by Jay Cassell
“I’m interested in one of these myself,” Jim said as we squatted among the pups. “Let’s take a couple along with us and see what they think of the cover.”
I looked hard at Bill, and he held up his hands, grinning. “No obligation.”
So we scooped up two likely looking young ladies, loaded them in the third kennel in the truck, and drove off into a calm, bright January morning that was just beginning to thaw around the edges—a perfect quail day.
Forty minutes later, we pulled onto a faint two-track that left the gravel just shy of the bridge over a little creek lined with elms and sumac. Like most streams in the Kansas Flint Hills, this one ran over a limestone bottom, spring-fed and crystalline, home to clouds of darters and a thriving population of spotted bass. It wound through the soft-shouldered hills, disappearing into groves of oak and walnut, then out again past slopes of Indiangrass and bluestem, a sampler of tawny yellow and burgundy in the low winter light. Along the creek bottom, there was just enough milo and corn stubble to sweeten the place for quail.
We uncased guns and headed north along the creek, leaning on the dogs for direction. They meandered through the stubble, crossed the creek, and worked west through a patch of timber, coming at last to a stand of grass and forbs at the top of the hill. Jim’s female pointed hard where the trees gave way to a patch of sand plum on a south-facing bank. I stopped Britt to honor. Bill swung in on one side, and before anybody could set tactics, the covey exploded. I was too far away to shoot, so I could savor the sight of two exceptional gun hands working a covey. Neither man seemed to hurry—the guns came up in a fluid arc; there was a flurry of shots, and the dogs started their retrieves. Four birds on the first rise.
We hunted the singles of that covey with no success; the covey had blasted back through the timber, so it was hard to get a mark on any of the birds. As the morning wore on, we worked through one exceptional quail covert after another without finding any more quail. Around one, we circled back to the truck.
Bill had sandwich fixings and some hot chocolate, which went down well in the cool shade down by the creek. After we had eaten, Jim crawled into the back of the pick-up and opened the second kennel.
“Let’s take a look at you girls.”
He scooted off the tailgate with a wiggling Brittany in one hand. Released in the milo stubble, she immediately began snuffling over the ground. I went over to the field edge and cut a sumac wand about five feet long.
“Mind if I borrow a wing?” I asked Bill. He smiled and handed me one of the quail. I broke a wing off close to the body, stripped the lace out of one of my boots, and tied the wing to one end. I knotted the other end to the stick.
“Here, little one.” I flipped the wing out on the ground and twitched it a couple of times, luring the pup out of the field. She scrambled over to the feathers and pounced, falling on her chin and somersaulting over the wing.
Bill shook his head. “First time away from mama. You have to give her high marks for confidence.”
I flipped the wing back down on the ground, and the puppy flounced after it again. Jim grinned.
“You know, sometimes I think they don’t really have a brain. Just a bird flittering around between their ears. Listen, these are both fine little dogs. If you want one, you pick it. I’ll take the other one.”
I scooped up the puppy and kneaded one of her ears while she chewed on my thumb with needle teeth.
“Yes, you ARE a mighty hunter,” I told her. “But why don’t you give us a chance to look at your sister.” I crawled into the pick-up bed and swapped dogs.
The second infant was just as bold as the first. I turned to pick up my wing and pole, and when I looked back, she was already thirty yards down the creek bank, nose to the ground, stub tail vibrating. I squeaked at her and flipped the wing down on the ground. She pattered back with her head up, trying to figure out why she cared about the twitching feathers. As she came up, I let the wing settle. She slowed, took one more step … and froze, one forefoot in the air. It’s a tricky thing for an eight-week-old to balance on just three feet, but she managed, wobbling a little as she watched the wing for any sign of motion. I dragged the wing a foot, and she pounced, missing it. Then I laid it out again, and she pointed again.
I glared at Bill. “This is your fault,” and I picked up the pup, holding her freckled nose about an inch from mine. “Sweetie, I think you’re gonna have to come back to Wyoming with me.”
We loaded the puppies back into the truck and took one long swing through the afternoon. We found two more coveys there. Jim’s little lady found one on the edge of a stand of bluestem and held it for two minutes while we scrambled to catch up. Then Britt pinned a second bunch at the head of a brushy swale. He was tired, but the point was high and stylish. The rise surprised me, as it always does, and I rushed the shot, wing-tipping a bird that fell into the thicket, out of sight. Britt disappeared into the brush and emerged a long minute later, a male bobwhite cradled gently in his mouth, bailing out the boss as he had so many times before.
We got back to the vehicles just as the sun dropped over the tall prairie ridge to the west. I cased my gun, boosted the old man into the back of the Trooper, and poured some water for him. He sniffed the bowl, then climbed into the back seat with a grunt, and curled up in a tight ball.
“How do you want to do this?” I asked Bill as I walked back to Jim’s truck.
“Well, if you want to write a check, Jim can take it back. They’ll send you the papers.” Bill smiled again. “She IS a likely looking pup.”
I took out my check book.
“Do me a favor, Jim?”
“Sure.”
“Tell them not to cash this for a few days. I wasn’t planning on doing any dog buying on this trip.”
He grinned. “I can do that.”
Bill apologized for the ten coveys we hadn’t found, and I assured him that good company is better than good shooting—although I was hoping we could combine the two some day. We shook hands and promised to make another rendezvous next season. Then Jim got into his truck and handed me the pup.
“Good luck with this one. She’ll do well.”
And with that, they headed east.
I made a nest of my hunting coat and down vest in the back of the car where a puppy’s accident would be easiest to clean up. It was going to be a long drive—without a kennel for the youngster, I wasn’t going to have the luxury of a motel room or a snooze in the back of the vehicle. So eleven hours back to the house. I settled in behind the wheel and pointed west.
There was a scrabbling in the back. In the rear view mirror, I saw a freckled nose poke up over top of the back seat. After a minute’s struggle, she tumbled onto the seat with Britt. Charmed to find a parental figure, the little one stuck her nose out to get acquainted. There was a low growl, and the puppy decided this was not her mother. She scrambled up onto the console and fell into my lap.
“Well, if you’re gonna ride up here, you better use the other seat.” I scooted her over, and she stretched out as if she had been born there. As the miles flowed by, I could hear the old man snoring in back, a veteran of many hunts who had given everything he had to give one more time. Next to me, his niece slept the deep, untroubled sleep of the very young. Now and then, she snuffled and her feet twitched as she chased birds she did not yet recognize through fields she had not yet seen, her mind and heart running true in an ancient course. Youth and experience, promise and perfection.
And it occurred to me that they were not only better than I was at this game; they were better than I could ever hope to be. Ultimately, the proof of the hunt lies, not in bag limits or shells burned, but in the quality of the effort we make. It is a matter of focus and dedication, a commitment to a tradition that is older than mankind itself. Over the millennia, our dogs have led us in the chase, and things haven’t changed much in all that time. For those of us who care about hunting, they show the way still.
Quail in the Thorned Land
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MICHAEL MCINTOSH
South of San Antonio, the big country begins to narrow between the Gulf and the Rio Grande. Or so it shows on the map, shaped by two waters and veined with twisty rivers. But on the land itself, water and confinement hold little sway. It is a festival of sky and light and space, as if the territory refuses to recognize the diminishing boundaries of its map.
In the west, the Brasadera—the black-brush country—flows mile after mile toward Mexico. Gulfward lies open grassland dotted with mottes of oak and manzanilla. It is by turns a landscape stark and hard-bitten, delicate and lush, home to the rattlesnake and javelina, white-tail and razorback, jackrabbit, turkey, bobcat, and cougar.
And quail. It’s a far cry in looks from Midwestern grainfields or the pine woods and broomsedge of the South, but this southern spur of Texas, shaped like the tip of a stout blade, is quail country to steal a hunter’s heart.
As game birds go, quail are my oldest friends. I suspect I’ve traveled more linear miles in behalf of pheasants, but along the contours of the heart, which is the mileage that really counts, quail have taken me farther than any. Put me down in some quaily place with a few dogs and good friends, and you will find me a happy man. Make it a place I’ve never been before, let me explore it with those who know it well, and you will find me an extremely happy man. Add in the astonishing diversity of both land and game you’ll find in south Texas, and the feeling borders on delirium.
In all the knocking around I’ve done to spend time in the company of quail, south Texas took a long time getting onto the itinerary. I don’t know why, especially since the shooting there borders on legendary proportion. But the older I get, the more convinced I am that the really good things come along only when the time is right to appreciate them. So I was forty years into my life as a quail hunter when I finally got there.
“The thing about Herradura,” David Gregory said, “is you’ll find as many blue quail as bobwhites.” We were rolling out of San Antonio just on the trailing edge of sunrise, southbound for Cotulla and the cut-off leading east into what is mostly blank space on the map. In fact, except for Interstate 35 and a few villages scattered along it, the map shows precisely seven highways and two towns in all of La Salle County, an area of just over 1,500 square miles. My kind of place. Knowing from experience that Brother Gregory does not overestimate the quality of the shooting he books, I figured Herradura Ranch would be my kind of place, too.
And then there were the blue quail he talked about. In the field guides, they are scaled quail; in local parlance cottontops; in scientific circles Callipepla squamata; in my hunting life to that point, merely a wraith. I’d had some momentary brushes with them in Mexico, first in Nuevo Leon and later in Sonora, but only so brief as a flush and a couple of wild, fruitless shots. According to one guide to North American birds, obviously not written by a quail hunter, blues are gregarious and therefore usually found in flocks; as a rule, moreover, a blue quail “seldom flies, preferring to run.”
In the rhetoric classes I used to teach, we called this “understatement.” In practice, when you’re on the ground with a covey close by, you’d call it any number of things, most of which are unfit for tender ears. One leathery old south-Texas hunter told me, “Best way to handle a cottontop is shoot ‘im on the ground, and then go stomp the little bastard flat before he gets up and runs off.”
The ways they interact with the environments where they live are key factors in determining which birds are game and which birds aren’t. For some, the environment is a factor all its own. Woodcock hunting is that way, and so is the business of ruffed grouse. Their habitat can be frustrating. So can blue quail habitat, but as if to add even a bit more edge to the sport, it can also kill you.
Unlike bobwhites, who are considerate enough to live in places reasonably comfortable to a hunter, blue quail hang out in the brush, and if you want to make medicine with them, you have to hang out there as well. Now, in most places, “brush” can be anything from doghair popple to an understory thick with shrubs, vines, and creepers. It can be unpleasant, especially if it owns a quotient of blackberry, but it seldom is truly miserable. In south Texas, however, as in Mexico, “brush” means black brush, and the only black brush pleasant enough to be miserable is a patch that’s been chopped, burned, bulldozed, and buried.
Black brush is vegetation with character and a streak of villainy. Mesquite and huisache make up the heart of it, but the full depth of its character (and most of the villainy) comes from an incredible variety of smaller, thorn-bearing plants, each in its way capable of drawing blood, inflicting pain, or both. In the black brush lurks prickly pear and Spanish dagger, devil’s head and wild currant and a whole array of things known mostly by their Spanish names—coma and brasil and clepino, retama, retama chino, junco, granjeno, and most vicious of all, tasajilla. Tasajilla is sometimes called rat-tailed cactus, which comes close enough to describing the slender green branches, but words can scarcely capture its long, needly spines, so sharp that even one feels like a jolt of electricity and so numerous that the whole plant seems to swarm at the merest touch—which is why tasajilla is also called jumping cactus.
At the edges where it meets the grassland, the black brush is open enough to stroll through without great difficulty. Leave the edges, though, and it’s a different world. J. Frank Dobie, the great Texas historian and writer born in the Brasadera, once described black brush as “too thick to cuss a cat in,” which is about right. But it’s wonderful game cover and definitely not too thick to cuss a quail in. Down at ground level there’s plenty of running room, and the quail, blues especially, use it to full advantage.
Given all this and a bird that would rather use its legs than its wings, you might wonder why anyone in his right mind would bother. Actually, no one would, or at least no more than once, if the only way to hunt were simply to strike off cross-country, flogging brush that’s capable of flogging you right back even when you’re wearing chaps tough enough to be almost bulletproof. The country’s too big for that sort of thing anyway; at 15,000 acres, Herradura is a modest-sized spread by local standards.
So you hunt from vehicles, in keeping with the fine old quail-shooting tradition practiced all across the South. In Georgia or Tennessee or Mississippi, this would be a rubber-tired democrat wagon and matched team of mules; in Texas it’s a pickup customfitted with high seats, gun scabbards, and dog boxes.
And you hunt the edges—the ranch roads and the senderos, which is the local name for any clearing, natural or man-made. At Herradura, the ongoing management plan has created a vast network of senderos through the brush, providing the multiple benefits of access for hunting, more places for the birds to dust and feed, and in general more of the sort of edge habitat quail love so well. To say that it’s been successful is to understate the case. I suppose you could keep count of the covies, though on a typical day you’ll need more than both hands and both feet to do so, and at that level of quail hunting numbers hardly matter.
At any level, quail hunting is a triad, a seamless weave of hunter, bird, and dog. All upland bird hunting is that way to me. I know it’s possible to hunt quail without a dog, because I’ve done it, but it’s only a partial equation, missing some vital component, incomplete. Having been a lifelong foot hunter, I can’t think of many pleasures more complete than rambling the countryside to the sound of dog bells—unless perhaps it’s riding perched on a high-seat or bumper-rig, slowly cruising a dusty ranch road, flanked by a brace of dogs coursing the grass and the brushy edge. If I were inclined to submit my carcass to a funeral procession, that’s the kind of hearse and cortege I’d want.
You’ll hear it said that no dog but an English pointer is worth a hoot in the Texas brush; that setters are too thin-skinned, too delicate, too long-coated or short-winded, or too something-else to function in the heat and the cactus. The problem is, no one has bothered to tell this to David Schuster’s setters, so they go out day after day, cover the ground, find coveys
and point singles as if they didn’t know any better. David, who is the manager at Herradura and a dog man of the first water, keeps a few pointers in his kennel as well—most notably a big, brush-scarred old campaigner named Hank who paces himself like a marathon runner and seems to know every trick a blue or a bob ever thought of pulling—but the setters are the stars of the show.
Dogs wear down quickly in this warm country, even in January. Two brace is the minimum staff; three’s better, worked on half-hour rotations with a long drink and an hour’s rest between. For a handler, it’s a continuous balancing act, trying to give the dogs full opportunity to show their stuff while at the same time conserving their energy.
For a hunter, shooting over the Herradura dogs is a delight. In the course of two full days, one young dog got over-antsy with a covey of bobwhite just one time. You can’t ask for better dog work than that—nor, what with covey after covey of bobs on the broad prairies, better opportunities to enjoy it.
Handling blue quail is no mean feat for a pointing dog, because the little guys just won’t sit still. If you can get them to flush and scatter a bit, the singles and pairs are more inclined to hold, but the classic scenario of easing in past the dogs and putting up a covey just doesn’t happen with blues. Instead, it turns into a footrace the moment the dog strikes a point. If you don’t push them hard, they simply run off, and if they do flush, you won’t know exactly where they’ll come from—except it won’t be underfoot. As all this happens in the brush, trying to move fast through a world of thorns with one eye cocked for birds and the other searching for the next safe step gets to be a complicated little exercise, sort of like chasing bees while wading through porcupines.
Having thought about it since, I wonder if a man couldn’t do himself a treat by hunting blues with two dogs, one of pointing breed and a small, nimble, well-schooled flusher to circle in and make ‘em fly. I don’t know whether anyone has tried this, but if you do, I’d be interested to know if it works.
