Happy New Year

Here's to a prosperous New Year, with good trips in good territory with good folks to share the experience in the year to come. Hope you all are able to get out there.

Blues

I love quail.

I like seeing them around, listening to them call in the spring, and seeing the little babies, that look like miniature adults, buzz off after their parents in the summer.

I love desert quail. Bobwhites are great, but big coveys of running, wild flushing, melting into the non-existent cover blues and Gambel's are more charismatic to my mind.

Deer hunting a month or so ago, I was easing down a wide draw, well over a mile from any road, when a big covey got up from the other side. Weeks before quail season and about a hundred yards away, they still flew over the far rim of the draw, doubtless hooking to the left or right once they got over the top, the better to confuse any pursuers.


I love chasing quail. Spot them, get after them, try to get a couple of flushes then kick up singles. Often, the country is very big, and, unless you focus on areas around water (which also tend to get more pressure from other hunters) it is hard to just walk for them. If you are going to get out on foot, try a sandy wash with some cover in and around it.

We've run into a few blues.

 I love shooting quail. Be quick, and point right at the bird you pick out, you'll probably hit that bird. It is the simplest of things and, at times, it is one of the hardest of things. 

Someone should title a blog after that sort of thing.



Of course, quail are very fine at the table, too.