Episode #46 Field Notes From A Warm Arizona Quail Hunt

We walk through a late-season Arizona quail hunt that starts rough in open creosote and ends with a hard-earned double, with honest lessons on heat, dogs, gear, and calling. Warm, dry winter patterns, small coveys, and rattlesnake risk reshaped how we moved, rested, and recovered birds.

• choosing terrain that holds birds and supports dogs
• mistakes that cost birds, including an empty chamber
• managing heat stress and reading dog warning signs
• calling strategy to locate coveys without burning energy
• GPS interference issues and fast recalibration fixes
• safe retrieves around glass, cactus and washes
• covey size trends and warm, dry winter impacts
• late-season tactics for wild-flushing Gambel’s
• rattlesnake awareness and risk management
• quick note on a recent Mearns hunt and plans ahead

Share it with a friend. Check us out at azquailtoday.com for recipes, podcasts, blogs and insights. How further our work, please consider making a tax-deductible gift. Visit us online at azquailtoday.com and be sure to follow us on social media for the latest information and updates.

Connect with us: Email us at ryan@azquailtoday.com —we'd love to hear from you! 
Follow us on Instagram at @azquailtoday

Transcript

Welcome, Season Update, Sponsor Sip

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Arizona Quail Today, your go-to pump camps for all things quail hunting in Arizona. We're dedicated to educating and inspiring the next generation of Quail hunters. A big thanks to our supporters and proud partners.

Plan For A Hunt Breakdown

Creosote Flats Gamble Goes Wrong

Dogs Struggle And A Costly Empty Chamber

Heat Stress And Dog Care In Warm Winter

Moving Spots And Finding Vocal Coveys

GPS Glitches, Gear Talk, And Rabbit Detour

Shade Break, Calling Tactics, And Covey Locate

Wild Flushes, A Clean Double, And Recovery

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Alright, welcome back to another episode of Arizona Quail. Today in the studio with me is Miss Arizona. She's in the back, just laying down. Opened up a wild berry apex predator. And I really like that. I think it's become one of my favorites, actually. So yeah, it's a good drink. I don't know about you, but it's pretty cool. I really, really like it. Okay, in this episode, I'm going to spend some time just kind of walking through one of my recent hunts and tell you kind of some of the things that I did and kind of some of my notes. And I've got scrambled notes. And so we'll see if it all kind of makes sense with you. But man, overall, I just say recently it has been warming up out there. And so that's kind of a bummer. I mean, how hot it's getting. It's getting a lot more hot than uh anybody would really like. So what about you? So how's it going? Doing any good out there? It's the season's tailing off. Oh man, it is about to be done. Sunday's the last day of quail season. I mean, what are you gonna do? Okay, well, here's some hunting notes that I want to share with you. Hopefully, this finds you in the truck and maybe it'll catch you on your way out of your hunt or your way back to your hunt. I don't know. Maybe just listening sometime. You just listening to the podcast because, you know, you figure it's better than listening to talk radio. Um, okay. So the other day I went out in the field, went to this location, and it was a good little location. Uh, I didn't have a lot of familiarity with this specific location. I knew the general area, but it's just one of those dirt roads that I'm like, oh yeah, that looks intriguing. I'll turn down that one. And I should have known from just looking at it, but it was what's called the mesquite flats kind of area where there's a lot of um well, it wasn't mesquite flats. Let me correct it. It was actually creosote flats. So creosote are much n worse than mesquite flats for for like quail. Like mesquite flats probably would be a lot better, uh, but the creosote flats and just it was just really open desert and not enough cover. And not to say that there wouldn't be birds there, but it makes it really difficult to work birds. Like you're probably better off just leaving your dog in the truck and then going all like kind of like crouching ninja on these birds because desert birds like to run. And so I went out to that kind of location, kind of burned up the best of my morning, to be honest with you, but it was a gamble on gambles, pun intended, and uh got out of the truck and I did do something that was good. I started calling and I located some birds just real early. I mean, that was fun. And then I tried to walk up on the hillside um to see if I could get a better location on them, and uh and uh I I uh I couldn't I couldn't get a better location on them. I ended up going back to the truck, grabbing my dog, and uh that was cool, and got my dog out and figured we'd cross this big old wash and then hopefully try to push these birds into some thicker cover and we get out after it and something happens. I don't know, there's these birds flushed wild again or what. I mean, the last few the last few hunts I've been on with my dogs, it just hasn't gone great. And I had a really good hunt a few like a week or a couple weeks ago, and the dog, my dog did do great, and it was when there was a lot of snow on the ground, which was kind of a cool thing for Arizona hunt, quail hunting. I was in higher country, but the last few weeks they haven't done a good so anyway. I get out across this big wash, birds flush wild, and you I cannot believe it. I did the same thing I've done in the past, and this has happened to me. Like I have jinxed myself, like this is the problem. Like, when you start coaching people or start telling people, like teaching people, like you better be teaching yourself too. Because like, so I get out and I don't have my gun loaded, and a bird just does an easy like pass shot, and I just click, click, just missed it. And pretty much the rest of that location with these big open areas, those birds just would run, and my dogs just couldn't couldn't work it, and it was just couldn't pin birds down, so it was just kind of a waste. So I drove out of there, couldn't couldn't get back to the main highway because I got like got kind of lost a little bit in the backcountry. I mean, I knew where I was on my GPS and I knew where I was on Onyx, but it was like there was too many fences, and so somebody's running a lot of cattle in there, and it just it it chewed up my morning. I hate it when that kind of happens, but I was trying to beat people, you know, like I didn't want to be around people, so I was going to more remote areas anyway. Didn't work out, did find some birds, not enough birds for me to want to go back. So maybe I'll peek in there on another season to see if the cattle hadn't overgrazed it or somehow the you know, want to venture further out to see if the the terrain gets any better back there. But that location didn't work so good. And I'm I ran my dog really hard that morning, and I don't know if you're hunting in Arizona as you're listening to this or have been in the near past, but here we are in the beginning of February, and this was just like this was just like late January hunt, and it was warm. My dog got heated up like so much so my dog's laying down in the bushes, so it wasn't good. And note to self, when you work your dog really hard and you're running your dog really hard, and your dog starts wanting to lay down since something's not right, and um, bird dogs don't usually want to lay down on aunt unless they're really, really hot. And so my dog did that, so I loaded her up in the kennel, cooled her off, tried my best. She's eating grass, so her stomach was already bothering her, so she might have had something that she was a little uncomfortable with. But anyway, I load her up, Miss Aaron Zona. That's who that's who's sleeping in the back of the studio. Zona, you want to say anything? No, she just stared at me with those cute little eyes. Um, meanwhile, Happy's in the backyard soaking up the sun. Zona's a kennel dog. She just loves her kennel. But anyway, so I load her up, and uh she's I got big, you know, side, I've got a camper shell on the back of my truck, and it's got big open windows where I it's got screens and dog screens so they can't like push out and all that, so I get plenty of air in there. Get on the highway, start blowing, cooling everything down really good. She got watered up, she shaded up. Thought she was good. Anyway, get to the next spot, and it's 20 minutes away, and uh, I know there's birds there. I mean, I I know I know where there's birds, it's just a matter of do I want to go after them? You know, how many times have I been there? If I've been there at all, uh do I want to venture into that area? Do I think people are gonna be there? I mean, there's a lot of factors that go in, and how many birds are gonna be there? So, anyway, so I go to an area, I know there's gonna be birds, and sure enough, I get out of the truck and I start calling and I hear them. So this time it was great. I mean, the birds were chit-chatty, and uh gambles were calling back, and so that that's super fun. So, so anyway, um then I I uh start to kind of move in a little closer to see if I can I kind of like cross over this hillside to see if I can like get maybe eyes on them because I've from this location I've actually spotted quail on a lower like ridge, and uh shh, I did not expect this. A covey of birds just flew. It's like six to ten birds. I was like, oh my goodness, I didn't I mean, like, I didn't even know they were there, and um anyway, so I go back, get my dog, think okay, I'm gonna go get these birds, and they kind of flushed into an area that's a little sketchy. Um just there was some broken glass and some stuff that's again, these dumpers, man, these crazy people that just love to just throw their crap out. So anyway, I'm like super sketched out about where uh these birds flushed. So like I don't even really want to work my dog, but I go back to grab my dog and I open up the truck and I'm like, what? There's like green crap everywhere, and it's Zona. She puked out a bunch of grass. She got so hot she puked. So I'm like, oh no. Well, I have two dogs. So um I got Zona and I got her down, and I just gave her some water and let her take a leak. And uh that's Miss Arizona, and I was like, sorry, baby, you know, so she wasn't feeling good from that first morning run, and she's hauling butt, she's all or nothing, and so she didn't want to hunt, so and I didn't need her to hunt. I had a happy my fresh fresh young dog. So um put her up, tell her I'm sorry, ran her so hard in the heat, and then it's happy's turn, and so we turned loose, and like I said, those birds had flushed in some pretty sketchy terrain, and I was just like, uh I peeled off of them. I'm like, let's go find more birds. And sure enough, we get in there, and I start hiking all throughout this new country. I've been to, I knew there were birds there, like I said. But one thing I saw that I've I've seen a I've seen a ton of I told you earlier, rabbits, or not rabbits, a deer, but this time I saw rabbits. I've I just I've seen a bunch of rabbits. Um so anyway, I was hunting quail and I my GPS started screwing up, and my dog ran real big. Either he got on some quail, or he just wanted to hunt for himself like an idiot, or he was chasing a jackrabbit, which I don't think he I mean he doesn't really chase rabbits that much, but he doesn't bark at him, he doesn't chase them. I mean he's he's pretty focused on quail, but anyway, my dog just got one too many ridges over me, and um, and I kind of kinda like for a minute, and then my GPS has gone all screwy, and some people say that it might be because I've got this uh magnetic like marsupial uh vest thing, and it's like a lot of people have the like magnetic parts to it, and it if you hold that real close to your GPS, it can screw up your GPS. So I don't know if that's true or not, because I just recalibrated my GPS and then it started working fine, but nonetheless, I'm still gonna switch sides. I'm gonna put my GPS on one side and then the magnetic thing on the other side. So I'm curious if if you know about that theory and if that's true or not. And then the other thing is, but does it happen with all metal? So I have because I have a pistol as well. So um, anyway, if you've got some feedback, shoot me a message. I'd love to hear that. Um so anyway, I recalibrate my GPS and my dog's way out, and so I call it back in. I just my dog's tone train, so I'm like, dee dee. Two beeps means come to me. And he's taken a while, he's like 400 yards out or something like that. And uh I see a jackrabbit, and I'm like, why not? Like it's just standing right there. It's not it's not mine. I'm not my my dog's not gonna get confused about what we're hunting, so pow, I just popped him, laid him out, and go over there, and he's just kicking and kicking and kicking. It's a long shot on a 20 gauge, and um, so um I finish him off. I got a little nine millimeter uh hell cat that I carry on my vest and just pop him in the head and uh put him out of his misery. And then I um finally my dog comes back, he's like, Oh, you got a rabbit. I'm like, yeah, well that's not what we're hunting, but yeah. So so we find a Palo Verde tree, and uh I skinned out those backstraps off that uh jackrabbit and uh made pretty good, makes for some pretty good food. And uh I found some shade there, so hot, and then I sat there for about 10-15 minutes or so and uh located in another covey of birds, um, and that was a cool thing. Like, I mean, being able to sit out there and take your time, you know. It is hot, so just kind of just rolling with it. It's hot. I um need to cool off. My dog needs to cool off. I could clean the back straps off this jackrabbit, and why not just sit there? So I called a few times and just let it sit, let it sit, waited. And then next thing you know, like I started hearing birds call back, and I located another covey, and it was real quiet, it wasn't like loud, but it was definitely some birds. Um it's really interesting. Like if you start calling with your dog too, like your dog listens for those noises too, and like when those dogs hear those birds call back, it's really cool that you can actually you your dog's like paying close attention. I'll see if I can play for you like maybe a noise of a quail, uh gamble's quail. Here you go. I mean, you could hear like a morning dove in the background, uh whatever. It's like that's pretty cool. But you could hear those quail in there. That's uh quail that are pairing up and all that good stuff, but you can hear these birds, man. And that's a bit that's a that's a key part to my hunts is just a little call. It just saves time and tells you where to go. Apex predator, you you gotta check them out sometime. So I don't let me see where you can find this stuff at. Um I've got an Instagram page for sure. So Apex Predator Energy is where you're gonna look for him. But anyway, pretty good stuff. Anyway, so I locate this other cubby and I gave a chance for my dog to kind of cool off, and it was getting really hot, and it's later in the day, one dog already puked up from overheating, and had those GPS problems, like I said, and then recalibrated them, and you know, and then next thing you know is I'm like ready to rock and roll. Um and so I go out there with my dog, we start moving through, and these birds again, they just wild flush, and my dog doesn't get on point. Um, you know, so uh one flushed right beside me, pow, popped it, dropped it. Another one flies in by me, pow, popped it, dropped it. I was like, heck yeah, it's a double, baby. I'm like, dude, I started my season like this, and I'm hopefully I'm I don't hope this is not my last hunt, but I'm ending my season like this, and so got a good double out of that, and I was really grateful. Um, go to pick up my first bird and stick my hand down, and I can see it. It and happy, my bird dog. He did locate it, and he's like pointing into this big old cactus. This uh, oh, I can't even remember what kind of cactus it was, but anyway, it was a big old thick cactus, and he's pointing at it, and he's like, he's like looking at me like it's in there, but I don't want to stick my face in there. And so I see it. I should have put on some leather gloves or reached my hand down in there, and uh especially as hot as it was, you gotta be watching out for rattlesnakes. And I I did look around, but I reached my hand down there, and sure enough, got stuck with some some cacti, some cacti in the uh little forearm. But um anyway, it was got got a hint out of that, and then I came back and I'm like, all right, I marked the other location in which that other bird dropped. Just note yourself, when those cut when those birds did start busting, um, I sat there deliberately standing super still, and then you know, waited a couple seconds till those birds rose up over the cover and got some some good some good um visibility on them, and then pow, shot the I for I did shoot the slowest one, and then there was just this random popcorn one that came back to the other side, and that's when poo I shot my double. And I went after the first one first, and I don't know if I should have done that or not, but it worked out, and then I go over to the second one, and I kind of think I just winged that bird, and so I go over with my dog, and we're like looking for this winged bird. And I know it's I know it went down, I just didn't seem like it went down very hard. Not like the first one, like it dropped. So we go in and we start looking. I got him hunted up, hunted up, hunted up. That's my command for him to hunt it up, you know. And if there's a dead, dead bird that he's got, I'll say fetch here, you know. So anyway, and so I got I got working him on that, and he's looking for the bird, and we can't find it, and then next thing you know, we move out a little further. It's like concentric circles, like moving from the epicenter of where I thought, and it's a little further than I thought. So that does make sense because it was uh it had some legs still on them. So he ran off, and then all of a sudden he flushes and he lands, and I'm like, what? So I'm like, okay, that's gotta be that bird, because it was really close, unless there was another bird, but I don't I don't think so. So we go down and I I didn't get a shot on him that time. So then we go down, and Happy is running around looking for him again. And somewhere in the mix of it all between me and the dog, the bird flushes and goes right over this wash, which is a perfect place to shoot a bird.

unknown 21:59

Pow.

Covey Sizes, Season Quality, And Mearns Notes

Rainfall Patterns, Warm Winter, And Outlook

Rattlesnake Risks And Late-Season Safety

Closing, Share, Website, And Donation

SPEAKER_01 22:00

And I just got them, dropped them. Big fat rooster. Beautiful, beautiful Gambles rooster. And uh that was that was awesome. And you you know, when you see a quail dropping a big old wash, you're like, okay, I'm not worried about that. Like, you need to be worried when there's prickly pear everywhere, or there's choya, or there's bushes everywhere, or you got all sorts of hackberry bushes you're dealing with, or cat claw, or whatever be the case. Like, it's like there's plenty of cover, those birds just find a little hole and just dip down and go. And so big old wash was super nice. So I got a double out of that, but it's not the kind of double that I love the most. The doubles I love the most would be like a dog on point, a flush, and a boom boom. And I did that at the beginning of the season. I mean, I have to say, those those memories stick with you. And I I don't know about you, like I do I've been hunting probably once or twice a week since the season started, and I might skip a week, you know, one or two, but and then sometimes I'm hunting three, but yeah, I don't I don't keep counting, I don't know. But out of all those times, and again, maybe I don't have the best dogs in the world, but I have a handful of really memorable hunts that were like the dogs did great, and here's what happened. And uh, so anyway, what did I not see? I didn't see super cubbies. I I did see, I think in that day that I hunted, I did see or locate at least four cubbies. Each cubby was probably I would say six to ten birds or something like that. So nothing like 20, 30. And I'm going back to some locations before the season's out, Lord willing. Uh and um I'm gonna see if I can't get into some bigger cubbies, you know, because they should be teaming up, you know, they get shot out a bunch, and they should they should be teaming up. So I don't know. I don't know. It's just not been a great season. Um, but it's been a lot of fun. Still having fun. Um I did do a Mern Squail hunt, I'll have to tell you about that on another episode. Um and not a lot of birds, a lot of hiking, but I did harvest a Mern Squail, and that was a lot of fun. But uh chasing gambles mainly, chasing gambles, and um just not as many birds, and so we did have a wet fall. Uh the winter's been okay, and it counts, but the predominant level of the rain was like October um November, I think. Let me let me let me do the research and let's just find out. Let's ask perplexity. What was the majority of the rain in AZ for 2025? And was it the fall or winter? And give me months and let's see what happens. Okay, yeah, we've had some pretty big rains, but again, um, the winter rains affect the gambles quail, the desert, uh, the scaled quail. Um so it says for Phoenix specifically, most of 2025 rain came in the fall, not the winter. That's what I said. Uh Phoenix Sky Harbor Metro Meteorological Fall 2025 was officially the wettest on record. So, yeah, September, October, November. Okay. So December's not been that great. Winter for 2024-2025 across Arizona was very dry statewide, the second driest winter on record. Uh-oh. January 25 was the driest January ever. See, I mean, we've just had some really bad winters. There you go. An article summarizing the season notes that nearly 75, 76% of Phoenix's 2025 annual rainfall fell after September, driven mainly by big events on September 26th and October 27th or October 12th. So 2025, Phoenix. Let's let's say say A Z, not just Phoenix. I mean, they're doing that because it's easy data to harness. For Arizona 2025, the bulk of precipitation also favored fall more than winter. So if you want to argue with me, you you can argue with me, but I think the data is there because all of this is cited and sourced. I mean, so this is winter 2024-25, statewide 2024-25 was much drier than normal. Summer, fall, monsoon, fall, 2025. Well, the 2025 monsoon, June through September was underwhelming in many areas, substantial rain events in late summer, especially fall, September, November. Yes, uh boosted annual totals in central and parts of um southern Arizona, including record fall conditions. Yeah. So again, it was let's just say again, most of the rain of 2025, it's very fair to say was late summer and fall, especially September, October, November. So it's still gonna help, but the problem is is that it's been un uh it's been um unusually warm for AZ this winter, right? I mean, it's been really, really warm. So I I I you know the winter's been really warm. Yeah, seasonal outlooks for 2025, 2026. It's an above normal temperature, below normal precipitation. So verdict is still out. I think we need more rains, so for there to be an estimate for a high bumbles uh bumbles, gambles bump. I was doing gambles and bump at the same time and got bumbles. Um yeah, this winter has felt more like an early spring in Arizona, way warmer and drier than usual. So hang on just a second. We're gonna have to pause and be right back. My baby's calling. Alright, I'm back. So we're all good. My baby's got her blue jeans on. Boom. What? What? Okay. Yeah. That's an oldie but a goodie. Baby's got her blue jeans on. Yeah. Got a good wife. So um anyway. So yeah, it's been a dry winter. And uh yeah, I mean, I just it's been warm and and not as wet as it should be. Again, I I'm gonna argue it's a wet fall. Now, again, for Gamble's quail, you can count the wet winter off from like October if you want to. So that does help October, November. But most people when they're talking about winter, uh they're they're calculating a November, December time frame. When is the technical winter? I think, you know, it depends on uh maybe m technically there are two common ways to define winter meteorological winter, December 1st to February 28, or astronomical winter from winter solstice around December 21st to spring equinox around March 20th. So again, the data clearly says the rainfall was September, October, November. It was not December. So yeah, we need more rain, guys. Bottom line, that's it. We just need more rain. So we'll see. We'll see. Um, I definitely don't think the rain has hurt anything, it's only help, so that's really good. So it's warmer and watch out for rattlesnakes. Um, I saw a picture the other day of a guy who his dog got bit by a rattlesnake, and he's like an EMT guy. He did all the stuff himself. Like, he didn't go spend you know ten thousand dollars on the anti-venom. He just did all the stuff himself, and like I don't know what all he did. I think I'm gonna have him on the podcast and say, Well, how did your dog how did you get your dog to survive a rattlesnake bite? Like, like that'd be really cool. I'll have to do that. Um, he showed me tons of pictures and it was gruesome. I don't I don't even it was gross. But I would say for you, be careful in this last little endeavor of hunting for this season. Like, don't don't get don't end your season with a snake bite. Like, it's not worth it. Like, once it's in like yeah, I think it got it to 66 degrees and um 66 degrees was what it peeked out at for me where I was hunting, and it was all it was too it was hot, and I just I was finding Palo Verde trees to hide under, and uh mesquite trees, and so I just would argue like be careful, and you can find rattlesnakes even in the snow, like they'll come out if the sun's out. And I've I've I bumped into a rattlesnake with my dog a few years ago in the snow. Like, there's snow, and then there's a rattlesnake. Now it was warming up, but it snowed the night before, and then here comes a rattlesnake. So, anyway, that is that on these on kind of this field notes. So, hopefully, you've enjoyed this episode. Share it with a friend. Check us out at azquailtoday.com and uh for all sorts of recipes on quail and uh podcast information, some blogs and insights. So, anyway, we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Thanks for listening in. How further our work, please consider making a tax-deductible gift. Visit us online at azquailtoday.com and be sure to follow us on social media for the latest information and updates. Till then, remember to get outside.