Wingbeats and Heartbeats: Essays on Game Birds, Gun Dogs, and Days Afield

A Nose for Valley Quail

161 A Nose for Val­ ley Quail I was ­ jinxed, hoo­ dooed, ­ skunked, and snake­ bit. Over the years I had ­ bagged bob­ white, ­ scaled, ­ Gambel’s, ­ Mearns, and even moun­ tain quail. But val­ ley quail (also ­ called Cal­ i­ for­ nia quail) had ­ eluded me, de­ spite the fact that the birds are abun­ dant in parts of Idaho and Ore­ gon where I’d often ­ hunted. In my de­ fense, I’d spent most of my time in those ­ states hunt­ ing ­ chukar par­ tridge, which typ­ i­ cally live ­ higher up on the rocky ­ slopes than val­ ley quail. But it had begun to get em­ bar­ rass­ ing. ­ School kids were shoot­ ing lim­ its of val­ ley quail in the farm­ lands ­ around ­ Weiser, Idaho, where I often head­ quar­ tered on my ­ chukar hunts, and I ­ couldn’t find a sin­ gle bird, let alone shoot one. I fi­ nally fig­ ured out how to do it—not ­ through sci­ en­ tific anal­ y­ sis or boot ­ leather, but by fol­ low­ ing a tall, lean guy named Mike Mo­ solf. A for­ mer col­ lege foot­ ball quar­ ter­ back, Mike can chase his ­ wideranging En­ glish ­ pointer, Sky, ­ through rough ter­ rain all day and ­ hardly break a sweat. 162 People and Places Sim­ ply put, Mike has a nose for val­ ley quail, and so does Sky. Be­ cause we often ­ hunted chuk­ ars to­ gether, he even­ tu­ ally took pity on me. Or maybe he just got tired of my whin­ ing. One day as we drove our ­ trucks along the Snake River on the way to a ­ chukar hunt­ ing spot, we ­ passed a ­ brushy hill­ side. Mike ­ pulled off to the side. When I drove up be­ hind him, he said, “See that lit­ tle draw right there? ­ There’s usu­ ally a covey of quail in it. Why don’t you give it a try and I’ll go down the road a bit far­ ther and see what I can find.” The draw ­ didn’t look any dif­ fer­ ent than a dozen oth­ ers we had­ passed, but I ­ wasn’t about to ­ second-guess Mike. I ­ started up the steep hill­ side with my Brit­ tany, Grou­ cho, and we ­ hadn’t gone far when Grou­ cho ­ pointed into a ­ brushy tan­ gle. Soon a quail ­ buzzed out, fol­ lowed by a dozen more. I ­ slipped on the steep slope and ­ didn’t get off a shot. The birds flew out of sight up the draw. Grou­ cho ran ahead and I strug­ gled up the slope after him. When I’d gone about a hun­ dred yards, I ­ stopped to lis­ ten. I ­ couldn’t hear­ Groucho’s bell, so I knew he must be on point. I’d ­ passed a lit­ tle side draw on the way up, and I won­ dered if the quail had ­ peeled off into it. I ­ worked my way ­ around, ap­ proach­ ing it from above, and sure­ enough, I spot­ ted a patch of ­ Groucho’s white coat gleam­ ing in the sun­ light. I whis­ tled ­ softly to let him know I was on the way. The first quail ­ zipped out from under a sage bush and ­ promptly­ darted be­ hind a boul­ der. A sec­ ond bird ­ boiled out of the same bush and ­ pitched down­ hill. I shot over him, and began to won­ der if I’d ever break my jinx. Five min­ utes later Grou­ cho slid to a point near a clump of rab­ bit­ brush. This time the bird was sil­ houet­ ted ­ against the sky when 163 A Nose for Valley Quail it flew, of­ fer­ ing a good shot. I ­ breathed a sigh of re­ lief when I saw it fall. Grou­ cho re­ trieved my first val­ ley quail and I took a mo­ ment to ad­ mire its tear­ drop plume and the ­ pretty ­ scaled pat­ tern on its­ breast. We ­ worked the area me­ thod­ i­ cally for the next ­ half-hour and Grou­ cho ­ pointed six more quail, four of which ended up in my game vest. Val­ ley quail have a rep­ u­ ta­ tion for run­ ning, es­ pe­ cially in open ter­ rain, but once a covey is ­ broken up the sin­ gles hold ­ tighter than...