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QUAIL AND CHUKAR SEASON FORECAST -- matthews column-ONS -- 24sep09
Prospects for upland bird seasons are good this fall
By JIM MATTHEWS, www.OutdoorNewsService.com
The "good old days" for quail and chukar hunters were the months of October, November, and December in 2005. That was the year there was a spectacular spring bird hatch on top of a good hatch from the previous year. Add in a few double clutches, and upland bird hunters had to wade through the birds there were so many.
Chukar hunters rejoice when they shoot a six-bird limit.... for the whole season. The fall of 2005 was the year I had a number of friends who shot over 100 chukar for the season -- and a couple of those were older guys who never got far from the truck (but they did hunt a lot, a benefit to being retired).
While it has been mostly downhill since then, this fall looks to be a major turnaround in downward numbers.
Hatches of young quail and chukar were non-existant in 2006, and there were only holdover birds from the bumper crop the year before for that fall's hunting season. And 2007 was nearly as bad. I apparently saw one of the few young chukar produced while scouting in the West Mojave that summer. One. Things improved in 2008 with pretty good production on both quail and chukar, but the number of holdover birds laying eggs and rearing those young was dismally low.
How low? In 2007, the DFG biologist for the Red Mountain region tallied just 170 chukar in his brood surveys and all of them were adults. That was just two years after that same biologist counted over 2,600 chukar in the same places with the same amount of effort. In 2008, he counted 642 chukar and 572 were young of the year birds. Meaning there were just 35 pairs of chukar before nesting began.
Unfortunately, a lack of DFG funding and staff changes didn't allow for brood counts in the Red Mountain region this year, but the West Mojave counts done by the DFG's Andy Pauli have followed the same pattern. Last year, when quail and chukar numbers were at the bottom of the barrel before nesting, Pauli said chukar broods averaged about seven young, kicking the overall numbers up a fair amount. This year, they were closer to 10 young per pair. Gambel's quail broods were about nine young per pair last year, but budget cuts didn't allow him to go to the East Mojave this summer for counts. Counts by hunters at guzzlers in the East Mojave show there was an improvement over last year both in brood sizes and overall numbers.
"It was a lot better than I thought it was going to be," said Pauli. "The trouble was that there were not a lot of holdover birds. The last three years have been pretty bad. I was very surprised to see that many birds out there."
So with good production and overall numbers of birds up, this fall's quail and chukar seasons, which kick off Oct. 17, are likely to be pretty good -- the best since that incredible 2005 season. And with an El Nino winter forecast, there is a chance the fall of 2010 could be like 2005 or even better. But I'm not sure anyone could imagine anything better.
Prospects for upland bird seasons are good this fall
By JIM MATTHEWS, www.OutdoorNewsService.com
The "good old days" for quail and chukar hunters were the months of October, November, and December in 2005. That was the year there was a spectacular spring bird hatch on top of a good hatch from the previous year. Add in a few double clutches, and upland bird hunters had to wade through the birds there were so many.
Chukar hunters rejoice when they shoot a six-bird limit.... for the whole season. The fall of 2005 was the year I had a number of friends who shot over 100 chukar for the season -- and a couple of those were older guys who never got far from the truck (but they did hunt a lot, a benefit to being retired).
While it has been mostly downhill since then, this fall looks to be a major turnaround in downward numbers.
Hatches of young quail and chukar were non-existant in 2006, and there were only holdover birds from the bumper crop the year before for that fall's hunting season. And 2007 was nearly as bad. I apparently saw one of the few young chukar produced while scouting in the West Mojave that summer. One. Things improved in 2008 with pretty good production on both quail and chukar, but the number of holdover birds laying eggs and rearing those young was dismally low.
How low? In 2007, the DFG biologist for the Red Mountain region tallied just 170 chukar in his brood surveys and all of them were adults. That was just two years after that same biologist counted over 2,600 chukar in the same places with the same amount of effort. In 2008, he counted 642 chukar and 572 were young of the year birds. Meaning there were just 35 pairs of chukar before nesting began.
Unfortunately, a lack of DFG funding and staff changes didn't allow for brood counts in the Red Mountain region this year, but the West Mojave counts done by the DFG's Andy Pauli have followed the same pattern. Last year, when quail and chukar numbers were at the bottom of the barrel before nesting, Pauli said chukar broods averaged about seven young, kicking the overall numbers up a fair amount. This year, they were closer to 10 young per pair. Gambel's quail broods were about nine young per pair last year, but budget cuts didn't allow him to go to the East Mojave this summer for counts. Counts by hunters at guzzlers in the East Mojave show there was an improvement over last year both in brood sizes and overall numbers.
"It was a lot better than I thought it was going to be," said Pauli. "The trouble was that there were not a lot of holdover birds. The last three years have been pretty bad. I was very surprised to see that many birds out there."
So with good production and overall numbers of birds up, this fall's quail and chukar seasons, which kick off Oct. 17, are likely to be pretty good -- the best since that incredible 2005 season. And with an El Nino winter forecast, there is a chance the fall of 2010 could be like 2005 or even better. But I'm not sure anyone could imagine anything better.
