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Arizona Quail Hunting Log October 2007 Hunts: 12-13 October 12-13 October 2007 - Arizona
Dogs - Ready to Go We actually arrived on the night of 11 October around 9pm. We set up camp built a fire and had a pretty good night's sleep. In the morning we were up before dawn and had a fire going to heat up some water. After a quick breakfast we headed out from camp to the east for just a short ways before the lack of action and no sound of quail turned us back to the truck. On the way to our next stop we jumped a covey of Gambles just as we entred the area. We chased them down and my buddy was able to knock one down, which Ice retrieved. We shot at a few more but with no luck, so we moved on.
Pistol - Listening to Quail - There's a Load of Them Down There! Finding a new location was easy, we followed the road to the end, and got out. We could hear the quail calling all around us. As the walk began we immediatly got into a very large covey of Gambles Quail. They flushed wild in the thick brush and the excitement began. Man I love the sound the quail make when the flush. From their calling to the wind as it cuts through their wings in their hurried take off. As we saw some birds out in the open we both fired and got one each on our first shots. Ice picked up my buddy's, but mine was lost in the thick brush (Or so I thought. About 5-10 minutes later Ice showed up with the bird in her mouth. Great find). We realized quick that this was going to be a tough spot to hunt. With the brush as thick as it was there was little chance to get a shot off.
Big Country - Lots of Birds - Rough Shooting There was no wind and by 7:30am it was already pretty warm so the dogs were of little help pointing the birds. We pushed them around a bit then made our way to the top of a hill to get a birds eye view of the area. While we waited we could here the quail calling all around down in the wash. We could see that there was some good open areas and our best bet would be to take it through the thick stuff and push them into the open. This proved to be a pretty good plan. We pushed well over a hundred birds around and the quite a few ended up in the more open parts of the wash were shooting was much easier.
The Close of a Morning Hunt As I mentioned, there wasn't a lot of dog work as far as pointing, but the dogs found all the downed birds but one so that was good. We walked around chasing birds for almost 2 hours and ended up with 10 birds between the 2 of us. There were a few youngsters but for the most part there were full grown birds (which tasted yummy after being cooked with olive oil on the pan that had just cooked up some onions and mushrooms). During the day there was one thing that was pretty constant. Road hunters. They were everywhere throughout each area we hunted. I don't mind finding a covey while driving, but I'm not big on driving around until I see birds. I like to get off the beaten path as much as possible.
Old House We found this cool old mud brick house where we had some cell service. I made a few call into the office while we rested. It's fun to find old placed like this. Who the heck lived there and was it a nice house at the time? From here we drove into town and got some gas and a few food items and we were off. We went to a place I hadn't been for a few years and found a nice shady spot to wait out the afternoon heat. At 3pm we were back at it. We ran into a couple of guys that said they saw some Scaled Quail running around a camp a little was up the road. We headed there and parked a ways off. We headed up the draw and were quickly into a nice sized covey of Gambles. Pistol pointed one and while I attempted to snapped a picture the bird flew off. Oh well. We walked for some time after that without any birds. Then we split up and I heard my buddy take a few shots out of a wash. I guess Copper had ran right through a covey of Gambles and my buddy jumped 2 of them. Walking down the draw for quite a bit we didn't run into any more coveys, but way back we ran into some more people so we jumped over the mountains and down into another draw.
Copper Pointing - Tweedy Bird As we came down the other side of the mountain we headed for a stock take that was pretty fool. Copper my year old pup went on point. If you look REAL close you can see a tweedy bird sitting on the fence. Nice try bud. As I repositioned to get another picture I caught some movement right down by my leg. Note the thick grass in the picture above. The grass was thick and high most everywhere which is great...
Close Call - Rattlesnake Great for resting Rattlers. I saw him coil up and called in the terminator. Fortunately over the 2 day trip he was the only Rattler we encountered. As we reached the stock pond and let the dogs have a quick drink Pistol bumped a covey of Scalies sitting under some brush. Kyle show one. We saw a few stick around on the ground and knew there were a bunch of youngsters in the group. We chased them around and up a hill, but didn't shoot any more. From there we moved on down the draw a ways and didn't see any more birds for a while. We found another water hold and my buddy shot into it and right as he did so we saw a covey of birds flush up on top of the hill. We watched where they landed and after letting the dogs get a short drink we were off. The birds hadn't moved far from where they landed. Pistol pointed them about 50 feet from where I saw them go down. They were running and when the flushed we shot...a long shot...and missed. We went to where they went down and Pistol pointed a single...which we both missed!!!. We didn't find any more of those birds, but only about 100 yards from there we ran into a nice sized covey of Gambles. Pistol pointed and the covey was on the move. Running birds were all over the place with only a few taking flight off ahead and out of range. I ran to get some to fly and took one bird. Then they pretty much were gone. Not sure where they went and it was getting late so we moved on. From there we were pretty much on a mission to get back to the truck before sun down. My buddy had shot all his shells but 2 (even though neither he nor I had much to show for it) so we just kind of trucked along. At one point we split up so I could take the dogs to a watering hole and my buddy ran into another covey of Gambles and spent his last 2 shells. As we circled the mountain we came across that camp where we were told there were some Scalies running around and right as we paralleled the camp a covey of 20 or so birds flushed up. I shot one and went after the rest with no luck. When we got back to the truck we could here that first covey of Gambles calling everyone in for the night. We listened as we cleaned the 4 birds we took and then headed into town. In all that afternoon we pushed 7 covies and shot 4 birds, 2 Scaled and 2 Gambles Quail. Lots of promise for the area except for one thing...the amount of hunters we saw setting up camp as we pulled out. Hope there are still birds left a few weeks from now.
Ice Pointing After eating dinner at the towns only Mexican Food Restaurant we decided to head farther out of town and try some new spots. We finally made it to a new camp site at 9pm. Little scary place and the roaming cattle had me wondering if I'd be stepped on at night. Fortunately, I survived the night with a pretty good night sleep. We headed out up a slow inclined area that could be classified as the foothills of a pretty high mountain. It looked like perfect Scaled Quail Country. About an hour into it Ice pointed a covey of Scalies and my buddy shot one. Once again lots of young birds so we moved on and didn't see anything for else in the 2 hours we were out there. On the way back Copper got lost and we waited about 30 minutes before going out after him. We split up and my buddy found a covey of Gambles and I found Copper. He was back to just about the point we had turned around. He still had plenty of energy. That's one reason I like that dog. He doesn't every seem to quit. We were beat and the lack of birds in the morning had us wanting to call it a day so we did. Homeward bound until the next time. ∞
February 2007 back to November 2007 |
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