First time Quail hunt

Hi Guys

First of all thanks for the tips and advise re getting set up for my first quail hunt, much appreciated and came in handy.

Drove up Friday to Ettrick to stay with a mate of a mate, beers drunk and plans hatched. saturday Morning up early and off to the station, up near Tarras. Arriving on the hill about 8am, chilly start a good frost overnight, frozen ponds and puddles, ground fairly frozen as well.

We spent the morning looking for a covey in a rightish gully, found them in the end but as often happens they got the better of us and flew and ran into some country we were not too keen on.

After bacon sandwiches and cold venison sausages in fresh white bread we found a covey in a gully that opened out as we hunted down. Best shooting at the top where we could form a good line and push them in front of us as we went. Bloody fast we buggers, certainly took a few shots for me to get the hang of it. The more experienced boys did well, putting around 20 birds on the ground.

max the hound did well for her first outing. Goy her onto a quail early, she certainly liked the smell. I was told not to let her eat it so had my hand round the bird to stop her, just meant she ended up trying to eat my hand.

About mid afternoon and half way down the gut where we found the covey we were covering the open side on the left. i had seen some quail land there earlier but one of the guys had shot over to already, still thought I would walk the dog through.
We walked slowly the dog just 10 meters in front, she was pretty keen, sniffing the ground so birds had been running around. She locked on point just on the other side of a rock where I couldn't quiet see, lucky one of the boys yelled out, Dogs on Point" I walked up and released her with away you go and the bird flushed. Unfortunately it flew really low around the side of the gut and sight picture kept getting a bounding pointer in it,so no shot.

i called her back in as one of the boys reckoned another bird about 10 meters further up. Max walked up and flushed the bird straight away, it popped about 5 meters straight uo so an easy shot for the new die, bird down, Max did a fine retrieve and managed to bring the bird back after a little prompt, she even let it go...lol.

The last couple of hours we hunted further down the gut and as the valley opened we hunted just one side. max found a bird put down by another shooter and again did a good retrieve without eating the quail. i only managed one more bird for the day, max again doing a good find and retrieve for me.

Pretty bloody happy I have to say, Max did chase a couple of rabbits but all in all a good day for a young dog and her first day on Quail.

day 2 was a slightly later start, nothing to do with the beer or Bourbon consumed. We found a covey nice and early this time, high and on the dark side in the shade a good frost on the ground. i managed to stand in the wrong spot so got to see a bunch of birds honing past with little chance of a shot, at least a shot that was gonna catch up with anything! Another 6-8 birds down and a good start. The rest of the day we spent driving round stopping to call into guts and try and locate a decent covey to hunt. In the end we split up and covered a couple of guts where birds had been seen the previous day. We had to gain some height and in the heat of the afternoon we made a hard job of it. Refer photo below of Max trying to cool off. Our party of 3 had no luck, the other 2 boys got onto a covey but as happens the birds flew into a big pile of shitty country so only a couple put down.

Great way to spend a couple of days, thanks to the boys for helping out a new quail hunter and his new dog. They were really patient with both of us and we learnt a lot. Looking forward to doing it again.
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Dino

Good stuff great country to be wandering around in. Well done Max.

Awesome,

I'm real keen to have a go at these wee buggers this year.

cool mate

Brilliant...go Max!!!

Excellent write up and great photos - gotta love central otago!