A soft-mouthed yellow lab retrieves a valley quail. Good precipitation last spring bodes well for hunters now. Photo by Jim Niemiec.

Back in the early 1900s, California valley quail roosted from Baja California up into Oregon. Back then, according to Starker Leopold, author of the bird bible, California Quail, birds were trapped and transported to potentially good habitat to build new quail populations.

During this period, there were tremendous populations of valley quail in the state. According to Leopold, as many as 177,000 quail were sold on the commercial market during 1896-97. This year, it would sure be great to have the population rebound to even close to those numbers. But with loss of habitat, continued development and the spotty rain, we’ll just have to take what we get.

But in early 2008, good amounts of rain did fall. That should help produce a bumper crop of California valley quail, Gambel’s quail in the desert and sustain an increasing population of elusive mountain quail.

Young quail and adult birds need hiding places. In the foothills, there appears to be an abundance of sage, chaparral, native grass and thorny brush, which should combine to keep the hawks off the birds.

Other predators will also have a difficult time in finding nests, running down birds and ambushing small coveys of quail as they move quickly from one hiding spot to another.

If everything comes together and the state gets just a little more rain, scattergunners should have a good season of quail gunning.

“It’s really important that we got the rain when we did,” said Scott Swell, wildlife habitat supervisor for the California Department of Fish and Game. “This gave the ground a pretty good soaking after coming off a drought year, and the native plants and seed crops did well.”

The key factor is that quail were able to nest near water, which is where there are likely to be lots of bugs. That’s good news to California quail hunters.

AROUND THE STATE
For harvesting California quail, Kern County is typically the top-producing county, followed by San Luis Obispo and Monterey.

Siskiyou and Trinity counties topped the list of best places to hunt mountain quail. For that species, Kern County is usually in the top three as well.

When it comes to Gambel’s quail, San Bernardino was the best place to hunt. Imperial County also accounts for about 25 percent of the birds harvested in the state.

Here’s a roundup of your quail hunting opportunities in the Golden State this year.

Statewide, there were many reports of valley quail pairing up early during the spring months. Turkey hunters reported seeing and hearing many birds that were already getting ready to nest as early as late March.

Earlier this year, while hunting turkeys around Paso Robles, I saw plenty of paired-up quail.

Last year, chicks had fewer places to hide. Hawks did a job on the carry-over adult population, too.

“I don’t think we are going to have that problem this year,” said Deedy Loftus, game owner-manager of Bryson Hesperia Resort near Los Padres National Forest. “It may not be the best ever. But for those hunting the coastal range, it should be a lot more productive than it was for the last couple of seasons.”

Across California, chapters of Quail Unlimited spend a great deal of time working on habitat projects in prime quail country.

This past winter, volunteers spent thousands of man-hours working on guzzlers, hauling water and making sure there was plenty of ideal quail habitat on the ground.

“Valley quail recruitment should be good throughout the state with highs and lows regionally influenced by spring participation,” said Dick Haldeman, QU regional director.