GONEHUNTIN' wrote:You can easily make your own out of chain link. Make it in the shape of a "tunnel" about 10" wide and a foot long. Tie a cord to it and just flip it over to launch. We used to weight them with some pieces of lead or lead pike so birds couldn't tip them. Good for quail to pheasant.
Careful here. If you're working with pen raised quail (and some chukar), yanking the tunnel off as GONEHUNTIN describes may not make them fly. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that a fair number of them will just sit still and hunker down. Pheasants are much more likely to flush, but might also just take off running. It all depends on how healthy and wild your pen raised birds are.
For comparison, my DT launchers will fling a quail up to 15 feet straight up. I've never had a quail coming out of one of my launchers fly less than 100 yards. That initial launch gives even weak flyers a kick in the pants and a big head start toward flying far away. And trust me, you want them to fly far away.