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Arizona Quail Hunting Log February 2007 Hunts: 03 February, 10 February 03 February 2007 - Eastern, Arizona
Sick Cow Today my brother and a friend went out hunting after scaled quail. My brother decided to pack only his camera so I'm posting about 1/4 of the pictures he actually took. Wish I had a photographer I could take with me on every hunt. We ran into the above cow as we were working along a canyon and he just trotted off to the side of my buddy for a while and then headed my way. He was deaf and missing an eye and probably pretty much blind in the other. Sick looking cow soon to be one of the many hides scattered across the Southwest.
Scale Quail Cutting right to the case, we walked for about 4 hours and jumped one covey that was together and one covey that was spread out over about a football field or so and shot 9 birds.
Blu - Pointing Scale Quail Covey The first covey we came across was pointed by Blu. She held the birds until my friend and I were able run over to her and my brother as we were about 50 yards to their Southeast.
Scale Quail in Flight We walked in on the point and we flushed up a covey of about 20+ birds. They flew in all directions and I think we shot only one bird out of the covey flush. Pistol retrieved the bird.
Blu - Retrieving Scale Quail We went looking after singles and after circling back around we got into a few of them and they were holding tight. Pistol went on point and then when nothing flew up I released her and she bumped a bird. My buddy shot it and we sent Blu in for the retrieve.
Pistol - Pointing Scale Quail From there on Pistol was pretty well locked in and pointed quite a few birds. Above she pointed a double which my friend shot at one and I was able to shoot and hit one. Follow the photos below of what transpired after the above point.
Scale Quail Double
Scale Quail Going Down
Ducks on The River After shooting at a few singles we moved on and took a rest near a river. You can see the ducks taking off after my buddy shot his pistol into the water. Then flying away in the picture below.
Ducks Flying Away
Gamble Quail Feather After a short break we moved on and not far off I bumped a quail and shot it. There were no dogs around so I rounded them up and tried to find the bird. I must not have knocked him down like I thought because the above feather was all we found. It was a Gambles Quail all alone out there. This is what would have made for an AZ Grand Slam had I found the rest of the feathers, legs, beak ect.
Pistol Pointing Scale Quail - Blu on Back
Pistol Retrieving Scale Quail Not far from there we started getting into what turned out to be a covey spread out all over about a football field sized area. We went from one bird to the next with a few doubles tossed in. Above Pistol pointed a bird that I can't remember who shot and she retrieved the bird.
Pistol - Blu Pointing Scale Quail The above picture was a lot of FUN. I snapped this shot as you may be able to tell by the quality of picture. My friend and I walked in on this point and moved pasted the dogs. Nothing flushed up so we turned around and started walking back to them when just feet away from Pistol a bird flushed up, flew high for a second to avoid us and the dogs and headed right over my brother. We missed that one.
Pistol Pointing Scale Quail
Scale Quail
Pistol Retrieving Scale Quail Above Pistol pointed a single and Blu Backed. My friend went in and shot the bird and the Pistol made the retrieve. Thanks to my brother we have a short picture series here to go along with the fun.
Scale Quail Flush
Scale Quail Down If you look close you can see a bird flushing out between Pistol and I. I wasn't ready for the shot and I can't remember why, but thanks to the pictures I remember the kill. I also learned something that in all the action this year I hadn't paid much attention to...Pistol breaks on the flush. As soon as that bird is going so is she and I guess that's why I get a lot of good retrieves with live birds. She's on them before they can run off. Not as bad a thing as I use to think.
Pistol Pointing Scale Quail
In the picture sequence above you see Pistol on point. Then my friend and I walk in. I let him empty his side-by-side, then I took two shots at him and we chalked one up to next years breading crop.
Blu Retrieving Scale Quail Once again Pistol found another bird and one of us shot it. This time Blu made the retrieve and we moved on. back to the truck. Once at the truck we ran into some pig hunters and talked with them for awhile. Turn out we are now going Pheasant hunting in South Dakota with them in October. Great to meet new people. We had seen a quite a few people cruising the road looking for pigs or coyotes. We even picked up a group that sounded like they were hunting lion. Sounded fun. From there we moved on to hunt some Mearns.
Soaked Earth The higher we went the more snow and mud we ran into. The road we wanted to go down was pretty well un-travelable so we hauled off and parked in a different area to get to the hunt. It was a sloshy walk with about 1/2 inch of standing water in most places. It was a treat to get higher and into more snow and frozen earth. Once we got into the "grass" we almost immediately got into the birds. With the grass being flattened like in the above picture the birds must have seen us coming as they flushed out about 20 yards in front of us.
Mearns Flush
I was the only one in shooting range and got a shot off at the initial flush and missed. The above picture is of the second flush. How many birds can you see? If you look close...really close...you can see 3 just about in the middle of the picture from the mid-top down to the mid-bottom. The one on the bottom is actually flying sideways. Pretty neat. Unfortunately in the second picture you can see the 3 birds still in frame with the sideways flyer one on it's way to the ground. We moved on and bumped a few of the singles but didn't get any good shots. Then we headed up higher and saw yet another covey flush out in front of us. This time it was quite a ways off so we went to where they had flown and started getting into birds.
RT Pointing Mearns Single
Mearns Quail Take Once we got into the singles they flushed up at random. I shot one. Then RT displayed the only bird work for the Mearns hunting. Going on point above. When no bird was flushed my brother released him and he moved up about 15 feet and went on point again (2nd picture). Unfortunately my friend and I were a ways off and the bird flushed with neither of us getting a shot at it. I did however shoot one that flushed out in front of me and my friend did the same.
Water/Snow There was a lot of water everywhere. It was a good sight even though it made the hunting a bit more challenging.
Freckles Pointing We made 2 more stops after that looking for Gambles Quail and we were unsuccessful. At our last stop on the way back to the truck my brother lost his dog Freckles and he spent the next hour and a half looking for him. We made it home late that night. In all we had a great time and the weather was great.
10 February 2007 - Eastern Arizona
First Gambles of the Day Today we headed out for the final day of Quail hunting for the season. It was a WARM day. We took a bit of time to finally get to our first stop and when we arrived the Game & Fish was there and he checked to make sure we were legal. From there we headed out. As we walked Pistol went on point. When she started panting and nothing flew up I let her go and then with in a few seconds about 15 yards from where she had gone on point a female Gambles Quail flushed up. I shot and missed. We moved on and within a few more minutes my buddies puppy bumped a covey of quail. We went off after them and flushed up a few and they were holding tight. The dogs were almost useless with no breeze and super warm conditions. While my one buddy was looking for his pup that had run off my other friend bumped a bird and shot it. We found it and stopped to wait for our other buddy who found his pup and we moved on.
Mountain Lion Print We ended up down in a canyon with some good water running through and I found the above Lion print in the sand. Pretty neat. We moved up out of the canyon and took a long walk. I think my buddy's dog jumped some more birds and we had a hard time locating any that didn't fly off the cliff. There was one more covey found and this time I got some action from Pistol.
Pistol Pointing Gambles Quail I walked in on Pistols point and had 2 birds flush up one after the other. I hit the first then hit the second. Pistol retrieved the first but not the second. I went looking for the 2nd and found it 2 feet from where the first went down. There were a few more flushed birds and I think my friend ended up with a few more and we moved on. Eventually we turned around and started heading back to the truck. We moved down into a canyon and not long after doing so Pistol went on point. I commented to my buddy "I'll pretend like she is serious" (there had been many unproductive) and then as I moved in my friend saw the birds running on the other side of the canyon. We moved in and the flushed up the hill out of shooting range. We saw where they landed and called my other buddy in with his dogs and they bumped the birds. So we went left and he went right and we were able to get a few more shots off on those birds. At one point my friend said as we walked through some nice looking grass "wouldn't it be cool if one flew out of here" and right then a bird flew out of the grass. I think we got that one. We chased a few more singles and then started the long, hot walk back to the truck. I think it may have been warmer then opening day. Once back at the truck we moved on to a new location and had a bit less luck. We found one covey that flushed way out and a few singles that we bumped and that was it. We were hot and tired so we headed home.
Gambles Quail - Closing Day in all we ended up with 10 birds between the 3 of us. There was a fair amount of shooting which is always fun and I know I hit 3 that I didn't find and I think that was about the same for everyone. Until next season, adieu.
January 2007 back to October 2007 |
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