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Arizona Gambles, Scaled and Mearns Quail Hunting Log January 2006 Hunts: 2 January, 13-14 January, 27 January 2 January 2006 - Gambles Quail Hunt North of the Valley
Jeep Ride into Gambles Country My 13 year old brother-in-law wanted to go quail hunting for his first time today so we headed out early in the morning with some friends in our Jeeps. My buddies Jeep's 4x4 wouldn't engage and so getting to where we wanted to go turned out to be quite a challenge. I had to pull him up or out of something twice. He had a near death experience when his Jeep started rolling back down a hill on loose rock and almost rolled into a ditch off to the side of the road. As it was he ended up off the road and that was scary enough as it was.
My Brother-In-Law on his first Quail Hunt We decided to take a lower road and started hunting from a new location. We split up in 2's and headed out. At first it was pretty slow going and some pretty hard walking up hill with lots of thick cover. Then I heard some birds calling up ahead and forgot all about the walking. We bumped a huge covey out of a watering hole and my bro-in-law had a few shots (first shots at quail) but didn't connect with anything. We headed off after some single and I was able to get one which Pistol didn't point, but did retrieve.
Pistol and I with 1 Gambles Quail We continued to move very slowly looking for singles and finally I got down into a thick canyon and flushed a few out so my bro-in-law could shoot some more. He did but was unable to hit anything. Seeing as he is very good at skeet & trap it must have been the excitement of shooting something that was alive and moving fast. After humping around for a while my bro-in-law needed a rest so I headed off looking for birds on my own.
Pistol Pointing We walked up some steep hills and after a short while I heard some birds calling and headed in their direction. Pistol bumped a group of 6 birds within range, but I didn't shoot as I wanted to shoot over a point. We moved on and bumped a few of the singles from that covey but they were bumping way out and going straight down the mountain. As we rounded the side of the mountain Pistol went on point and I walked in the general direction of her point and flushed out 8-10 birds of which I was able to get a double, of which Pistol made an awesome find and retrieve on one and we never found the 2nd bird. We headed down...way down the mountain after the others and it got so steep I was sliding down with the avalanches I was creating...which was pretty fun. I saw some birds flush and headed in the direction they landed. Pistol pointed the group of 4 birds of which I again shot 2. Pistol was hot on the trail of one but the running/sliding bird was too fast with all the obsicals and we never found it. The second we found a large group of feathers where it went down but again with the steepness of the hill and thick cover were unable to recover the bird. I saw one more bird flush up right next to me and let it fly as I was pretty sure getting it after shot would be too dificult.
Pistol & I with 2 Gambles Quail I met back up with my bro-in-law and we headed back to the Jeeps. When we got there we spoke with our buddies and they had ran into 6 coveys and had some really good dog work from TrainWreck.
Ed Watching Gambles Quail
Gut & the Guys moving out after Quail We headed out one last time looking for birds, this time we left my bro-in-law at the Jeeps and the 3 of us headed down a wash. We bumped a covey of 10-12 birds of which Ed was able to get 2 and as we headed out after the singles which we saw running out in front of us a group of people on quads and dirt bikes stopped right between us and the birds. In the time it took them to move on the birds had disappeared and we called it a day.
13-14 January 2006 - Region 12 American Field Trail - Robbins Butte Wildlife Management Area Information coming soon. 27 January 2006 - San Carlos Indian Reservation
Pistol Pointing Scaled Quail Today Kyle and I went out the the San Carlos Indian Reservation for what was, I think, Kyle's second quail hunt in his life. More importantly it was his first quail hunt with his new 12 gauge side-by-side. We started the day off looking for Scaled Quail and after an hour of walking we finally found our first covey. Pistol pointed off to our right about 50 yards and when we got there the birds jumped up about 15 yards from us. Kyle got a shot off but from where I was it was to far for a clean shot on a wild covey. We headed in the general direction the flew and didn't see a thing. On our way back to where we flushed them a single Scaled Quail came running out of the grass into a clearing and Kyle shot it...on the ground. I made fun of him the rest of the day for his shot! From there we took a large circle around the area and within 30 minutes Pistol found another covey. I was able to get one bird and then took another single, but we were unable to find any other singles in the covey.
Pistol Pointing Scaled Quail We started to head back to the Jeep and Pistol went on point then moved around a bit and then went on point again. I knew there must be something there and yelled for Kyle to come running. As I was waiting I saw a few cotton tops pop up and start running towards Pistol. They flew up towards her...then veared towards me then took another sharp turn and headed off. I was able to get one large male and we didn't see any of the singles.
4 Scaled Quail with us and the Dogs In all we found 3 coveys in 3 hours and ended up with 4 Scaled Quail. Pistol had some great finds. It's great when you see a dog on point 50-100 yards away and get into birds you wouldn't have found on your own. From there we headed to a new area I had never been and went on the search for more birds. It looked to be at one time great Mearns Quail Country but a fire and burned all the long grass and the new stuff was only about 6 inches high. We got into one covey of Gambles and Kyle was able to get one bird out of the covey and the rest of the birds disapeared.
Pistol and us with 3 Gambles Quail From there we headed to an area I had been to 2 years earlier where I'm pretty sure not a lot of people go. We got out of the Jeep and headed for the location I had busted a covey 2 years ago. As we were walking I heard a noise in some brush and stopped to listen...Gambles Quail. They came flying out all over the place...in almost the EXACT same spot as 2 years before. We chased them around a bit but most of them that stayed in the area flew down a cliff after we missed them so we went looking in the other direction for more. After walking over a small ridge we found Pistol on point. We walked in and flushed a 12-15 bird covey of Gambles Quail and we missed the shots. We chased them down and had a few wild flushes that made for fun shooting.
My new favorite Hunting Mobile We got back to the Jeep and headed for home. On our way down into a canyon Kyle spotted a huge covey of what seemed to be a mix of Scaled Quail and Gambles Quail. We jumped out and gave chase. They were flushing all over but mostly down into the wash. Kyle was able to get a good shot and got one. I missed the few good shots I had and because it was getting close to dark we headed back to the Jeep and went home.
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