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Opening day Quail hunt

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Opening day of Quail season was awesome!!! Me and my brother went out this morning until about noon. My brother limited out, I was one short. 29 birds for a half day hunt , simply awesome, saw lots of birds. I will be going back out again tomorrow. Hope everyone else had a great time. B)

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I also got skunked this afternoon hunting SW of Sedona. Must have walked 4 miles before finally jumping a covey, they busted at about 50 yards. Never caught up with them or found any stragglers. I really wanted to shoot some birds to break in my dads new pup. Oh well, try again tommorrow.

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saturday i hunted in stuff that im too stupid to not hunt in..POURIN RAIN!!!! man it was bad! my truck went from shiny white, so brown with white polka dots. hiked about 4 or 5 miles before jumping the first covey and manage to get 3 out of it, then when we were driving out, jumped another covey and got another 3 out of them. will ever hunt in weather like that again ( ps, i was in/around dewey)

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I hunted my normal Tonto Basin spot on Fri. Got 8 birds in 4 hours. I had to work my a$$ off for those. I found the area to have much fewer birds than the last few years. No 1/2 and 3/4 birds this year. Looks like they only had 1 hatch. Also there was no pear fruit, which they normally eat til the end of the month.

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Just got back from a nice day behind Rica. Hunted about 4 sunny hours and have enough for a few dinners. We flushed a covey of about a dozen juvies about the size of sparrows from a prickly pear, and passed on shooting a couple other young birds.

 

Doug~RR

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Went out today(Sunday) and got three birds.I can't say it was a bad day though,I found a Javelina skull and a 2 point Muley.We went out by Pumpkin Center and A Cross road. :D

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I went out to Horse shoe bend today (sunday) for 4 hours and didnt see or even hear a quail. judging by the sign in sheet ( about 25 hunters) and all the hulls lying around i think they all got shot up yesterday .... .oh well. did see 4 does.

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Got into lots of birds this weekend in our old haunts. Not as many as last year, but last year was an anomaly... ;) Still enough to limit on, although they seemed a little warier than some years so the limits weren't easy. Overall, a GREAT opening weekend!

 

I mainly focused on hunting with my 12 year old. It's amazing to see how they mature from year to year and I'm now more & more comfortable sending him out on his own for short periods of time as opposed to constantly looking over his shoulder. Good fun!

 

S.

 

:)

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Rica went for Gambels today, as she did not draw a coues tag this year. She found three coveys in the couple of hours she searched. All three coveys were atop ridges and not in the bottoms, on the side hills, nor grassy flats. Wind was light, but fickled as it constantly changed direction, making it hard for her to work into the wind. After the pointing and the flushes, she had a hard time hitting those birds. Perhaps the stock length is a little too long for her to fit properly and wasn't nestling in her shoulder pocket consistently. Maybe the waning moon affected her bio-rhythms. She came home with a lot more empty hulls than the three birds attested for her effort :( .

 

Ricaquail11-06003.jpg

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hunted south of Kingman yesterday - say 2 coveys (10 birds total) in 6 hours of walking! Not nearly as many birds as last year, and way more spooky!

 

Rica went for Gambels today, as she did not draw a coues tag this year. She found three coveys in the couple of hours she searched. All three coveys were atop ridges and not in the bottoms, on the side hills, nor grassy flats. Wind was light, but fickled as it constantly changed direction, making it hard for her to work into the wind. After the pointing and the flushes, she had a hard time hitting those birds. Perhaps the stock length is a little too long for her to fit properly and wasn't nestling in her shoulder pocket consistently. Maybe the waning moon affected her bio-rhythms. She came home with a lot more empty hulls than the three birds attested for her effort :( .

 

Ricaquail11-06003.jpg

 

by the way, great looking dog - what kind of dog is she?

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Dave,

 

Have you seen or gotten any young birds? I heard the Kingman area was good last year. Friends made it over twice last season, but didn't well.

 

The birds actually held well yesterday. Had to kick a few out of the brush and pears after Rica was on point. She is a German wire hair pointer, about 4 years old.

 

We will be looking forward to a Mearns hunt Thanksgiving weekend.

 

Doug~RR

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Dave,

 

Have you seen or gotten any young birds? I heard the Kingman area was good last year. Friends made it over twice last season, but didn't well.

 

The birds actually held well yesterday. Had to kick a few out of the brush and pears after Rica was on point. She is a German wire hair pointer, about 4 years old.

 

We will be looking forward to a Mearns hunt Thanksgiving weekend.

 

Doug~RR

 

Doug,

 

The birds we saw were all pretty good size, but like I said - real spooky. They flushed at about 50 yds and hit the ground running. We had a brittany, and she couldn't begin to catch up with them. We did Kingman I think three times last year and did pretty well. But the areas we hunted though are getting a lot of development activity - lots of new roads being laid out so i'm guessing the birds are being pushed out. We did flush a second covey out of one of those thick canyon bottoms - probably 50-60 birds. But with all the catclaw/mesquite, all we could do was catch glimpses of the dog chasing the birds on the ground, then hear as they finally flushed. Real frustrating - not to mention painful!

 

Where you headed for Mearns? I had a Coues tag in 30B - hunted all six days plus the Thursday before scouting. Saw only one covey near the 3 Sisters Ranch - maybe 20 or so birds. It was right at dark and all i had was my 7MM. Anyway, good luck.

 

Hadn't seen a German wire-hair before - she is a great looking dog!

 

Dave

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