An Iowa boy's perspective of New Mexico's scaled quail hunting.(You desert locals will probably think "this guy doesn't know squat about hunting scalies!"
The weather here in the mid-west has sucked for late season pheasant hunting so I convinced a buddy to run to New Mexico with me to chase scaled quail. I've shot a few valley quail in the northwest but have never bird hunted south of Kansas. I just took the internet advice of the New Mexico Game Dept. and we hunted the southern third of the state. Not so much of the state, just a few square miles. I have learned a little about Valley quail but had never even seen a scaled bird. We took a two track south of town and after a mile or so, I thought, "If I was a scaled quail, this is where I would live." Hip to shoulder high mesquite with various thorny plants and a little grass. We loaded up and separated.
Bo flushed our first scaled quail, a single, 100 yards from the truck. I shot the first scaled quail I ever saw. We should have quit there.
Those of you who have hunted valley quail know those little devils can run, but they're a marching band compared to scalies. Chasing a covey 100 yards to flight was a rarity. Some of those coveys we corralled for 3-400 yards before getting shots. Even so, we did a lot of shooting and a little killing. I'd guess we moved about 150 quail a day and were lucky to bag a skillet full. Ok we did slightly better than that but the state daily bag limit of 15 per day seems more a cruel temptation for the hunter than detrimental to the birds.
We tried two methods: run like Hell after 'em from the get-go and hope to get in range or just walking steady with my Lab at heal until we got within 20 yards and then....running like Hell after 'em. Now my friend and I are both in our early 60's and not in the greatest shape, but the running is fairly flat and open and it was fun!
If you've ever wanted to hunt scaled quail, just go. There's no mystery to it when numbers are high like this year. You can either test your bird finding abilities by surveying the desert surroundings and picking some gently rolling ground with enough open ground to run in and enough brush for a bird to avoid coyotes and aerial attack, and you'll find birds. I don't think we went a half hour without getting into birds in three days.