Two Pair

This is my favorite weekend in Southern California:  dove reopens, pheasant opens, quail and waterfowl are already open.  I spent three days in the local mountains and the Imperial Valley hunting most of those species, though I skipped the ducks this year.

Pretty decent bird numbers.  Tons of dove (mourning & collared), lots of pigeons, decent numbers of both gambels and valley quail, leading to the picture below.  No pheasant this year, though in most past years I've picked up one or two.

Both the Gambels and the Valley quail are lovely birds. The Valley birds are more gaudy, but the cream and black on the Gambels, with the cinnamon on their sides, seems more elegant.

The dove yesterday afternoon were quite a challenge.  I was sitting under a tree and the birds were coming over me, up high, riding a 20mph+ wind as they moved from feed towards an urban area.  Very tough shooting, but I dumped enough to avoid total depression.  A few birds came into my tree from the other direction and seemed to hang in mid-air as they struggled towards the branches.  Of course I missed several of those easy shots, no doubt stopping my swing entirely on the "motionless" birds.

I spent this morning working a few spots in the Lagunas, trying to bag a Mountain quail to complete the trifecta.  As in past years, no luck.  Locally, the best hunting for Mountain quail is generally a couple years after a burn; the birds move into the new feed but feel protected since the burned branches provide overhead cover.  Last great year for Mountain quail was 2005-2006, have not had a good burn on national forest since then.  Patience.

A special new gun

After several years of looking, I have found & purchased a 16ga Lindner Daly.  Many, many thanks to Mike & Ken for their help in the search.  I think that the action shaping complements the drop point panels very nicely.

And the wood is quite pretty, though would benefit from just a bit of freshening.

The barrels are a very nice Damascus but need to be re-browned (re-blacked actually) and do not photograph well at this point.

The gun came with a couple of interesting extras.  The leg-of-mutton case needs restoration but seems to be high-end pebbled leather.  Any recommendations for someone to do the work?

And tucked into the pocket of the case was an undisclosed extra:  a very unusual brass cleaning rod.  The handle unscrews into three pieces, revealing a screwdriver and a very small oil dispenser.  Quite a pretty little piece.

I'm quite pleased and have already killed a few birds with the gun.  I expect it will be a favorite for decades.

A couple of short bits

I returned yesterday from a couple weeks in Oregon with Mike and stopped in the Owens Valley on the way back for the quail opener.  It was a warm day but we got into a few coveys and had some nice dog work before 10.00.  A couple of stellar moments ...

A sharpshin hawk was already working the area for quail when we arrived.  It seemed to welcome another hunter, slowly floating by within 20 feet of me at one point.  Soon after that it stooped on a quail that flushed wild, but the quail had a good head of steam and was headed down hill, so the hawk lost that race.  A few minutes later I killed a quail that dropped on open ground 30 yards below and to my left.  As I walked to pick it up the hawk stooped past me, grabbed the quail on the fly, and continued down the hill.  Tres cool.

Also, I shot (at) my first bird over a Maggie point.  She had quickly figured out that there were birds hiding in the low scrub and ran from bush to bush looking for scent.  She found a a bird that way, and held point for 10 seconds or so as I walked towards her, and I took a shot when the quail broke.  Wish I could say that I killed that bird, but I shot over the downhill quartering bird.  Anyway, Maggie is clearly on her way to a great career.

Maggie's adventures

Maggie came home a cute puppy:

Then she started to run and get into trouble, first with a pair of coyotes:

And then with a rattlesnake:

But she got past those two near-fatal experiences and today I worked her on birds for the first time.  She shows good promise:

Though the bird is not far away, it is well hidden and she pointed on scent, not sight.  She held point staunchly for a couple of minutes while I played with the camera and was profoundly disappointed when I walked her away from the point with the lead.  I had her on lead because the planted pheasant was not fully mature and I did not want her to catch a poorly-flying bird.

We head for Oregon in a bit over a month and I have great hopes that she will stick some birds while we are there.  She hunts with me and responds well to commands, and I have a GPS collar  ;-),  so I should at least be able to keep up with her.

Albacore - a day off Monterey

As mentioned in an earlier post, I have been spending more time fishing since I bought an 18' Parker skiff. This, of course, was the plan all along.

Wednesday the sea surface temperature, wind forecast and fishing conditions made it possible for my friend Stan and I to launch at Monterey harbor and run 25 miles out to the offshore albacore grounds. In this El Nino year the number of albacore being caught close to shore is up over past years.

So we ran out and reached the temperature break, where the water was 61 - 62 degrees and the sea showed 'offshore' blue water. Set the trolling gear (10mm tuna feathers in 'squid' colors) and about 10 am we got our first albacore. It was exciting to see such a wild and beautiful creature appear out of the depths. Shortly after we had fish on all three lines and it was chaos - the good kind of chaos. 

After a couple hours the cooler was completely full of gutted, headless fish on ice, and we had three more fish head down in the 30 gallon bait tank. We were out of room for fish - save the blood covered deck. We decided to troll back to the break and head in. On the way we found a promising edge with weed, birds and current and had to stop and fish. Stan cut up our anchovy baits and squid that were regurgitated from the albacore already landed and started a chum line. Then he picked up his fly rod and cast a squid fly on a sinking shooting head while I fiddled with cleaning up the mess on the boat. Seconds later he was fast to a nice 23 pound albacore on a nine weight rod... a rod well suited to small striped bass or steelhead. Not everyday that you can hook blue water tuna on a fly rod - especially off central California.

We had a wonderful day of fishing and, after processing, over 60 pounds of excellent albacore loins, filets, and belly flaps for many meals this Fall.

Hunting and Fishing on the rise - USFWS

From the USFWS website...  they boil it all down to economics, of course, but maybe this means that President Obama and Congress will be less eager to pass laws that are detrimental to sportsmen? Maybe.

MILWAUKEE, WI – Highlighting the reversal of decades of declining numbers, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced the results of a comprehensive national survey of outdoor recreation showing a significant increase in hunters and a double-digit increase in anglers over the past five years.

“Seeing more people fishing, hunting, and getting outdoors is great news for America’s economy and conservation heritage,” said Salazar. “Outdoor recreation and tourism are huge economic engines for local communities and the country, so it is vital that we continue to support policies and investments that help Americans get outside, learn to fish, or go hunting. That is why, through President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative, we have been focused on helping Americans rediscover the joys of casting a line, passing along family hunting traditions, and protecting the places they love.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2011 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation found that hunters nationwide increased by 9 percent while anglers grew by 11 percent. Nearly 38 percent of all Americans participated in wildlife-related recreation in 2011, an increase of 2.6 million participants from the previous survey in 2006. They spent $145 billion on related gear, trips and other purchases, such as licenses, tags and land leasing and ownership, representing 1 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

Other key findings include:

• In 2011, 13.7 million people, 6 percent of the U.S. population 16 years old and older, went hunting. They spent $34.0 billion on trips, equipment, licenses, and other items in 2011, an average of $2,484 per hunter.

•  More than 33 million people 16 and older fished in 2011, spending $41.8 billion on trips, equipment, licenses, and other items, an average of $1,262 per angler.

•  More than 71 million people engaged in wildlife watching in 2011, spending $55.0 billion on their activities

At the request of state fish and wildlife agencies, the Fish and Wildlife Service has been conducting the national survey every five years since 1955. It is viewed as one of the nation’s most important wildlife-related recreation databases and the definitive source of information concerning participation and purchases associated with hunting, fishing and other forms of wildlife-related recreation nationwide.

Read the entire story at: USFWS Website

Dan Richards ousted by Cal F&G Commission

Dan Richards, president of the California Fish and Game Commission, was ousted by a vote of the Commission at the Commission meeting in Fresno on Wednesday. He has been severely criticized in public media over the past few months for legally taking a mountain lion while on a fair chase hunt in Idaho (where mountain lions are legal game).

Dan Richards in Idaho with the mountain lion that eventually got HIM

As usual, the Humane Society of the United States sought to garner whatever benefit they could from this news cycle...

"Californians have twice voted in a resounding fashion to protect mountain lions in our state, and his flagrant flaunting of his disagreement with the electorate put him out of sync with California," said Jennifer Fearing, state director of the Humane Society of the United States. "We're glad to see the commission take action."

Richards, one of the few members of the Commission who is actually a sportsman, was replaced by Jim Kellogg.  Thanks for your unpaid and unappreciated service, Dan.

 File this under "tyranny of the masses".