- Joined
- Mar 11, 2001
- Messages
- 70,011
- Reaction score
- 1,003
DOVE, QUAIL, CHUKAR FORECAST -- Jim Matthews- ONS 23jul03
The prognosis for this year's upland bird and dove seasons is the best hunting news of the year. Spring rains have led to some pretty impressive production numbers for quail and chukar across most of Southern California, and the dove population looks to be stable. Since there are so many dove, most hunters will not notice a difference in hunting for this prolific gamebird.
Desert biologists who have recently completed brood counts for this year in the Mojave Desert and southern Sierra Nevada have been impressed with how well quail and chukar have responded to the wet spring.
Andy Pauli, the DFG biologist for the Mojave, said his chukar counts in the West Mojave have been particularly encouraging. Pauli saw well over 500 birds at just a couple of locations but was able to classify only seven broods consisting of 106 total birds. Of those, Pauli said that 95 were young-of-the-year, indicating an average brood size of nearly 14 birds.
In the East Mojave, Gambel's quail broods were nearly as good, with the average brood size just under 10 birds, and that is classifying over 400 birds across 38 broods.
"This is good but not exceptional production," said Pauli, who wondered if predation was having an impact in the Mojave Preserve, now that trapping and predator hunting have been banned. Pauli said that young broods had more birds in them than older broods, indicating that something might have been getting the young chicks as they aged. This is something he had not seen before.
Rocky Thompson, the DFG's southern Sierra biologist, just finished up his counts in the Red Mountain area and the popular hunting areas south of Lake Isabella.
"The quail and chukar look real good in eastern Kern County," said Thompson. "Production is way up and we counted a lot of birds. It would have even been better had we had any good adult holdover, but it's been five years since we had any production to speak of."
Thompson had not tallied all of the numbers yet from his counts, but he was predicting a much better year for both quail and chukar in these popular hunting areas.
Jim Chakarun, manager of the Imperial Wildlife Area, which includes Wister and Finney-Ramer, said there were a lot of doves in the Imperial Valley this year, and he noted that the DFG and Desert Wildlife Unlimited have again planted a number of private fields in dove feed for this year -- fields that will be open to the public. Most are in the same locations as last year's fields, all of which provided excellent hunting for literally thousands of hunters.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's annual report on the population status of mourning doves reports there has not been a significant change in the dove population in the Western Management Unit over the past 10 years, but there was a decrease in the number of birds heard on spring call survey routes in California this year. Hunters will not be able to discern a difference between this coming fall and the past four or five, however.
Overall, the dove and upland bird season prospects are very bright for the fall of 2003.
The prognosis for this year's upland bird and dove seasons is the best hunting news of the year. Spring rains have led to some pretty impressive production numbers for quail and chukar across most of Southern California, and the dove population looks to be stable. Since there are so many dove, most hunters will not notice a difference in hunting for this prolific gamebird.
Desert biologists who have recently completed brood counts for this year in the Mojave Desert and southern Sierra Nevada have been impressed with how well quail and chukar have responded to the wet spring.
Andy Pauli, the DFG biologist for the Mojave, said his chukar counts in the West Mojave have been particularly encouraging. Pauli saw well over 500 birds at just a couple of locations but was able to classify only seven broods consisting of 106 total birds. Of those, Pauli said that 95 were young-of-the-year, indicating an average brood size of nearly 14 birds.
In the East Mojave, Gambel's quail broods were nearly as good, with the average brood size just under 10 birds, and that is classifying over 400 birds across 38 broods.
"This is good but not exceptional production," said Pauli, who wondered if predation was having an impact in the Mojave Preserve, now that trapping and predator hunting have been banned. Pauli said that young broods had more birds in them than older broods, indicating that something might have been getting the young chicks as they aged. This is something he had not seen before.
Rocky Thompson, the DFG's southern Sierra biologist, just finished up his counts in the Red Mountain area and the popular hunting areas south of Lake Isabella.
"The quail and chukar look real good in eastern Kern County," said Thompson. "Production is way up and we counted a lot of birds. It would have even been better had we had any good adult holdover, but it's been five years since we had any production to speak of."
Thompson had not tallied all of the numbers yet from his counts, but he was predicting a much better year for both quail and chukar in these popular hunting areas.
Jim Chakarun, manager of the Imperial Wildlife Area, which includes Wister and Finney-Ramer, said there were a lot of doves in the Imperial Valley this year, and he noted that the DFG and Desert Wildlife Unlimited have again planted a number of private fields in dove feed for this year -- fields that will be open to the public. Most are in the same locations as last year's fields, all of which provided excellent hunting for literally thousands of hunters.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's annual report on the population status of mourning doves reports there has not been a significant change in the dove population in the Western Management Unit over the past 10 years, but there was a decrease in the number of birds heard on spring call survey routes in California this year. Hunters will not be able to discern a difference between this coming fall and the past four or five, however.
Overall, the dove and upland bird season prospects are very bright for the fall of 2003.
