This past weekend, I joined my cousin and a mutual friend of ours over in Yakima for a late-season quail hunt. The weather was nice - cold and a little windy at times, but mostly dry with some sun breaks and no snow or ice. We don't have a lot of data on late-season hunting, so this trip was partly to get outdoors and partly to gather data.
The birds definitely weren't on the move as much, which we kind of expected. Most of the time, on season openers (October), we just drive around from one spot to the next and look for them. If we don't see them, we keep driving. If there are birds in a brush pile, there's a sentry on top to give it away. But apparently it doesn't work that way in January. We only saw birds on the road twice all weekend, and we never saw a single sentry on a brush pile (even one that had birds in it). We switched tactics to getting out and kicking brush that looked promising. That turned out to be more productive, whereas it isn't in the early season.
Coveys seemed to be larger this time of year, which we also expected; average size seemed to be about 25 birds, with the largest we saw being closer to 35. Birds seemed to be a little more skittish, flushing earlier on initial contact with us. But they didn't seem to want to fly as far; they didn't want to stray far from the rest of the covey.
The orchards were bare (no foliage), but that didn't seem to translate to the birds spending less time in them this time of year vs. earlier in the season; they seemed perfectly comfortable in there. There was definitely evidence of increased coyote pressure on the coveys, particularly at their prime roosting spots. We also observed more pressure on the quail from the hawks - something we haven't seen before. In fact, in one spot, we were flushing quail and the hawks were pursuing them in flight! It was quite a sight to behold. I suspect it's because the ground squirrels are less active this time of year, so the birds of prey seek out the animals that are more accessible, which include the quail.
Total for 2 days was 19 in the bag between 3 shooters, with 2 birds shot down but not recovered (dog couldn't find them, so they either went down a hole or found a time warp). We probably should have bagged 30 birds, but admittedly our shooting wasn't stellar. It was still good to get out and shoot guns, though.
Side note: I now need a Savage .17 HMR. My cousin brought his, and not only is it scary accurate out to 200 yds but it just destroys ground squirrels.