Tallahassee Magazine May/June 2018
Kevin's 2017 Southern Game Fair was featured in the May/June 2018 edition of Tallahassee Magazine.
Kevin's Annual Southern Game Fair Travels Back In Time
Bringing family and community together to benefit conservation.
Named for its mating call - a clear bob-bob-WHITE whistle - the bird celebrated by Kevin's Annual Southern Game Fair is small and plump, with mottled brown and white feathers and a short, curved bill.
To be sure, vast segments of the American populace have no idea what a quail looks like, have not heard the sudden burst of its wings on takeoff and have never passed bits of its meat between their lips.
But in Thomasville, Georgia, on a chilly Friday morning in mid-November, more than 250 people have gathered at Greenwood Plantation, most in the waxed jackets and quilted vests that signify someone who hunts quail or is quail-hunting adjacent.
Some have enthusiastically lined up a range to shoot clay pigeons. Others cluster around fly-fishing presentations, bird dog demonstrations, or metal firepits where chefs have prepared tasting portions of sous vide quail and quail dumplings.
From beneath woolly manes, two husky Clydesdales pull a wooden wagon loaded with children, and people in pairs and foursomes climb aboard helicopters to see the whole of Greenwood, one of the most private places in the world.
All have come to practice what is called the "upland lifestyle," which revolves around hunts in South Carolina's low country and the Texas Hills, at the foothills of the Rockies and here, on the most private quail plantations in South Georgia.
