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Arizona Quail Hunting Log - February 2009 Hunts: 7 February 7 February 2009 - Gambles & Scaled Quail Hunt
Pistol Pointing Gambles Quail Covey For our final hunt of the year we headed out to do some Scaled & Gambles Quail hunting in some of our favorite country. This is some open country and walking is just part of what you do. At the end of the season it's not so bad and actually I quite enjoy it. So off we went walking across the country looking for birds. As we motored along I found Pistol on point and when nothing flew I released her.
Gambles Quail Covey Flushing Pistol worked up about 15 yards and went on point again. I didn't believe there were any birds there thinking these last season types would either be running or flying and so I just walked around the cactus near where Pistol was pointing with my gun down. To my surprise up flew a covey of Gambles Quail between Pistol and I. Pulling up my gun I fired off 4 shots...and got nothing in return.
Looking for Gambles Quail We walked on and hadn't gone far when we heard some quail calling to our left. I love those Gambles Quail and I love the fact that they give themselves away! Heading out after them it took us a while but we finally got into some birds and got them to flush up.
Scaled Quail Flying Away After chasing the gambles around for a little while we moved up a shallow draw and it wasn't long until the dogs were pointing. Point...walk in...nothing. The hot air and little breeze made it tough for the dogs and finally a bird flushed up behind me and I missed again. This time however it was a Scaled Quail. We moved on and it wasn't long until we got into the covey.
Pistol Pointing Scaled Quail Covey This was a rather fun covey because it was all spread out along the flat country. It was like getting into a covey, breaking up singles and getting into a bunch of them. We moved these birds from flush to shoot, to flush to shoot having a great time for quite a little while.
Blue & Short Hairs Pointing Scaled Quail Singles This was Blu's first trip out this year since she went from an expecting mother at the opening season to a mother of 8 in December. Here she pointed a scaled quail single that Doug was able to get.
Blu Retrieving Scaled Quail She scooped up the bird while I was off looking for one of my own which I never found. That would prove to be a little to common today. We ended up loosing a few birds on this trip. Some we found the dogs would just go over and over without even smelling them.
Blu With Cactus Crown Blu's never been one to shy away from cactus. In this picture she comes running in with a nice little cactus crown on proud display.
Pistol Pointing Scaled Quail Moving all around we pushed up some more birds and according to my brothers GPS we found 6 birds and took you guess it...0. There was a lot of shooting today...not many birds to show for it.
Zeus Pointing Scaled Quail The dogs were doing a lot of pointing as the birds moved around. Zeus nailed a nice single here that Doug was able to knock down.
Blu Retrieving Scaled Quail Blu must have been around and she ran in and scoop up this bird too. Looks like she had most of this one in her mouth which made for a nice picture.
Scaled & Gambles Quail We made 3 more stops on this trip which were all unsuccessful. Our 2nd stop was just after our first when we saw a covey of Gambles Quail crossing the road out in front of us. As often happens in this situation we were on the chase and with a few exceptions the birds ran and the ones that did fly didn't make great targets. Our 3rd stop was pretty bad. While it wasn't a long walk it was a smoking hot one with absolutely no birds. On our 4th walk it was just Doug and I and I bumped one bird at the beginning and then we saw nothing more after that. Tough few hours. We decided to call it a day getting most of our action in the first walk taking 5 Scaled Quail and 2 Gambles Quail. We cleaned the birds and head to the burrito shop. Here's hoping for a great rainy season and a great population of Gambles & Scaled Quail for next year. I love hunting these 2 great birds. ∞ Back to January 2009 or go to September 2009 |
