This hunt was a blast, literally.
Before the hunt started another hunter walked up and asked if I wanted to partner up since neither of us had dogs. As we hiked out we decided to drop down in the wash and each work one side of it. He had done this hunt before so we headed toward where he saw them last time.
i was down in the wash and not seeing anything but as soon as I would pass a bush and pause I would hear them taking off, literally right behind me like a few feet away, like a ghost. Then Daryl yells out that I flushed like 15-20 of them and I am standing there and didn't see a damm bird. I was like how is that possible I didn't see 15 birds in the air? I did hear them though. He saw where the covey went so we started stalking them. As we followed this covey and it thinned out I started getting an eye for them and started taking some shots.
They started moving out of the wash and up the hill and into thicker brush. I finally got a hit halfway up the hill, saw him go down, after searching everywhere I could not find him. Probably hit the ground running. This is what I was trying to retrieve out of with no dog. I was half way up that hill when I shot him, cactus everywhere was like a maze getting down.
we started working our way around this hill and were in an open field and saw another hunter working his way through the brush. We were watching him and about 100 yards in front of him we saw a covey flush, they flew our way and dropped into the wash. The guy that flushed them didn't see them, like I was not seeing them earlier, and he started heading in the opposite direction. I saw him later and asked him if he saw the birds flush and he said he had not seen a bird all day.
We started stalking this covey as it thinned out. At one point I had three of them trapped in a bush and they would not flush, i would go to one side and they would go to the other and round and round we went, after much back n forth they finally jump, all three in a perfect triangle in a tight grouping, 3fer, 15 feet away and CLICK! silence, was out of shells..... still crying about that shot. I can still see it crystal clear in my head.
We had to be back at the check station by noon but had a good solid 3 hours of stalking quail. Once i got an eye for them was in the zone and seeing them everywhere. Usually I am lucky to get one shot off on a hunt, was blasting all day on this one.
Learned alot and cant wait to target quail again before the seasons over.
