Steve Merlo: Upland bird season has tremendous potential
| Thursday, Oct 06 2011 04:38 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Oct 06 2011 04:39 PM
Like most other wildlife lovers, I enjoy watching animals and birds whether I hunt them or not. I am especially fond of viewing the beautiful, top-knotted, bicycling valley quail in our area that are so prolific when conditions are right.
I also like to hunt the fast flying, noisily flushing birds, preferably over a pointer or flushing dog.
No other bird, with the possible exception of a gaudy, cackling rooster pheasant, can startle, amaze and bamboozle a hunter with its adrenalin wrenching, noisy flush. The shooter or dog must somehow roust the bird or bevy, able to hide in cover no larger than itself into flight, and then actually hit the speedily departing target.
One year back in the late 1990s, Department of Fish and Game biologists suggested prior to the upland bird season that quail and chukar had had an unprecedented hatch. Citing one of the largest population explosions in history, they called the event a "100-year hatch," and true to form, hunters enjoyed the finest upland shooting anyone could remember.
My buddies and I will attest to that year, when limits were common if one could shoot straight, and coveys were everywhere we looked. At the beginning of the season, we rarely spent more than 10 minutes finding a covey in October, November and December, and only 15 toward the end of January when individual coveys combined. All of us enjoyed fantastic shooting as well as full plates for some time after the season closed.
Several years later, the effects of a prolonged drought drastically reduced the upland numbers due to loss of emergent cover and humidity necessary for egg development. Most hunters I know sharply and immediately curtailed their quail hunting to help what few breeding pairs were still around.
Most cited the 20-to-1 rule, meaning that every hen they did not kill meant at least 20 more birds in the following year's production. Such self regulation is a typical reaction of the sport hunting community whenever the birds or animals they love are in dire straits.
When ample rain finally came several years ago, a lot of vegetation and cover emerged, allowing the birds to rebound with amazing ferocity.
While the light hunting pressure produced some decent shooting last season, the larger than average numbers of remaining birds after the 2010-2011 season produced a tremendous upsurge this spring after a rain soaked year. More habitat and dense cover blanketed the southern San Joaquin Valley than in prior years, and most nesting pairs were able to raise at least two and sometimes three clutches.
So, will this be another 100-year cycle? No one knows for sure or is willing to speculate, but I'm willing to bet it'll be at least the best since the last one in the 1990s, due to the absurd numbers of birds seen around the valley floor, desert and mountains.
Even the normally dry areas of Inyo, Mono and eastern Kern counties are reporting huge stocks of both chukars and quail. The Sierra, especially in Tulare County around the Ponderosa, Peppermint and Camp Nelson communities are teeming with large numbers of hard-to-find mountain quail.
The general quail season opens Oct. 15. Bag limits are 10 per day for valley and mountain quail and six for chukars. Possession limits for all three are double the daily bag limit after opening day. A current California hunting license is required to hunt these noble birds.
Duck hunters, beware of the hidden killer
With more than 20,000 ducks calling the Kern refuge home at last official count, waterfowl hunters should have excellent shooting when the season opens Saturday (Oct. 8). With plenty of water on hand at the popular shooting Mecca, from 80-90 hunters will be allowed on the premises on a first come, first serve opportunity.
But hunters are being warned to take precautions before going afield due to the heavy influence of the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus. Of special interest to all waterfowl hunters, fifty-percent of the ten or so on-site mosquito abatement test chickens have recently tested positive for the very serious disease.
Hunters need to really slather themselves with a quality repellant or risk exposure to the potentially fatal disease. While the mosquito people did fly the refuge earlier his week, their treatment only killed the larvae and not the adult Culex Tarsalus disease carriers. Two Kern County deaths have already been recorded this year and the count could go up because of all the standing water after last season's and more recent rains.
