Mearns Quail Hunting

[George "Scott" Davis]

Just returned from 5 1/2 days of Mearns Quail Hunting in Southern Arizona. My 10 year old Brittany had ACL surgery on May 16, 2014 and she still was the "Star". She will hunt other birds but when it comes to Mearns; Game On!!!! We hunted our new member of the team; a 2 year old "Braque France" and with experience she also has the potential to be a gamer.
We took our usual collection of hunting 16 gauges: brother uses 24 inch custom damascus steel L.C. Smith with a Jeffery' back-up and I use a Fox Sterlingworth Featherweight and L.C. Smith Field and our joint 5th gun is a Parker GHE. When you are hunting Mearns be prepared to fall so if you are afraid of putting a ding in barrel or stock bring a field grade or a hunting gun (PS: if you are really Mearns Quail hunting you are going to fall!!!!!!!).
Key to high numbers of Mearns Quail is our summer "monsoons" as they produce grasshopper for the young birds. We had lots of rain the last six months which caused lots of flooding which had modified the canyon bottoms in many locations and the grass is waist high in most places.
As always lots of "funny stories from hunting trips", had three young studs try and slip by us and drive their new Dodge 4-wheel drive up one of the flooded canyons and get it stuck in three feet of water. Our old 7.3 Ford Diesel pulled them out the first try, however next time we are going to make them wait until we finish hunting the canyon before we provide assistance.
Saturday morning December 6 we has license plates from 10 states at the restaurant in Patagonia, shocking as for years we never saw any other hunter let alone an out-of-stater.
We got up 5-8 covey everyday so good bird count. However the weather has turned unusually warm so if you are coming I would advise "rattlesnake" training for your dogs and we ran into Javalina Herds everyday keep you dogs within eye sight. Good Hunting,
PS: Mearns Quail Hunting is hard on dogs feet so bring boots or lots of dogs.