A day in the Sierras

quail hound

quail hound

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The weather cooled down a bit and I had today off so JP and I took a drive up the hill. It's very dry this year in the mountains so finding good habitat near water is very important for finding Mt quail. The old red doe up at quail camp has twins again, that makes 4 years straight. Seeing her up there is like seeing an old friend now and her spotted fawns are always a welcome sight. We finally moved a covey down on the migration trail (deer trail to winter grounds) after a long hike down to the creek and back, we found them feeding up the hill around 9 in the morning. It was a good covey with around 12 or so quail, after counting the flush we walked up some singles and took two birds before leaving them alone. Moved one more covey a little later near a seap but there were only six birds in it so we let them go. All in all a beautiful day in the Sierras. :cheers:
 
Here is JP with his catch.

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The migration trail. The creek is down the canyon 300yds behind those pines on the right. We found the big covey on the left where you can see the brush creeping down into the meadow.

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A little bit of buck brush.

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Find the water.

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When I got home and took off my brush pants I found a thorn from the buck brush sticking out of my calf about a 1/4", I pulled it out to find it was over an inch long.:eek: Didn't hurt a bit until I pulled it out.
 
I really enjoy it up there, I just wish the early season was a little more than just a week before deer rifle season opens.
 
Nice looking country :coolpics: How far is all the fire in California from this pretty place--far far away I hope.
 
I think I can only look at pictures of that terrain these days. If I were magically transported there, I would marvel at my environment, then make plans to die there. :)

Great images, enough birds, a visit with an old friend and her twins, and a happy dog: formula for a great day.

Congratulations.
 
Nice pictures and a good day w/o much smoke. It's so smokey here we don't leave the house and the fire is 25 miles away.
My Mt. Quail spot burned up 2 years ago in the American Fire. The King Fire is burning up the stuff not burned in the fire West of French Meadows 4(?) years ago and the stuff burned in the fire SW of Union Valley 15 +/- (?)years ago. The good news is that in 3 years the cover and quail will be better than it was before the fire for several years and then it will be overgrown and worse than before and almost impossible to hunt for decades. I talked to a friend who used to hunt a burn for very easy limits with lots of coveys that is now 100s of acres of ceanothus he can't walk through.
For those interested heres the site for the King fire.

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4108/
 
SDJIM said:
Nice looking country :coolpics: How far is all the fire in California from this pretty place--far far away I hope.
Click to expand...

In the pic of the meadow you can see the haze from the Courtney fire burning about 20 miles west, its been held to around 350 acres and is mostly contained but it did destroy 33 homes. A few months ago the French fire burned some 10,000 acres in the river gorge 10 miles south of there. The big one is up by Cal right now, boy do we neef some weather up in these mountains.
 
Here is the Flirt dog sniffing her first wild quail, retrieving to hand, and working on "hold". This little girl has an incredibly soft mouth for a terrier.

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terriers

If I remember right, germen wirehairs have some terrier in them so I am please to see you are working in the right direction anyway. pretty sad about all those fires out your way. we have been pretty lucky this year in Colorado, a little cooler than normal and many places above average in moisture. speaking of yer mutt, even horses can be trained to help locate dogs on point in the big events, having had horses for years, that amazed me as most of my horses struggled finding the feed bin. kinda neat anyway

cheers
 
quail hound said:
Here is the Flirt dog sniffing her first wild quail, retrieving to hand, and working on "hold". This little girl has an incredibly soft mouth for a terrier.
Click to expand...

About Jack Russells and pheasant hunting. I watched a show about pheasant hunting in the mid west where the guy used a terrier. The dog was hyper but because of his size couldn't cover a of lot ground which resulted in him covering every inch of cover. He found a ton of birds on the show. Didn't retrieve as I recall but an excellent pheasant dog.
I was hunting one of the wildlife areas when I saw a very old man kind of shuffling along in the heat back to the check station. I was concerned about him so I fell in step and we started to talk. When I said something for the first time a J.R. stuck his head out of the guys game pouch. He hunted with one and carried it from cover spot to spot to save the dog's energy as much as possible. He said he'd often get birds up from behind guys with other breeds and I believed him.
The very best pheasant dog I ever hunted around was a cur that was about 1/2 J.R. QH good choice. They are awfully smart however so stay on your toes.:)
 
She's my second JRT and man they are smart as a whip. Flirt is on the leggy side, 16lbs the last time she was at the vet at only 6 months. Hopefully she is a brush buster and she even has a little point in her.
 
beagles

sometime in the 1970's a neighbor invited me on a pheasant hunt, actually he didn't have a clue where to go but said he had a dog that loved to hunt. daisy was the small size beagle, we were hunting in fresh snow in picked corn. when she hit a track, she would howl and track the bird out. we shot a limit and at that time was 4 birds each and daisy retrieved every one of them, kinda slow work compared today but she got it done. she actually dragged the birds back by the neck and seemed to be always tangled up in the corn stalks. really neat experience

cheers
 
I've seen all sorts of dogs used with some success; beagles, terriers, pit bulls, german shepherds, mongrels. Heck, I heard some even use short hairs to hunt pheasants and do alright.:D
 
Way to go Robert. Those mountain quail are right up there with pheasant for eating. Actually I like them better as I am always eating pheasant training birds. We get a few while chukar hunting late season when the snow pushes them down over in Owens valley.
 
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