The Gadabout: Quail

“I knew the blur of wings, the rocketing form, and the Great Moment that only hunters know when all existence draws down to two points and a single line. And the universe holds its breath. And what may be and what will be meet and become one – before the echo returns to its source.” ~ Peter Dunne

Gentle Readers and Love Ones,

Unlike the pheasant hunting, Rowdy and I enjoyed some success with Culbertson’s Quail population. Which puzzles me because Quail are much more difficult to shoot than pheasants are. Fate is perverse that way.

We flushed a nice covey of quail the very first morning. But before I describe that, I need to cover two different topics. As we entered Pheasant Alley – which I will describe in a moment – I discovered that I had to do some Rowdy training I had not counted on. First there was an evil oil well head and then the sand spurs attacked.

Nebraska is moderately productive oil country.

“Nodding Donkeys” freckle the landscape. One of them dominates the entry to Pheasant Alley. As we approached that first morning, Rowdy was all excited to be on the hunt, when suddenly the huge pumping well entered his awareness and he dropped to his belly and began growling and barking at it. He wasn’t going to settle down until we got him used to it, so I heeled him up, told him he was a good dog and we went over and got acquainted with the pump.


The entrance to Pheasant Alley guarded by the Nodding Donkey

After that we found the sandspurs that are ubiquitous in the sandy margins between the cover and the fields. It took me longer than it should to learn that I either needed to ensure Rowdy remained deep in the cover or well out in the corn stubble to avoid the patches of sand spurs that were always in between.

Cenchrus Spinifex haunted my barefoot childhood in Central Florida and this trip did nothing to change my hatred of the evil weed.

It was cold that morning and I had totally forgotten to bring the metal comb I keep in my vest for just such deburring issues. So, I got bogged down in pulling sand spurs out of Rowdy’s coat bare handed. This was when Don gave me the first of many great pointers. “Geoff, if you stop every time to pull his burs, you are just teaching him to use you. Make sure his feet are OK and let him decide if he wants to hunt or stop.” Great advice and I strove to use it all the rest of the week. Rowdy got the idea quickly enough.

Pheasant Alley is a narrow, cover choked valley that runs between two cornfields. It runs north-south, about three-four hundred yards and is around 50 yards wide at the north end and widens considerable out to 150 yards at the south. To work it well would require at least 4 hunters and a dog but since we only had us, I took the west rim and Don and Jake beat the cover as we worked south.

More than a few wily pheasants did the bug-out-boogie thing and we caught glimpses of them in the distance. As we neared the southern end of the alley, Jake flushed up roughly 5-8 quail and I missed twice.

Quail add yet another issue to the wingshooting problem. A flushing covey demands your attention and you must have the mental discipline to control your startle reaction and focus on one bird.

The next day, we are just to the east of Pheasant Alley. I’m in the corn stubble on the far side of the barb wire. Don and Jake are in the margin of the cover. There is a moderately sized scrub tree poking up out of the cover. Rowdy is doing a pretty good job of quartering, when he stops, runs about ten yards from the scrub tree and points. I’m stuck on the wrong side of the fence and yelling, “Look at Rowdy!” Don doesn’t hear me but notices Rowdy anyway and walks over to flush.

A huge covey of quail erupts from the tree. At least 15 of them. The go everywhere at once in a confusing cloud and the dogs go mad trying to chase all of them. I manage to focus on one, still 30 yards away or so and moving fast from left to right. I empty the gun and totally miss the bird even though it helpfully bent its flight in a circle around me trying to work back into the cover.

The next day, Don let me out to walk a huge expanse of public land out to the west of Culbertson. This is one of the few times I remembered that I could take pictures.

Towards the end of this hike, Rowdy and I had wandered to the south up a slight rise of agricultural terracing. In between the berms of the terrace there was a small area of cover and three or four widely separated scrub cedar trees. The wind was blowing around 15 miles and hour or so. Rowdy suddenly turned, semi-pointed and then pounced into the cover at the base of one of the cedars, flushing around 5 or so quail.

I focused on one of the laggards and I’m pretty sure I hit it. It disappeared downwind into the cover and Rowdy and I began searching for it. We failed. Later Don, patiently explained to me that many times they can dive into a hole in the cover. A strong wind like that wind-washes their scent away and dogs really can’t find them with their nose. We looked for that bird for at least 20 minutes never finding it even though we worked our way downwind of where I saw it disappear.

Which brings me to a new discussion to further muddy up this narration.

"Dogs don’t generalize.”

I’ve tried to find the youtube where I first saw this but failed. A well-known trainer teaches that every time a dog experiences a new species of bird with a new scent and taste you are back to square one with “fetch, hold and give” training. The process may happen quicker each time – this is my experience with Rowdy – but you have to let the dog know that you expect them to fetch to hand this new bird.

At this point Rowdy had never experienced quail and I’m pretty convinced this impacted our inability to sense that bird.

We finally bagged birds on the last two days. I’m fairly pleased with how it occurred. To the west of Pheasant Alley is nice little wooded area near another oil well. There is a convenient parking area, right in the middle of the sandspur strip, just to the east.

I got out, geared up, got Rowdy out in the corn stubble away from the evil spurs. As I was clearing a couple of the crippling burs from between his toe pads, Jake flushes a nice covey out of the narrow strand of cover leading us to the wooded area. Most of the quail fly west over into the wooded area and disappear.

We continued on into the wooded cover walking roughly 30 yards apart, Don to the south and on my left. Suddenly, one of the previous quail jumps up whirring and begins to fly directly away from Don and directly at me. This all happened in a blur, but I distinctly remember the bird superimposed over Don’s face as it flew at me. It sees me and breaks hard to its left. I track, shoot and make what might be the best “low house seven” shot of my life. The bird falls about 20 yards away from me and Rowdy is there in a second - and he runs right over it and ignores it. New bird smell syndrome, I think.

Jake on the other hand, being an old, experienced Quail hunter is on it in a second and retrieves the bird to Don. I ask Don: “Here in a second, would you throw that bird over someplace and let Rowdy go retrieve it? We need to get him used to quail.”

So, we did that.

Another 100 yards later, Rowdy flushes another and I make a high going away shot and kill my second quail. Jake beat Rowdy to that one too and we did the training thing again with Rowdy. On the way back to the truck, we walk right by the oil well, which Rowdy totally ignores. One counts one's successes where one finds them.

Finally, it came to the last hunt of the last day for me. We saved it for Pheasant Alley. I was up on the western berm edge, Don down in the cover. Within seconds of entering they flushed the covey of quail again and one flies out into the corn stubble. Rowdy sees it and chases it. It flushes again and flies almost directly back at me. I track, miss, track better and hit it as it passes me maybe 15 yards away. This picture are from that last hunt. It was a beautiful sunset.