Gun Dog Forum

I like to hunt quail and chukar here in the Mojave desert and San Bernardino Mtn.'s. We don't get much rain here, so I've never had to worry about it much. Well today I planned on hunting and it was raining pretty good. I decided to head on out in it anyway. I didn't see or hear anything, but it's a tough year for birds anyways. What's your experience in the rain,will the birds move around at all, are the dogs able to find birds, is it worth going out in?

Birds hold better in the rain. Dogs can find birds in the rain. Best time to go is after it rains though.

Usually you will find them bunched up under some canopy (in my country cedars). And yes I go.

I do not think they are out as much in the rain. Right after the rain they get out and move around.

My take is it can work. Just as you get older you feel like ahhh maybe I will wait for it to clear up. To answer your question it's worked for me with hunting & fishing .

we hunted in both rain and snow this fall/winter, and generally had a harder time finding birds.

How about pen raised birds? I plan on hunting a preserve in a couple of weeks and wondered if I should go if it's wet.

I agree right after a rain the birds seem to hold

I hunt when ever I get a chance. If it rains, I hunt in the rain.

I enjoy hunting in the rain. The worse the conditions the better. Birds hold tight in the rain. My dad managed this Prairie Chicken double in the rain.

What about scent? This is my first trained dog and before him I hadn't ever hunted with a dog, so my experience level is low. How does the wet weather affect scent? We went out a couple days after it rained, earlier in the season, so the ground was still wet. My dog had a heck of time smelling the birds. He didn't point any live birds, he kept bumping them. It wasn't like he was smelling them and chasing, you could tell that he really couldn't smell them. He retrieves to hand, so when we had dead birds, you could tell that he couldn't smell them until he was literally right on top of them. The weather was a blue bird day, mid 50's and not a breath of wind. I had it my mind that the lack of a breeze was the biggest factor for him having trouble smelling anything, what do you think? What are your experiences?

scsims wrote:How about pen raised birds? I plan on hunting a preserve in a couple of weeks and wondered if I should go if it's wet.

You might not be pleased with quail performance if they get wet. If you go in the rain stick to phez. Chukars may be OK but haven't had much experience with them in those conditions.

Haven't had luck lately with quail after it rains. Here in Yuma they squat around waterholes and after it rains they scatter so far and wide it's impossible to find any.

I have hunted in the rain but not by choice.... The weatherman got it wrong. However, they all turned out to be awesome hunts...