Well, got back from my first hunting trip to Cali yesterday and I must say... we had a blast!! One of my hunting goals for this year was to take all six species of quail in the US. We made the drive from here in Tucson thru LA, and on to a small town near the coast called Maricopa. From there, we hunted south towards Santa Barbara. Our main objective on this day was Mountain quail with some California quail mixed in for good measure. Well, I'll tell you this.. those MT quail are some elusive critters and live in some NASTY thick and steep country. Thick pines in the air, and sage so thick on the ground that you could hardly walk thru it. Tough hunting. We heard several coveys calling throughout the day, but never got into any of them. We did get into a bunch of Cali quail coveys though and I got a handful of them. My first ones!! Beautiful birds. Saw some black tail deer as well. Pretty deer. We hunted all day out in that area , then drove thru Bakersfield on towards the desert out east to the town of Mojave.. From there, we hunted the next day for wild Chukar as our main quarry.. with a sprinkling of Cali quail mixed in. Talk about a crappy day to hunt birds!! The winds were at least 50 mph. But, we were there and the dogs were ready, so hunt we did! Those Chukars live in the nastiest, lava rock mts you can think of. More like sheep hunting than bird hunting. We finally found a few in a steep canyon. As we were walking along, 3 birds flushed wild out of a thicket and up and over the mt. My hunting partner decided to go up and over the top to see if he could find them and I was going to stay in the bottom and meet him on the othr side of the hill. I made it around and was waiting for around 15 minutes for Rich to show up when I noticed several other hunters coming from the same general area where Rich was supposed to be coming from.. Then I noticed smoke coming from their guns... then I saw them.. a covey of about 30 Chukars coming right into the canyon where I am standing!! The entire covey screams by me at Mach 5 and I watch them land in the EXACT bush where the 3 had just flushed out of!! I scream at Rich to run back to the spot where we split up and to hustle. I run as fast as I could in the canyon and get the pups working back to the thicket where I saw the birds land. As soon as I see Rich above me, I move the dogs in. They both lock up on point.. I take about 2 more steps and the thicket erupts with Chukars!! I dump the first one I have a bead on, then another comes into the same field of view. Bam.. another one goes down!! A double on my first wild Chukar!! Unreal!! I could have had a third, but forgot to reload my gun in all the excitement! I watch Rich knock a ton of feathers off a bird, but he said the bird kept going up and over the mt top. We try to find some of the singles, but come up with nada. We hunt the reminder of the day, and find a few more Cali quail coveys and get a few out of it, but that covey of Chukars was the only one. All in all, it was a great time. We got into plenty of birdies, and got to hunt some country and some birds that I've never seen before. I wished I could have gotten a shot a those Mt quail, but that just gives me a reason to go back this fall!!
Here a a pic of the country where those Mt quail live. Steep and thick!! and COLD!!
Here is a pic of a few male Cali quail that I got that first day. They are beautiful birds..
Here is a pic of the country we hunted Chukars and Cali qauil in..nasty, steep stuff!!
And here a a couple of pics of my pups, Penny and Virgil with spoils of a good day hunting Chukar. They did great on all of the hunts in the different terrain out there. They were sure proud of those Chukars!! If you look closely, you can see a Cali quail next to the Chukars in the pics. It shows the size difference in them. Those male Chukars are big birds and so much fun to hunt!!
Sorry for the long post!! Hope all of you enjoy it!
