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HUNTING SEASON UPDATES -- matthews-ONS -- 23oct08
Bird seasons off to mediocre start thanks to warm weather for opener
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service
Quail and chukar season opener this past weekend was tough across most of Southern California thanks to unseasonably warm temperatures. Chukar hunters in the Mojave Desert and Red Mountain regions reported better success than last year, but only fair hunting overall, with hunters averaging less than a bird each.
Mark Lemons of Riverside phoned in the most unusual and successful chukar hunting report. Working in unison with some other hunters he'd just met, Lemons had the high ground and a huge covey flushed in front of him as the hunters all worked across the face of a desert mountain near Interstate 15. Lemons swung on one bird, fired, and then shot again. He though he saw one bird go down, but the other hunters below insisted they had seen more. A lot more. Lemons, working with his Cheaseapeak retriever, eventually recovered five birds, one shy of a limit, all taken on the wing with two shots. Knowing it would be hard to top this feat, he decided to call it a day and went quail hunting in another spot. The best part he said was having witnesses.
Lemons went back the next day and bagged three more chukar in the same area, proving the birds are out there.
Orange County hunter David Bailey bagged three chukar opening Saturday, also hunting the West Mojave.
"I went back out on Monday and shot two more chukar," said Bailey. "I saw about 60 birds total -- so they are out there. But they seem to be concentrated in certain areas. Most reports I have heard, from Ridgecrest to our deserts, is very few birds shot, if any. Guess I am just good, or lucky, or both."
Knowing Bailey, I'd say it was mostly hard work.
Chris Coston of Yorba Linda hunted chukar in the Mojave for a half a day, bagging just one bird in a tough morning hunt where he said the chukar we acting like they'd been hunted for two months already (always staying out of range), so he retreated to the San Bernardino Mountains where he found several coveys of mountain quail, bagging four birds for a nice opening day mixed bag.
Mike Guttilla, also of Yorba Linda, hunted quail in the low desert near the Salton Sea said he found only one covey of Gambel's quail but managed to bag six birds on opening day.
"All the other familiar faces and diehards I ran into were skunked as of 11 a.m.," said Guttilla. "I spoke to a ranger and he said that every hunter he contaced was also skunked. The vegetation was all dying and the mature trees were baron of food. No tracks in the washes either."
Heat and dry conditions made for difficult hunting, according to most hunters contacted. But everyone agreed there are more birds in the deserts and local mountains than last year -- by several magnitudes.
Chukar hunters opening day in the Granite Mountains off Highway 18 east of Apple Valley were treated to a fair number of birds -- and a helicopter evacuation. Matt Gangola of Glendora was hunting with his wife Debbie on the steep hillsides near the top of one of the ridges. Matt had bagged one chukar and then "hit the mother load covey of 50 to 60 birds that flew just two short canyons from my location."
Picking his way over to the birds, Gangola slipped on a flat rock, slid down its face, and wedged his leg in a crevice while his body went the other direction. Knowing he had a badly broken leg, Matt first tried to get Debbie on their two-way radios, but she was just over the crest of the ridge. He then fought to get his cell phone out of his pocket and called 9-1-1 with just one bar of service. Fortunately, the call went through and he was able to relate an exact GPS coordinate of his location because he also had a GPS unit with him.
Sheriffs search and rescue was hovering nearly overhead within 20 minutes, but Matt was in the shade of a rock with camo gear and they initially couldn't find him. They phoned Matt back and he gave directions and waved his blaze orange hat before they could see him. Once plucked off the steep hillside, he was carted him off to the hospital. Matt will be laid up for five months, according to the doctors.
Debbie, who's a nurse and avid hunter, wasn't worried. She took the dogs and went on hunting, shooting a limit of chukar. Actually, I made that part up, but it sounds good.
Matt and Debbie are long-time friends and part of Matt's e-mail on the ordeal is worth sharing with other hunters who scramble around these remote and rugged mountains:
"Things to keep in mind: communication is everything. If you venture away from the road, you need to have a way to communicate with whatever source of help you intend to use [should something happen]. Keep in mind, too, that most communication devices are line of sight only, so you need to be in a position of good transmitter reception. Think about that when you go into those deep canyons. I always told myself that I would simply climb to the top of a hill if I ever had an emergency inside a canyon. During my emergency this past Saturday, I promise you I could not move one step in any directions and more than likely would have died on that mountain without a cell phone and a GPS receiver. A signaling device, preferably a signaling mirror or, at the very least, a hunter-orange ball cap is also a very necessary piece of equipment."
I told Matt he was being a little melodramatic about "dying" because Debbie would have kept looking for him, at least until she met another hunter on that ridge who had better dogs. Debbie said that took less time than finding Matt.
Bird seasons off to mediocre start thanks to warm weather for opener
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service
Quail and chukar season opener this past weekend was tough across most of Southern California thanks to unseasonably warm temperatures. Chukar hunters in the Mojave Desert and Red Mountain regions reported better success than last year, but only fair hunting overall, with hunters averaging less than a bird each.
Mark Lemons of Riverside phoned in the most unusual and successful chukar hunting report. Working in unison with some other hunters he'd just met, Lemons had the high ground and a huge covey flushed in front of him as the hunters all worked across the face of a desert mountain near Interstate 15. Lemons swung on one bird, fired, and then shot again. He though he saw one bird go down, but the other hunters below insisted they had seen more. A lot more. Lemons, working with his Cheaseapeak retriever, eventually recovered five birds, one shy of a limit, all taken on the wing with two shots. Knowing it would be hard to top this feat, he decided to call it a day and went quail hunting in another spot. The best part he said was having witnesses.
Lemons went back the next day and bagged three more chukar in the same area, proving the birds are out there.
Orange County hunter David Bailey bagged three chukar opening Saturday, also hunting the West Mojave.
"I went back out on Monday and shot two more chukar," said Bailey. "I saw about 60 birds total -- so they are out there. But they seem to be concentrated in certain areas. Most reports I have heard, from Ridgecrest to our deserts, is very few birds shot, if any. Guess I am just good, or lucky, or both."
Knowing Bailey, I'd say it was mostly hard work.
Chris Coston of Yorba Linda hunted chukar in the Mojave for a half a day, bagging just one bird in a tough morning hunt where he said the chukar we acting like they'd been hunted for two months already (always staying out of range), so he retreated to the San Bernardino Mountains where he found several coveys of mountain quail, bagging four birds for a nice opening day mixed bag.
Mike Guttilla, also of Yorba Linda, hunted quail in the low desert near the Salton Sea said he found only one covey of Gambel's quail but managed to bag six birds on opening day.
"All the other familiar faces and diehards I ran into were skunked as of 11 a.m.," said Guttilla. "I spoke to a ranger and he said that every hunter he contaced was also skunked. The vegetation was all dying and the mature trees were baron of food. No tracks in the washes either."
Heat and dry conditions made for difficult hunting, according to most hunters contacted. But everyone agreed there are more birds in the deserts and local mountains than last year -- by several magnitudes.
Chukar hunters opening day in the Granite Mountains off Highway 18 east of Apple Valley were treated to a fair number of birds -- and a helicopter evacuation. Matt Gangola of Glendora was hunting with his wife Debbie on the steep hillsides near the top of one of the ridges. Matt had bagged one chukar and then "hit the mother load covey of 50 to 60 birds that flew just two short canyons from my location."
Picking his way over to the birds, Gangola slipped on a flat rock, slid down its face, and wedged his leg in a crevice while his body went the other direction. Knowing he had a badly broken leg, Matt first tried to get Debbie on their two-way radios, but she was just over the crest of the ridge. He then fought to get his cell phone out of his pocket and called 9-1-1 with just one bar of service. Fortunately, the call went through and he was able to relate an exact GPS coordinate of his location because he also had a GPS unit with him.
Sheriffs search and rescue was hovering nearly overhead within 20 minutes, but Matt was in the shade of a rock with camo gear and they initially couldn't find him. They phoned Matt back and he gave directions and waved his blaze orange hat before they could see him. Once plucked off the steep hillside, he was carted him off to the hospital. Matt will be laid up for five months, according to the doctors.
Debbie, who's a nurse and avid hunter, wasn't worried. She took the dogs and went on hunting, shooting a limit of chukar. Actually, I made that part up, but it sounds good.
Matt and Debbie are long-time friends and part of Matt's e-mail on the ordeal is worth sharing with other hunters who scramble around these remote and rugged mountains:
"Things to keep in mind: communication is everything. If you venture away from the road, you need to have a way to communicate with whatever source of help you intend to use [should something happen]. Keep in mind, too, that most communication devices are line of sight only, so you need to be in a position of good transmitter reception. Think about that when you go into those deep canyons. I always told myself that I would simply climb to the top of a hill if I ever had an emergency inside a canyon. During my emergency this past Saturday, I promise you I could not move one step in any directions and more than likely would have died on that mountain without a cell phone and a GPS receiver. A signaling device, preferably a signaling mirror or, at the very least, a hunter-orange ball cap is also a very necessary piece of equipment."
I told Matt he was being a little melodramatic about "dying" because Debbie would have kept looking for him, at least until she met another hunter on that ridge who had better dogs. Debbie said that took less time than finding Matt.
