South and no snow!

dustin mudd

dustin mudd

Active member
I escaped the Montana tough winter weather and worked in some bobwhite hunting in Oklahoma. I also made my way to south new Mexico. Birds are Very hard won!
 

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Sounds and looks like a great trip. I am not sure my dog from Iowa would know to stay away from the cactus!
 
They learn but today Post hunt session with my lab took 30 or so minutes pulling prickley pear… once a covey breaks the desert quail do hold , but my lab will LEAN into the pears to flush the singles…. We got most still some in her nose! I can’t get
 
dustin mudd said:
I escaped the Montana tough winter weather and worked in some bobwhite hunting in Oklahoma. I also made my way to south new Mexico. Birds are Very hard won!
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Glad you got to go, weather has been to warm last few days even weeks for good quail hunting, lots of running birds. Awesome pictures
 
New Mexico is where i am, in south west is slightly better I think than last year. I hunt every day so to keep dogs fresh I hunt just morning’s. I am averaging about a covey a day found. Today we hit 2!
 
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We are down in central New Mexico trying to get away from snow and cold in Colorado. Have been here over a month. I started out hunting every other day and have cut that back a bit as the dog (and my feet) have started wearing down. A lot of rocky country. There are intermittent coveys of scaled and Gambel's quail in this area. I feel lucky to find a covey a day, sometimes two. The dog figured out the cactus pretty quickly, but if she flushes a covey in heavy cactus she'll come out of it looking like a Labrador hedgehog. Usually takes me about 1/2 hour to pull thorns if that happens. Doesn't bother her a bit. Local hunting pressure picked up after New Year's, but I have only seen one other hunter with a dog. Most locals either drive the roads looking for crossing quail or walk the arroyo bottoms. I'd be setting on my behind staring at the trailer walls if I weren't hunting so I'm happy.
 
Revise the "no snow" deal. 5 inches night before last but most was gone by the end of the day. Will be interesting what the moisture does to quail distribution. I don't know if it is hunting pressure or just time of year, but in a number of areas they had "disappeared" over the last couple of weeks. I have yet to find them, but I enjoy the challenge, so will keep hunting.
 
Today is the last day for quail in New Mexico for the year. It has been an interesting, enjoyable experience figuring out where to hunt and how they move in response to weather, predators, cattle, and hunting pressure. If I'm still upright next year we'll try a different area, though I do enjoy being familiar with a locality, but there is a lot of state to hunt and literally hundreds of thousands of acres of public land to hunt that has quail potential. If you have some stamina, have good, controllable dogs, and like to explore, give it a try.
 
Have you tried in the Portales, Clovis area? There used to be a good number of blues and bobwhites there and I’ve been thinking about making a trip back there to relive my glory days.
 
We have not. We are hunting SC in the foothills, primarily. Gambel's and Scaled with a few Mearns (that we haven't found) up higher. A lot of area in this state to cover for an old guy!
 
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