A visit to southwestern Arizona quail country
Betsy and I traveled to southeastern Arizona in early January as both a vacation and an opportunity to hunt Mearns quail with our dogs.
That corner of Arizona is distinct with converging areas of desert, grasslands, rolling hills and several mountain ranges. We explored an area southeast of Tucson near the towns of Patagonia and Sonoita.
The country inhabited by the Mearns quail is beautiful, but rugged. The birds are found in plant communities such as Madrean Evergreen Woodlands, which are characterized by canyon after canyon dotted with evergreen black oaks and oneseed junipers. The ground is rocky and the hillsides are steep. Footing can be treacherous and it seemed we rarely walked on level ground.
The male Mearns are truly distinctive with colorful, black-and-white heads and brightly speckled, black-and-white breasts. The females look similar to a hen bobwhite but have a thicker beak. Mearns eat tubers which they find by scratching the ground with their exceptionally long toenails.
In general, the coveys we saw held well for the dogs’ points. In fact, sometimes they were reluctant to flush and almost had to be stepped on to get them to move. When a covey did flush it usually did so in several waves instead of one big flush. We found some coveys that ran quite a bit and then flushed wild and others that the dogs worked diligently only to see one or two birds flush out of range. Experienced Mearns hunters we talked to thought these runners and small coveys had been hunted hard and were just wary.
We were pleased with how our dogs handled the country and the birds. Silk, Moxie, Maggie and Oscar pointed the first coveys they smelled and handled them like they’d done it all their lives. Our black Labrador, May, was very effective in getting those tight-sitters to flush once they were found by the pointing dogs. After the first day, all dogs seemed a bit foot sore from the rocks but warmed up quickly. The weather was perfect—we usually hunted in temperatures between 50 and 70 with bright sunshine.
We rarely saw javelinas, but noticed quite a bit of sign indicating their presence. One day, Oscar went into a juniper clump and after a burst of squealing and snorting came out—proudly carrying a young piglet in his mouth.
Our good friend, Jeff Hintz, who lives in Minnesota and winters in Tucson, and Tom Gardiner of Vail, Arizona, hunted with us. We appreciated their
time and truly enjoyed their company and seeing good dog work by their pointers.
We had a wonderful time and hope to make another trip!
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