TGK '24/'25 AZ Quail Report

​I’m pretty sure Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) didn’t have the ‘24/’25 Arizona quail season in mind back in ’73 when he wrote, “Right Place, Wrong Time”, but the lyrics seem to capture the hunting situation in South Central Arizona for all three species of quail and proves to be an apt theme song for our season.
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By all accounts, the winter rains of ‘23/’24 were ideal for the Gambles and Scaled quail, and the monsoons of ’24, while not the best, certainly weren’t categorically bad either. Meaning, productive areas in the right places should have been pretty good. 

The San Rafeal Valley, as expected, proved to be a ghost town for Mearns quail due to the prior year’s Apocalyptic disaster created by wildly excessive overgrazing by the ranchers’ cattle compounded by the Forest Service’s absolute criminally poor range management. On the upside, quail habitat responded well enough. So, when the quail are ready to move in the SRV should be inviting once again.
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But what about our projected “hot spots”? Well, let me tell you all about them. In areas where we had anticipated good Mearns quail production we found, in many cases, robust quail digs. I mean 15 feet x 100 yards of Earth tilled by little quail feet kind of stuff. Occasionally, the scent of fresh Earth could not only be smelled but tasted! Usually, sign that you are right on top of them. But alas, in too many cases no birds produced – or even blundered.

It was unseasonably hot. It was hot early. There hadn’t been any appreciable precipitation in the area since the end of Monsoon season. There was no cloud cover, and all too often not a lick of air movement. With daily humidity levels hitting single digits by 0930, it’s is safe to say scenting conditions just straight up sucked.
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We pride ourselves on having on having some good Mearns dogs, yet day after day the finds were limited, and the level of dog work we normally enjoy witnessing and being a part of was not on par with what we consider even close to normal. Even borrowing massively experienced dogs from my friend Dave Brown’s string didn’t provide any relief. It only served to let us know it was tough as woodpecker lips out there!

Dave Brown's Chili Pepper!

So, was it all just sour grapes? No, not at all. With expectations realigned, we managed to make contact almost every day and even had a few really nice days that would have fit right in with better years past. Coveys were running harder than normal, perhaps because the dogs struggled to pin them? But the coveys we made contact with were healthy if not better than average. Additionally, almost all the birds I took were juveniles, which hints at production vs. taking brood stock.

As I write this, the area took some light snow, and may get some rain… I eagerly await to hear reports from some trusted friends. We all want to be right, desperately: that there are more birds than we realize and that the difficult scenting conditions are what are driving long walks and low harvests…
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​Even with this 17th Mearns season of mine being the 2nd most challenging I’ve had to date; it doesn’t change my love for the area or chasing these special birds. If anything, it only motivates me to learn even more about them.