Cimmaron Grasslands question
- Thread starter duckn66
- Start date
CowboyBirdDogs
New member
I'd love to get out there and hunt some scalies sometime. I may try for this weekend but if not, definitely next year!:thumbsup:
henhenROOSTER!!!
New member
Used to hunt both scalies ("blues") & Gambel's in southern NM when I lived in El Paso for almost 10 yrs. There were a few areas where we regularly got into about an equal mix of separate coveys of both species in semi-desert rolling hills & arroyos laced with a proper mosaic of grass, mesquite, prickly pear, yucca, ocotillo, ect. - and yeah, boy do they run if you don't find 'em in the right kind of cover (damn those grassless sandhills)!!! In decent cover though, the singles & doubles will hold surprisingly tight if you can ever get the initial (sometimes huge) covey busted up. We would often bum-rush into a covey emptying our shotguns into the air just to try & bust 'em up, cause if you let 'em all run or fly off together in the same direction you're gonna have your hands full ever catchin up to 'em again! 
Those were some incredible times roaming some of the exact same quail-laden grounds where Geronimo once pulled off a fair amount of his wagon-trail ambushes! While in hot pursuit of desert blues & gambels, also once found a 'Thomas Edison Battery Oil' bottle (stubbed my toe on the bottleneck barely sticking out of the dirt) from back when the U.S. military came down tryin to get a handle on Poncho Villa - had it verified by the local museum. One of my most vivid blue/scaled quail hunting memories (or upland bird hunting memories period) that still lingers like a photo in my mind was when a red-tail hawk dive-bombed in like a flash & grabbed a stone-dead-and-falling-like-a-rock quail in mid-air that I had just shot over the dog's flush & made off with my dinner be4 it ever even had a chance to hit the ground!
Though not exactly the desert country that I hunted blues/scalies in, the KS photos look almost hauntingly like the same semi-arid sort of country we used to find them in. Been meaning to get down & give 'em a try in sw KS & extreme se CO for several yrs, but just can't seem to find the time to stray that far from home. They were practically in the backyard when I used to hunt 'em...
One other little heads-up: Scalie/blue quail populations far more-so than bobs or phez fluctuate wildly based upon rainfall, so grab the scattergun & pooch and RUN for it whenever sw KS gets a few wet yrs in a row! The pickins can get real slim for awhile after several yrs of extended drought...One more yr of the kind of moisture we've had for the last couple & things could get real purty down there for scalies! :thumbsup:
Those were some incredible times roaming some of the exact same quail-laden grounds where Geronimo once pulled off a fair amount of his wagon-trail ambushes! While in hot pursuit of desert blues & gambels, also once found a 'Thomas Edison Battery Oil' bottle (stubbed my toe on the bottleneck barely sticking out of the dirt) from back when the U.S. military came down tryin to get a handle on Poncho Villa - had it verified by the local museum. One of my most vivid blue/scaled quail hunting memories (or upland bird hunting memories period) that still lingers like a photo in my mind was when a red-tail hawk dive-bombed in like a flash & grabbed a stone-dead-and-falling-like-a-rock quail in mid-air that I had just shot over the dog's flush & made off with my dinner be4 it ever even had a chance to hit the ground!
Though not exactly the desert country that I hunted blues/scalies in, the KS photos look almost hauntingly like the same semi-arid sort of country we used to find them in. Been meaning to get down & give 'em a try in sw KS & extreme se CO for several yrs, but just can't seem to find the time to stray that far from home. They were practically in the backyard when I used to hunt 'em...
One other little heads-up: Scalie/blue quail populations far more-so than bobs or phez fluctuate wildly based upon rainfall, so grab the scattergun & pooch and RUN for it whenever sw KS gets a few wet yrs in a row! The pickins can get real slim for awhile after several yrs of extended drought...One more yr of the kind of moisture we've had for the last couple & things could get real purty down there for scalies! :thumbsup:
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swellcat
Member
It's now a nice video collection.
The Wikipedia article seems above-average scholarly and informative with some very specific habitats—soils and plants—to look for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Quail .
Anybody have any blue/scaled quail encounters lately?
Gove County Britts
New member
turtle do you not know that kansas is the new dessert region of north america lol
Dang Gove now you tell me. You could have gave me the heads up a month ago and saved me a knee surgery.
I just stumbled across this thread since someone bumped it to the top.
Hunted the grasslands once 2-3 years ago...cant remember exactly.
Anyways, my buddy and I tried to target the scalies and found one covey in two days there. Dont know if we were lucky or actually went to the right place, but found them drinking out of a pond. The pond/water puddle (windmill overflow) happened to be about 30 yards from where we parked the truck. Did we find them when we got out...No...we hunted around the windmill for about 2 hours and as we were about to get to the truck our dogs went on point...we thought they were pointing a rabbit at first, but we got one on the rise and then were about to get 3-4 singles to hold for the bag. Did get one mounted and it sits on my desk. One of my favorite mounts.
Ive run into them sporadically just S of Garden City when I lived there about 7 years ago but never got a shot off on one. There were a few covies that lived in the arkansas river bed, however youd only see them on the covey rise and they'd disappear into the tamaracs. A couple older guys I shot trap with had permission on the cimmarron river valley and would always get into them. With the drought who knows whats happened to them, but as of 4-5 years ago their range was far larger than what the KDWP has listed on their site. They'd just be in pockets.
Hunted the grasslands once 2-3 years ago...cant remember exactly.
Anyways, my buddy and I tried to target the scalies and found one covey in two days there. Dont know if we were lucky or actually went to the right place, but found them drinking out of a pond. The pond/water puddle (windmill overflow) happened to be about 30 yards from where we parked the truck. Did we find them when we got out...No...we hunted around the windmill for about 2 hours and as we were about to get to the truck our dogs went on point...we thought they were pointing a rabbit at first, but we got one on the rise and then were about to get 3-4 singles to hold for the bag. Did get one mounted and it sits on my desk. One of my favorite mounts.
Ive run into them sporadically just S of Garden City when I lived there about 7 years ago but never got a shot off on one. There were a few covies that lived in the arkansas river bed, however youd only see them on the covey rise and they'd disappear into the tamaracs. A couple older guys I shot trap with had permission on the cimmarron river valley and would always get into them. With the drought who knows whats happened to them, but as of 4-5 years ago their range was far larger than what the KDWP has listed on their site. They'd just be in pockets.
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