One hunter's relentless quest to chase upland birds across America's wildest terrain.
If you've ever considered hiring a bird hunting guide or becoming one, this is an unfiltered look at what it takes to make it work.
My father was a man of few words. On an hour-long drive, he wouldn't say much of anything. Every now and then, however, while lost in thought, a rare story would leave his lips.
In the southernmost ranges of Arizona and New Mexico there are islands in the sky — small, isolated mountain chains rising eight to nine thousand feet from the desert floor that shift through seven different ecosystems, beginning with desert scrub and culminating in alpine fir forests. Halfway up the mountain slopes, among the live oaks, alligator junipers, and red-barked manzanitas, live the mystical Mearns quail.
My second night on a West Texas aoudad hunt, a cold front swept down over the mountains. By morning, temperatures had plunged into the single digits — rare for West Texas, though nothing alarming for someone coming from North Dakota. I awoke to a cold bunkhouse, the wood stove burned out. Before long the camp cook coaxed flames back to life, and the smell of kindling gave way to frying sausage and strong coffee.
Maggie, a young German wirehair, made her first quail hunt the morning after my wife Lori and I completed the long drive south to our winter home in Arizona. I used to laugh at our local "snowbirds" while deriding their inability to cope with Montana winters, but I wasn't laughing now. The week prior I'd been hunting pheasants in wool and snow boots. Now I was in a T-shirt.