How many of you hunt the fast running Mountain quail? I love them here in northern California, and the taste is hard to beat. Tell me what you know and why you love or really hate the birds.





I love the bobwhite trained dogs when they get the first mountie in front of them. These large quail run like chukar and wait to fly until there is no other option. Fun and frustraiting birds.

I shoot these birds all the time when hunting for grouse.

good fun huh? Not exactly traditional dog and shot bird hunting though.

Thats a beautiful bird. Thanks for posting a picture of it.

Beautiful ,bird ,please can you explain me ,how you hunt them ,what kind of dogs ,terrain and shotgun you use,i hunt partriges all the timahere in argentina and i would love to know more about your bird.Juan

We track and call and then run afte them. At the point we see them in range the shooting begins, but only about 50% is flying shots. Your heart is pumpong and you only get 1-3 shots per covey.

I wish we had them up here. What we do have is the California Quail also called Valley Quail.



I hunt those more than anything else here in Washingon. I feed about 300 at my home thru the winter and about 200 + or - where I hunt them. They can run pretty fast too but it does not sound like they can keep up with your mountain quail.

I mouth call to locate coveys, then sneak as close as possible before the foot race begins. I love and hate the little bas_ _ _ds, they are both incredibly fun and incredibly frustrating to hunt.

P.S. - Plan on a lot of walking to locate them in the Central Sierra.

I've hunted(more like ground sluicing) them since 1970 in Siskiyou County.This past deer season didn't see any Blacktail bucks,grouse or mtn quail just does,yearlings and rain for the last week near the Scott River.I learned quite a bit about quail at the univ of az, my wildlife mgt professor got one of his graduate degrees studying quail.

quote:

Originally posted by Customstox:
I wish we had them up here. What we do have is the California Quail also called Valley Quail.



I hunt those more than anything else here in Washingon. I feed about 300 at my home thru the winter and about 200 + or - where I hunt them. They can run pretty fast too but it does not sound like they can keep up with your mountain quail.

Loud-n-boomer has it right. We hunt mostly the Californias as you posted above Chic, but love to get the mounties since they are bigger and a lot more breast meat. I will be after them tomorrow, but my favorite spot is under snow right now. I might hold off on using my new Italian double and use my Mossberg turkey gun! lol

Arizona has gambels,scaled,mearns,california & masked bobwhite which is on the fed endangered list & protected.Gambels ,Scaled & California interbreed so the genus was changed from Lophortix to Callipepla californica(california quail),Callipepla squamata(scaled quail),Callipepla gambelii(gambels quail). The Mearns Quail(Cyrtonyx montezuma) aka Fool's or Harlequin quail lives in the oak grassland areas of AZ .

Got a few of the Mountain Quail while on the Nevada side of the Sierra's. In three years of hunting chukar, I only got 4 of the little quail. Handsome birds.

Just six California Valley quail today.

Again no mounties, so I went to the river bar and shot California valleys. Ended the day with my limit of ten. here are the first three, all males.

333 OKH

kind of off the subject, but I see you're from NorCal; I just returned from Bandon OR to the SF Bay Area on Saturday, drove it; I've lived here my whole life and don't remember that much snow going thru Mt Shasta City thru Ashland...Also, my business partner drove 162 between Willows and Covelo yesterday, guess it's shut down at the top from snow. We've hunted Mt Quail up there a couple of times, but again have never seen this much snow...

looks like you do well on your upland; public or private land?

take care
Craig Nolan

this is a good year for snow, but not rare.


Covelo is awesome for trophy blacktail deer if you can find the migratory herd.