Blackburn Fork Preserve is located on Straight Mountain less than 15 minutes from downtown Oneonta, Alabama in Blount County. The Preserve is located at the source of its namesake, the Blackburn Fork of the Little Warrior River. Blackburn Fork Preserve is family owned and operated, and provides 75+ acres of hunting land that include carefully managed fields of grasses and wooded areas of pines and mature hardwoods. We devote time to manage the land in an effort to convert the fields into a natural habitat for bobwhite quail in our area. We have planted millet, milo, sorghum and blue stem grasses to name a few. Our plantings combined with a controlled burn rotation program to help manage undesired growth has created excellent cover for the birds and provides for great hunting fields.

Our goal is to provide excellent hunting experiences for all our guests. Our hunts are organized into small groups to ensure every hunter has plenty of shooting opportunities in a safe environment. We offer guided hunts, self-guided hunts for our those who have their own dogs, and a program to allow you to work your dog at our facility. We hope you will come and enjoy a day with us quail hunting, we know you won’t be disappointed.

Location

2471 Airport Road
Altoona, Alabama 35952

About Us

Patrick Dolan, Proprietor
Patrick has been an avid hunter and fisherman since he was young. He’s hunted deer, geese, ducks, pheasant and quail. His first experience upland hunting was pheasant hunting in Ohio when he was 18 years old. Through the years he was an avid duck hunter, a sport he loved because of the dogs and the ability to socialize with other hunters. When he moved to Blount County Alabama, he met a gentleman who was a quail hunter, Steve Lecroy. Steve and 2 other avid quail hunters, John Walker and James Pate, indoctrinated Patrick into upland hunting. It was these 3 men and Saturdays walking the fields, talking, working dogs and shooting quail that made Patrick realize that quail hunting is a gentleman’s sport, and one he wanted to pursue above all other hunting sports. He loved to watch the dogs work the fields, and the camaraderie of other hunters made him decide that this was the sport he was going to focus on. Upland quail hunting is also one of the few shooting sports that is not difficult to continue into your senior years. It was a result of his friendship with these men and times spent in the fields hunting quail and watching dogs that Blackburn Fork Preserve was born.

“There’s something special about raising a puppy, introducing the puppy to birds, working with them in the field and then one day they just amaze you. I had that experience with my first Llewellin Setter, Merle. On March 6, 2021, I entered Merle into the field trial hosted by Alabama Quail Hunters. Merle was a little over 4 years old and competed in the Gun Dog Division. It was an incredible day! Merle found 6 birds in 15 minutes and put up 157 points. He topped the leader board and held the lead all afternoon.

Many of his competitors were far more experienced than Merle, and they were all good hunting dogs. Some were even the dogs of guides in the area. I just can’t describe the feeling you have when one of your dogs makes you that proud. It’s a special thing that reminds me of that quote, No stronger bond exists than that between a man and his dog.”

Maybe most importantly, Patrick works to introduce young people to the sport. In the South, a lot of young people go deer hunting, but very few ever go Upland Quail Hunting. If you can ever get them to go on a quail hunt, most of them find that the like the shooting action, walking, change of scenery, and socialization as compared to sitting in a tree stand alone waiting for a buck.

Patrick is passionate about the sport, and probably more so about the dogs. He works hard every year to ensure that everyone he knows who owns land and is interested in quail hunting is doing what they can to develop and improve natural habitats for wild birds. He points everyone to the Quail Forever organization to learn about developing natural habitats.