doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: California quail prospects?

Here is a link to a map that shows drought areas in the US. If you look at the bottom of the page there is an animation that lets you go back twelve weeks and watch the change.

http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

My shooting student Joe Wood sent me the link last year.

Best,

Mike

The good is that we just had some rain in SoCal over the last couple days. Not much, but it was measureable. Hopefully it not only gets the quail in a romantic mood, but also helps keep the cheat grass alive. Last season, I found that even the cheat grass was either gone where it had traditionally been, or was devoid of seed.

Chuck, have hatches from what we call "golfballs with legs" to nearly half growns and things look reasonable for a good population this year. And I do not believe they are done hatching. Tom

I was driving back south from NorCal on I5 Friday and it rained hard for about 45 minutes until I hit the 99 cutoff to Bakersfield. I'm hoping that the coast ranges between that area and the ocean got a decent dose of water. But weather.com says that Arroyo Grande got nothing on Friday? Maybe only the mountains got rain. Seal Beach where I am got about 1/3" of rain from this storm, but our only resident quail are on the Naval Weapons Station/Natnl. Wildlife Refuge (the Marines won't let me hunt 'em--I already asked.).

I'm gonna be up in Limestone Canyon at dawn Tuesday morning checking camera traps and will listen and look real hard for quail.

Chuck, I assume your interest in cheat grass is chukar-related?

I'm also a southern California quail hunter. I live in Irvine and hunt with a French Brittany Spaniel. I has preparing a huge post and got shut out when I ran on too long. While annual rainfall is important, it is usually of greater importance when we get it. Our spring has been fairly wet, green buds and bugs bode well for our feathered friends. I'm relatively optomistic. Just like Chuck said there was no seed on anything, here or in Baja.

A note on Baja, don't travel alone at night, especially on the Ensenada Toll Road. Speak some spanish and act respectfully to the laws of Mexico and it's people. Not a guarantee that you won't have a problem but it has served me well during the 35 years I have hunted in Mexico.

Mike and Chuck we ought to meet and compare notes, maybe we could put together a hunt this fall.

Mike, I'm a newbie in Orange County/SouCal but have been working for Irvine Ranch Conservancy a couple of days a week for the last six months, so I'm in your area a lot and am getting to know the coastal mountain habitat a bit. Yeah, we should compare notes some time. I'm retired, so have the most open schedule of the three of us, I guess. PM me any time or email to armstgeo@hvcc.edu (my old work email, which my employer lets me keep so they can ask me for money periodically.....).

Mike C,
Let's do it.

Mike A.,
Yes, the cheat grass seed is a popular feed and I find them in it regularly in the area I hunt, most years. There's also lotus and turkey mullien in the area. In some wetter seasons, I've seen rye grass as well.

"Act respectfully to the laws of Mexico and it's people."
Your kidding?

My book on Calif quail has data from the 1940's on quail feed/browse. The list is quite extensive. It seems they eat seeds primarily (no surprise) but switch to leafy plants when seed aren't available or mix it up. Also it seems that local water availability may not be a requirement (at least for Gambels) if there's bugs and high water content leafy plants available.

For what it's worth, I spent all day Tuesday in northern Orange County canyonland; walked and four-wheeled over many miles of those wrinkles. I heard quail calling in just about every side canyon that had any cover/water at all; saw cocks doing sentry duty on many high points (boulder tops, snags, tall bushes). Lots of dusting sites, too. I don't know if this proves that they are reproducing well this year (don't remember much about their life cycle behavior) since I saw no chicks. But it made me feel hopeful, even though most of this area is a no-hunting zone (part of it is in the Cleveland Natnl. Forest, which is open to hunting when not closed for fire hazard).