The second morning we awoke to a strong wind and about an inch of snow on the ground. None of us had ever hunted this area so we drove around, looking for something that looked good to us. We thought we knew what the quail would like but not having hunted scaled quail before, we weren’t sure. We turned dogs out in a few places, early, without any luck.
Josie on point.
Jim Smith’s female and Mann’s mother Dottie.
Jim’s female and Mann’s sister Bay Lee.
The few quail hunters we talked to told us how to hunt these quail, on the large properties. Some of these places have more oil wells than I’ve ever seen. In some areas there are oil well pumps within 30 or 40 yards of another pump. The good part of this is they build roads all over these properties. We tried just walking behind our dogs but that wasn’t as productive as driving the roads until we saw quail.
Jim works his dogs in front of a side by side 4-wheeler at home and they run in front of his truck real well. He turned all 4 loose and just drove slowly down the oil field roads. The dogs hunted on each side of the road out to a couple hundred yards.
Vince and I had tried it with our dogs but they didn’t understand. They were behind more than in front as they looked for us. The dogs had never hunted other than with us on foot, where we could be seen. We followed Jim for a while then split off from him. As we drove Dottie came in front of us and when she was going with the wind, a single quail flushed.
I called Jim on the cell phone and he said Dottie had pointed a covey that hadn’t held for them to get to her. We stopped and turned dogs loose. Vince turned Ally and Maggie loose and I used Mann and Sally. This was a well educated covey. We saw several of them but never got close. I don’t think anyone fired a shot although we had a few points but the birds didn’t hold. We gathered up our dogs and tried another place.
We drove for quite a ways looking before we finally settled on a place. The weather had warmed and the snow was gone. Vince and I drove slowly around a place until he saw a covey of quail near the road. As we watched them, they flew to the south into the wind. We saw a road near where they had flown so we went to the south 200 yards and turned west on another road.
Vince turned Indy and Maggie out and I put the e-collar and GPS collar on Mann and the GPS on Josie. As we started about 15 quail flushed and flew to the north west. We saw where some of them lit and followed. The people we had talked to said that to get the scaled quail to hold you need to flush them twice. This should have been the second time for these birds.
Maggie, Vince’s English cocker Spaniel
Mann and Indy did a good job on the birds and we had a lot of dog work. One quail flushed to my left and went down when I shot. I started to it with Josie and Mann went on point to the north west of me. I threw my cap near where I thought the quail had fallen and went to him. He had a single that Vince shot and Maggie retrieved. We went back toward where my dead bird was.
Josie wanted my hat so I picked it up. She started working back and forth in the wind and went on point. She was within about 4 or 5 yards of where I had thrown the hat. As I walked to her she jumped in and came up with the dead bird. I was close and grabbed her collar. I petted her until she dropped the quail.
We worked the side of the hill for a while and a few birds flushed ahead of us but we had several points. We decided to check the other side of the east west road. We weren’t sure if this was the covey we had seen flush earlier. A couple of singles flushed as we worked along the edge of road.
We moved over a couple hundred yards further south. Indy and Mann made several points on singles and small groups. We think that the first quail we saw when we turned dogs loose were another covey. The birds we found well to the south of the truck were the first covey that had flushed earlier, we think.
We wound up killing 10 quail and while we were into these Jim and Rusty found a covey to the west of us. Rusty had shot 3 while Jim had taken pictures. Vince and I drove over to where Jim and Rusty were. Jim had his dogs out working the sides of the road. One of them went on point.
Indy, Vince’s German short haired pointer.
Vince grabbed his gun and went to where Rusty was. They headed toward the dogs. When they got close the dogs went to trailing. All four dogs pointed and honored several times but the quail kept running. They never stopped.
They loaded back up in their trucks and we followed Jim’s dogs. We passed an oil well and the dogs were on point again. Vince and Rusty followed the dogs with Jim behind them taking pictures.
Rusty, Jim and Vince
I have leashes with snaps on both ends. At the oil well were posts where I could tie all of my dogs out and feed them. While I was getting the food ready for the dogs I saw the dogs point and move several times then a covey flushed well ahead of the dogs. Everyone came back and we cleaned birds and fed our dogs. It was getting late so we quit for the day.
Each day we hunt we are learning more about this area. We want to come back next season but not wait until the last week. There is almost unlimited amount of land and with good conditions there seem to be plenty of carry over, for a great year, next season.