I got my Pointing Dog Journal and Tom Davis had an article about mixed bag hunting. More than one specie on the same hunt. Most of us that hunt Missouri and Kansas have done the pheasant, quail mixed bag in the same day but I got to thinking about other hunts where I took more than one specie in the same day. Several times in Missouri I have killed a single woodcock along with quail.
Sally on point 144 yards off the walk-in. I set the camera on the fence corner post.
Mann honoring Sally.
My Baker 5 pound 20 gauge side by side and a few quail.
But a lot of years ago Bob Eades and I had walked a long way through some really thick, tall fescue. It was a half mile in to a bluff that separated the fescue CRP from a pasture. Along the bluff were several coveys of quail. We had a good hunt then we had to walk the half mile back out to the truck through the tall, thick fescue.
We were about as tired as two people could be when the dogs went on point in a little low spot with a few scattered trees. Thinking it was another covey of quail we moved in to flush. Two woodcocks flushed. I dropped one but Bob didn’t even shoot. He had never seen a woodcock and didn’t know they were game birds.
We had a lot of dog work on several woodcocks that had settled into the low spot. This spot wasn’t even wet like I thought woodcock needed. It must have been a flight that landed in this area to rest from their migration. We wound up shooting 6 or 8 birds in a real small area.
Several years ago I went to Scobey Montana area for the opening of prairie grouse season. It opened the first of September. I had never hunted sharp tail grouse before nor ever hunted in Montana. From reading I picked the Scobey area. From my house it was a two day drive.
I had some BLM maps of the area and when I arrived I started trying to figure out where to hunt. I saw a guy combining wheat. I grabbed a cold bottle of water from my cooler and walked out into the field. When he stopped I gave him the water and asked about hunting an area that was on this farm but away from the wheat field.
He said he just worked for the farmer but the guy that owned the land was coming across the field in his truck. When I talked to him he said there weren’t many birds here but he had another place I could hunt. He told me how to get there and told me to park by the tree. I must have looked at him kind of funny but he said, “you may be surprised but in that 8 mile drive that will be the only tree close to the road.” I parked by the tree.
Canada was across the road. The farmer had told me that there were usually some sharp tails in a low spot about a quarter of a mile from the road. The low spot was just a wide, shallow draw with tall grass in the pasture.
Josie pointing scaled quail.
It was pretty warm. I turned out 3 or 4 dogs and started to the low spot. When we got close Lady went on point with Lucky honoring. When I walked in about 5 sharp tail grouse flushed just a few yards in front of me. I shot once and a sharp tail dropped. Lady went to retrieve and a late flusher got up and I dropped it too.
Lady brought me the first one and went for the second one. That was the first sharp tails I had ever hunted or seen up close. We made a big circle around this pasture and back to the truck. It was really warm by the time we got back so I watered the dogs and put them in their boxes.
I think the limit on the sharp tail was 3. I went back to another area that I had been told about late that evening, after it cooled off. I left the truck and made a large circle and was almost back to the truck when Ally went on point. With the other dogs out a head of us I walked in front of Ally and a single bird got up. The bird flew almost straight up with the setting sun in my face. I shot and missed with the first shot but connected with the second.
Sally pointing quail.
When the bird came down I thought I had shot an immature hen pheasant. It was lying in a bare spot. When I picked it up I was still afraid it was a young pheasant. Then I figured it out. It was a Hungarian partridge. I had never seen one of them either. Two new species for me. A sharp tail grouse and a Hungarian partridge in the same day.
Vince Dye and I went to Texas to hunt with our friend Paul Haas. We hunted what for us was a huge ranch. Probably not a huge ranch for Texas but it was for us. It was about 10,000 acres. It was really dry even for south Texas and the scenting conditions were terrible. Dolly was just less than a year old. She had been running with the big dogs and pointing her share.
Most of the dogs were pointing coveys but the singles were harder. We had killed several bob whites each and Dolly made a pass in front of us and went on point. Paul and I started toward her and had only taken a few steps when a covey flushed. I’m color blind so I just knew they were quail. I was on the left and the covey had come my way. Paul didn’t get a shot. They flew from my right to my left which is my favorite shot. I dropped two. Paul knew they were scaled quail but I had no idea. That was my first scaled quail.
Luke when he knows the bird has left.
Back in the 1980s Dennis Garrison and I belonged to a hunting club that had a lot of land leased in Missouri and Kansas. We were hunting opening weekend in Kansas, near Bellville. This was a new area for us but we were young and covered lots of ground. We had spent the night in my camper and got up opening morning and turned the dogs out and walked away from where we had parked the camper.
We came upon a small alfalfa field, just a short walk from the camper, that was about ankle high. We started through it and pheasants started flushing. When we got to the end we both had our limit of 4 pheasants. We hunted this farm then got in the truck and drove to another area.
We were finding quite a few quail but didn’t have a limit when we saw some prairie chickens land in an open field that was part of the clubs land. We split up. Dennis went toward them from one direction me from another. When we got close the prairie chickens flushed and when the smoke cleared we had a couple apiece. That was the limit.
Sally honoring Mann.
We continued hunting until we had our limit of quail. A really good day. A limit of pheasants, a limit of prairie chickens and a limit of quail.
I think it was 2006 when I met Mike Goldsmith near Deming New Mexico. Mike is from North Carolina and I met him when we were both hunting in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma we didn’t hunt together but would meet in the restaurant of the evening and compare days. We got to be friends and talked occasionally in the off season. Mike had hunted near Deming before but this was my first time.
This was Gambles and scaled quail area. I had never seen a Gambles. We drove a long way from Deming on some roads that, with a little rain on them, we might not get back. The area we hunted had a little creek with very little water in it but had some cover along the edges. The first few quail I saw were flushing in front of the dogs.
Abby’s, my puppy, second point on wild birds.
Mike grouse and pheasant hunts most of the time and his dogs don’t run like mine. My dogs were the ones that the birds were flushing in front of. In a little while they started pointing some quail. I think they were used to getting closer to bob whites but figured out they had to be more cautious on Gambles.
Mike and I got separated. We had walkie talkies and he called me saying, “a covey just flushed coming your way. Must have been 40 birds in the covey. Damn, here comes another 30.” They really spread out and we got quite a bit of dog work on the singles. When we started to clean birds there were a few scaled quail in with the Gambles although there were a lot more Gambles. We hadn’t even noticed the scaled quail when we got them.
Sally on point.
So I have killed bob white, scaled and Gamble quail. I would like to hunt the other 3 kinds of quail, Mountain, valley and Mearns. Every year I think I will be able to go after them but I haven’t yet. Maybe this is the year.