Quail are highlight for upland bird hunters

This isn’t a banner year for the region’s upland birds, but versatile hunters are going to find some excellent wing-shooting.

Quail numbers appear to be up from last year and in good supply almost everywhere in the Inland Northwest.

Washington biologists are counting a few more pheasant chicks per brood than they counted in last year’s dismal hatch in portions of the Palouse.

Whitman and Grant counties are expected to once again provide the region’s best pheasant hunting.

A brief spell of cool, wet weather at the peak of nesting may have curbed production of pheasants. Quail nest a little later and are much better than pheasants at pulling of second and even third broods during the nesting season.

Dove hunters had one of the best opening weekend shoots in years, as good Labor Day weekend weather gave the birds no excuse to pack their bags and leave for warmer climes. The dove season closes Sept. 15 in Washington and Sept. 30 in Idaho.

The only truly grim news comes from a recent chukar hunting paradise on the Snake River between Idaho and Oregon. The annual Brownlee Reservoir aerial chukar count — the only remaining aerial bird count still being funded by the region’s fish and wildlife agencies — found near-record-low numbers of birds.

Valley quail can be found all over lowland areas of the Idaho Panhandle and Eastern Washington, including city neighborhoods. The region’s most productive quail hunting, however, is in the orchard country of Washington’s Okanogan, Douglas and Chelan counties.

The best quail hunting for a quarter century has been in the last four years, said Mick Cope, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department upland bird manager. Washington hunters have been taking 145,00-190,000 quail a year.

The quail harvest peaked at 313,000 in 1979, he said, but the harvest dropped drastically starting in 1982. The low was 61,000 in 1993. The recent high was 190,000 in 2003.

Hot, dry weather with fewer insects probably led to the poor survival rate of chukar chicks that showed up in the Aug. 30 count, Idaho biologists say.

The Brownlee count, conducted by helicopter each year on the same 12-square-mile block, found 506 chukars in 70 groups for a 42 bird per square mile average. Groups averaged 7.2 birds. The 10-year average is 1,412 birds in 112 groups with 117.7 chukars per square mile and 12.6 birds in each group.

Last year the count was 858 chukars in 139 groups with 71.5 birds per square mile.

The worst count in the 23 years of the Brownlee survey was recorded after the harsh winter of 1992-1993. That fall, only 211 chukars in 24 groups were recorded, an average of 17.6 birds per square mile.