake and enjoy some of the best goose hunting one could imagine.
"They would limit you to 10 shotgun shells a day, but you didn't need them," said Rogers, 55, who runs Rogers Sporting Goods in Liberty. "You would only need a few shells to fill your limit.
"There were geese everywhere. It didn't seem to matter which blind you would draw, you knew you were going to get some shooting."
Indeed, the national wildlife refuge attracted as many as 275,000 Canada geese some years and the hunting was fabulous. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imposed harvest quotas on the hunters, and those standards were regularly met.
"We had one year when the season just lasted two weeks," said Annmarie Krmpotich, a biological science technician at Swan Lake. "We'd have hunters from across the country coming here."
But that is in the past tense.
Today, Krmpotich says, Swan Lake reaches peak numbers of no more than 15,000 to 20,000 Canadas. Oh, the wetlands still can draw huge numbers of snow geese and ducks. But the Canadas that brought the region fame no longer show up the way they used to.
Part of that can be traced to a shift in migration patterns of the Eastern Prairie Population, the geese that once passed through Swan Lake. Another major factor is that the geese now have more options for rest stops on their way south.
"In the past, a lot of times the geese would fly straight from Manitoba to Swan Lake," said Dave Graber, a waterfowl biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation. "There just weren't a lot of places for them to stop.
"But over the years, there have been other refuges built to the north of us and there are even more options within Missouri. That has spread the birds out."
It also has changed the harvest. The Swan Lake Zone once accounted for 80 to 85 percent of Missouri's Canada goose harvest, Graber said. Now, it makes up 10 percent or less, he said.
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Mike Blair laughs when he looks back on his first deer hunts in Kansas.
"If we saw a track, we'd set up on it for three days," said Blair, a videographer and photographer for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. "The first year I bow hunted (in the 1970s), I was out 60 days and only saw three deer.
"And I never did get a shot at one."
Now, Blair is disappointed if he doesn't see at least three deer every time he hunts. And he regularly passes up bucks that other hunters would shoot, waiting for a trophy.
He has taken many bucks over the years, and knows through his scouting and trail cameras that there are many trophy whitetails still roaming the Kansas woods.
"Sometimes I'll think about the years when I first started deer hunting in Kansas, and I can't believe how far we've come in such a short amount of time," he said.
Others feel the same way in both Kansas and Missouri.
Kansas and Missouri, when compared with states such as Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin, have a short history when it comes to deer hunting.
Both states were closed to hunting in the early 1900s after deer had grown close to extirpation. That led wildlife agencies in both states to begin reintroduction efforts, trapping deer and releasing them in areas where they had been scarce.
Protected by no-hunting regulations, the herd grew and spread into areas that surprised even wildlife biologists. For example, deer took to northern Missouri, which is farm country, and parts of Kansas where there is little timber.
By 1944, Missouri opened its first modern deer season. By 1965, Kansas had followed suit.
Today, both states are destinations for the nation's deer hunters.
Missouri firearms and bow hunters combine to shoot almost 300,000 deer -- a total that wildlife biologists thought they'd never see. And Kansas hunters took more than 80,000 deer last year, and the state is still known for its record-book bucks.
"If you would have told me 25 years ago that we'd be shooting this many deer, I would have thought you were nuts," said Lonnie Hansen, deer biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation. "It really is something the way our deer hunting has grown."
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HUNTING 2009: THEN AND NOW
MISSOURI DEER
--THEN: Into the early 1960s, it was rare to even see a deer in some parts of Missouri. After a relocation and stocking program by the Missouri Department of Conservation, the herd grew, but it took time. Just 30 years ago, firearms hunters shot only 53,164 deer -- a lot in those days. In fact, that 1979 total was a record at the time.
--NOW: Firearms and archery hunters combine to shoot almost 300,000 deer annually, and Missouri is considered one of the best deer-hunting states in the nation.
MISSOURI TURKEYS
--THEN: Many Missouri landowners can remember a time when they would never even see a wild turkey. By the early 1950s, surveys estimated there were only 3,000 turkeys in Missouri. The first modern hunting season didn't open until 1960.
--NOW: Missouri is now considered a premier turkey-hunting state, thanks to a reintroduction program by the Department of Conservation. Hunters shot a record 60,744 birds in the 2004 spring season, tops in the nation. Poor nesting seasons have limited harvests since then, but populations are still higher than most states.
MISSOURI QUAIL
--THEN: With an abundance of small fields bordered by thick brush and vegetation, Missouri once was an inviting home for quail -- and those who hunted them. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, hunters annually shot more than 3 1/2 million birds.
--NOW: Cleaner farming and large-scale loss of habitat have resulted in a major decline in quail numbers. That has been reflected in the hunting. By 2008, hunter numbers had dropped to a record low 21,459 (compared with almost 180,000 in the late '60s and early '70s). The harvest had plunged to 191,172.
KANSAS PHEASANTS
--THEN: The late 1970s and early 1980s were the glory days for Kansas pheasant hunting. From 1979 to 1983, there were four years when the harvest exceeded the 1 million mark.
--NOW: As with many species, habitat loss has taken its toll. Last year, the pheasant harvest dropped to 636,000. But there is hope. In 2007, hunters shot 878,000. And surveys indicate Kansas has a good population of pheasants this year.
SWAN LAKE CANADA GEESE
--THEN: The refuge in north-central Missouri was recognized as one of the nation's best destinations for Canada-goose hunting in the 1970s. In fact, there were years when the wetlands complex attracted more than 275,000 geese. The hunting was fabulous. In 1973, hunters reached the season harvest quota of 17,500 in 14 days.
--NOW: Things are far different. Migration patterns have shifted and the Canadas no longer flock to Swan Lake the way they once did. Now no more than 10,000 honkers stop. And the hunting has dried up. It's so inconsequential now that the Department of Conservation did away with the special hunting unit in 2004 and made Swan Lake part of the North Zone.
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