2022 AZ Desert Quail
Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:32 pm
I’m just now heading home from an Arizona hunt. What a blast it was! Can’t wait to go back.
This hunt crept up on me. My good buddy, Blake, and I drew a Coues deer tag for southern AZ. I’ve been in the middle of moving, while also trying to run a business and take care of children so I didn’t have any time to get excited about going to Arizona. In fact I told my wife I wish I didn’t draw the tag because its been so hectic I didn’t really have time to be away. However, I felt obligated to go having already spent the money.
Originally I had not planned on bringing the dogs, as I was just going to focus my time on finding a big Coues buck. I had hunted this unit a couple years ago and knew good bucks could be found for those willing.
Not wanting to spend the money on boarding, and also not wanting to leave my dogs with my wife because it adds to her stress. I decided I would take the dogs with me and just keep them in the dog box while we hunted for deer. Our plans shifted and we accepted that we should just shoot the first bucks we see so we could hunt quail the rest of the trip. I’ve hunted Arizona on two other occasions but never for quail.
I joked with my buddy that we will just go out opening morning shoot a couple bucks and be back to camp for supper and hunt quail the next 4-5 days. And that’s exactly what we did.
Day 1: the deer hunting portion of the hunt was quite short. At about 11 am I spotted a big Coues deer about 1200 yards off. We made a perfect stalk to just 300 yards from the buck. I told my buddy to take him, he shot and the mountain erupted with deer. Another smaller buck came out and I shot it. Just like that we were done with deer hunting. We had a mild pack out, but arrived back to camp just before dark.
Day 2: we took our time packing up the truck to get ready to move lower down in the desert and out of the Mearns Quail country (season closed). I’ve hunted Gambles quail in the Mojave but never in Arizona. Scaled quail was virtually alien to me. We checked out the nearest spot to the deer zone that appeared to be likely Scaled quail habitat and hunted for an evening finding nothing.
Day 3: in the morning we hunted around where we were on the evening of day 2 - producing not a single bird. Ample monsoon rains made the grass very tall and lush in this particular area and we decided we should head to more arid flats where we would have better success.
Just as we were leaving we saw two hikers running by our truck. At first I thought we were going to hear some comment about not knowing you could hunt, etc. instead it turned out we found the perfect people to offer insight into where to find quail. We were talking to a current game warden and retired warden, the retired warden used to run a wing collection station and they basically spilled their guts.
The information they gave us formed the strategy for the next few days of hunting.
Day 3 evening: we bee lined it to where the generous wardens told us we could find scaled quail. We ran into our first covey after a couple mile hike. We were on the board. Our first scalies ever. We had time to hop over to another place they said used to be a hotspot for both desert species. We didn’t walk more than a 1/2 mile before flushing a big covey of scalies. We were starting to feel pretty good about the hunt, and we hadn’t even gotten to the place they said was the best in the state.
Day 4 morning: we made a giant loop getting into a huge covey of Gambles and later a couple coveys of Scaled quail. My goodness did the scaled quail hold tight.
Midday we decided to move spots to a couple small chunks of state land in a different area.
Day 4 evening: We wanted to check out two more recommended spots for the evening hunt before heading to the last spot where we would camp for our final nights. We saw some quail but it was much thicker and harder to get shot opportunities. We drove that evening after dark to where the retired warden said was the best gambles hunting in the state.
Day 5: at this point we had a good cycle going changing out pups between evening and morning hunts with a small rest for ourselves in the heat of the day. The Brittany is more heat tolerant so we mostly hunted her in the afternoon and the Draht in the morning.
The final location did not disappoint. It wasn’t long before we busted our first covey of Gambels and it was pretty much non-stop until we had to turn in during the afternoon heat. The evening hunt was more of the same - big coveys and some of the poorest displays of marksmanship imaginable.
Day 6 morning: our last hunt. No more than 400 yards from camp we got into a big covey and hunted singles for an hour or so. We left the covey after feeling like it was time to give them a break, even though we could still hear the assembly calls from the mesquite. Immediately down the wash we jump a small covey, we left that one alone after I killed one from the covey rise and continued on. I split up from my buddy and got into a healthy covey, quickly using up the last of my ammo I headed back to camp.
We got back to camp and made quail tacos for the 6th time that trip, ate the last of our quail poppers and solemnly packed up. The dogs couldn’t hunt another day, and duty was calling back home.
I’m told the glory days of quail in Arizona is in the past but it sure felt like the hunting was good. Not that we killed our limits but that was our fault. Not having hunted for quail before there I have no way to calibrate our experience.
I learned so much.
1) I definitely see why folks head south during winter. The country I’m used to hunting you just can’t see the dogs work like you can in the open/relatively flat habitat like we were hunting. Great training ground. We actually stumbled into a NSTRA trial while driving to a spot.
2) Definitely going back during dove season some year.
3) I need at least one more pointing dog for long trips like that, didn’t have enough dog power. You could tell performance was diminishing because they really needed more rest. We were walking 12+ miles most hunts and the dogs were doing 20-25+ miles. I think I expect to much from my dogs but I definitely could have hunted harder and usually was only turning in because the dogs. I guess this is almost always the case no matter where I’m hunting. I normally don’t have the luxury of getting to hunt so many days in a row for upland. These are just pups though, I do pride myself in keeping them well exercised and I’m walking the line between overdoing it.
This hunt crept up on me. My good buddy, Blake, and I drew a Coues deer tag for southern AZ. I’ve been in the middle of moving, while also trying to run a business and take care of children so I didn’t have any time to get excited about going to Arizona. In fact I told my wife I wish I didn’t draw the tag because its been so hectic I didn’t really have time to be away. However, I felt obligated to go having already spent the money.
Originally I had not planned on bringing the dogs, as I was just going to focus my time on finding a big Coues buck. I had hunted this unit a couple years ago and knew good bucks could be found for those willing.
Not wanting to spend the money on boarding, and also not wanting to leave my dogs with my wife because it adds to her stress. I decided I would take the dogs with me and just keep them in the dog box while we hunted for deer. Our plans shifted and we accepted that we should just shoot the first bucks we see so we could hunt quail the rest of the trip. I’ve hunted Arizona on two other occasions but never for quail.
I joked with my buddy that we will just go out opening morning shoot a couple bucks and be back to camp for supper and hunt quail the next 4-5 days. And that’s exactly what we did.
Day 1: the deer hunting portion of the hunt was quite short. At about 11 am I spotted a big Coues deer about 1200 yards off. We made a perfect stalk to just 300 yards from the buck. I told my buddy to take him, he shot and the mountain erupted with deer. Another smaller buck came out and I shot it. Just like that we were done with deer hunting. We had a mild pack out, but arrived back to camp just before dark.
Day 2: we took our time packing up the truck to get ready to move lower down in the desert and out of the Mearns Quail country (season closed). I’ve hunted Gambles quail in the Mojave but never in Arizona. Scaled quail was virtually alien to me. We checked out the nearest spot to the deer zone that appeared to be likely Scaled quail habitat and hunted for an evening finding nothing.
Day 3: in the morning we hunted around where we were on the evening of day 2 - producing not a single bird. Ample monsoon rains made the grass very tall and lush in this particular area and we decided we should head to more arid flats where we would have better success.
Just as we were leaving we saw two hikers running by our truck. At first I thought we were going to hear some comment about not knowing you could hunt, etc. instead it turned out we found the perfect people to offer insight into where to find quail. We were talking to a current game warden and retired warden, the retired warden used to run a wing collection station and they basically spilled their guts.
The information they gave us formed the strategy for the next few days of hunting.
Day 3 evening: we bee lined it to where the generous wardens told us we could find scaled quail. We ran into our first covey after a couple mile hike. We were on the board. Our first scalies ever. We had time to hop over to another place they said used to be a hotspot for both desert species. We didn’t walk more than a 1/2 mile before flushing a big covey of scalies. We were starting to feel pretty good about the hunt, and we hadn’t even gotten to the place they said was the best in the state.
Day 4 morning: we made a giant loop getting into a huge covey of Gambles and later a couple coveys of Scaled quail. My goodness did the scaled quail hold tight.
Midday we decided to move spots to a couple small chunks of state land in a different area.
Day 4 evening: We wanted to check out two more recommended spots for the evening hunt before heading to the last spot where we would camp for our final nights. We saw some quail but it was much thicker and harder to get shot opportunities. We drove that evening after dark to where the retired warden said was the best gambles hunting in the state.
Day 5: at this point we had a good cycle going changing out pups between evening and morning hunts with a small rest for ourselves in the heat of the day. The Brittany is more heat tolerant so we mostly hunted her in the afternoon and the Draht in the morning.
The final location did not disappoint. It wasn’t long before we busted our first covey of Gambels and it was pretty much non-stop until we had to turn in during the afternoon heat. The evening hunt was more of the same - big coveys and some of the poorest displays of marksmanship imaginable.
Day 6 morning: our last hunt. No more than 400 yards from camp we got into a big covey and hunted singles for an hour or so. We left the covey after feeling like it was time to give them a break, even though we could still hear the assembly calls from the mesquite. Immediately down the wash we jump a small covey, we left that one alone after I killed one from the covey rise and continued on. I split up from my buddy and got into a healthy covey, quickly using up the last of my ammo I headed back to camp.
We got back to camp and made quail tacos for the 6th time that trip, ate the last of our quail poppers and solemnly packed up. The dogs couldn’t hunt another day, and duty was calling back home.
I’m told the glory days of quail in Arizona is in the past but it sure felt like the hunting was good. Not that we killed our limits but that was our fault. Not having hunted for quail before there I have no way to calibrate our experience.
I learned so much.
1) I definitely see why folks head south during winter. The country I’m used to hunting you just can’t see the dogs work like you can in the open/relatively flat habitat like we were hunting. Great training ground. We actually stumbled into a NSTRA trial while driving to a spot.
2) Definitely going back during dove season some year.
3) I need at least one more pointing dog for long trips like that, didn’t have enough dog power. You could tell performance was diminishing because they really needed more rest. We were walking 12+ miles most hunts and the dogs were doing 20-25+ miles. I think I expect to much from my dogs but I definitely could have hunted harder and usually was only turning in because the dogs. I guess this is almost always the case no matter where I’m hunting. I normally don’t have the luxury of getting to hunt so many days in a row for upland. These are just pups though, I do pride myself in keeping them well exercised and I’m walking the line between overdoing it.
