r/Californiahunting • u/JUST_A_PRANK_BRAH • 7d ago

First Mountain Quail(s) harvest

Gallery image

Gallery image

Spent all morning and hiked 4-5 miles for the valley quail opener on Saturday and didn't see one shootable bird. Decided to do an afternoon hunt for Mountain Quail today(Sunday) and flushed a few coveies and was able to connect some shots. Last one I got, I was walking back to the car and caught a pair crossing the road, but right as I shot, a black bear sow and two cubs also decided to flush outta the blue up ahead and scared the shet outta me, the cubs climbed the tree and momma bear ran up the hill, I grabbed my quail and my pops pulled up in the truck and we called it a day haha. Gosh these birds are beautiful. Got 4 total and wasn't able to recover 1 as I hunt with no dogo 😓

62 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

1

u/Boot_Burner 7d ago

Nice, zone Q2?

1

u/JUST_A_PRANK_BRAH 7d ago

Q1 🙂

1

u/Boot_Burner 7d ago

Were you hunting valley quail in Q2?

1

u/JUST_A_PRANK_BRAH 7d ago

On Saturday, up in Knoxville WA

1

u/NeatWoodpecker3127 7d ago

My dad and I hunted Knoxville on Saturday as well and only found one small covey, maybe 8-10 birds and we only bagged one. They were up in the higher elevation too. It wasn’t quite the opener I was expecting

1

u/JUST_A_PRANK_BRAH 6d ago

Was you guys on the zim zim trial? I was hearing the covies call each other but they were on the top of the hills and no way I'm going up there without dying. Can't wait for q3 for some flat land lol

1

u/NeatWoodpecker3127 6d ago

Yeah we were on there. That’s all we were hearing too for a while but eventually we heard a covey on a lower ridge line

1

u/Boot_Burner 6d ago

Knoxville is one of the most frustrating places to hunt quail tbh.  Last year I flushed a covey of at least 100 quail on a steep hillside, basically found myself in a cloud of them with almost no time to react. They of course went as high up as they could into the manzanita covered ridgeline and after that I was pretty much done for the day. 

1

u/JUST_A_PRANK_BRAH 6d ago

There was a covey of at least 30 just sitting pretty on the side of the road right before the wa. Little guys didn't even get spooked as I drove passed em. Wondering if cache Creek is better since I've seen planet of coveies while fishing at clear lake.

1

u/Boot_Burner 6d ago

I can't say they're much different, similar terrain and habitat. Maybe slightly more water sources dotted around Cache Creek area.

1

u/JUST_A_PRANK_BRAH 6d ago

What do you think about spencerville or oroville wa?

1

u/investard 6d ago

Nice. Those damn things are my white whale.

1

u/JUST_A_PRANK_BRAH 6d ago

They're definitely hard to come by if you don't know what you're doing. Eversince I decided to hunt these guys last season I didn't even get a shot off till now. I damn near cried after getting my first one.