Last winter I took a trip to family property in Brewster County. It's a special place where various members of my family have built, lived, camped, hunted, and just simply enjoyed the outdoors. Hoping to have a chance at some dove, I had brought my late grandpa's 12 gauge, a pump-action Remington 870 Wingmaster. There weren't many dove around, but there were quite a few scaled quail running around the place. One day after doing some hiking and having a sandwich lunch, I decided to take grandpa's shotgun and see if I could rustle up a few.

I took off southeast down the shallow draw, hoping to circle to the west of a large brushy area where I figured quail would be loafing. My intention was to push any birds west towards Terlingua Creek, where it would be easier to spot and shoot them. I made it to the east side of the thicket, and made noise, hoping to flush some. Nothing moved, so I continued on south, gradually turning west, to continue circling. Still not seeing anything, I pushed on to the creek, where I dropped down into the dry creek bed, knowing it would be easier going, pretty much having given up on seeing quail. I walked the 200 yards up the creek thinking about my grandpa and how he spent a lot of time out here and how he might have even made this exact trek with this gun, looking for quail like me. Lost in thought, I was climbing up out of the creek bed and when directly in front of me I caught movement under a greasewood bush - a single quail. It disappeared before I could react, but I pulled the shotgun into my shoulder with the barrel still pointed at the ground. I moved slowly, trying to circle around to the north of where the bird had vanished since it had been directly between me and the dilapidated homestead where I had left the truck and my friend who had come down to the property with me.

I finally made my way around to the north side of where I had seen the bird, now looking south, away from the homestead. The closer I got to the brush, the more I was convinced the bird had gotten away and dropped the shotgun from my shoulder. Turning left to head back to the homestead, I saw not one, but several quail that had somehow gotten between me and the homestead again. Instead of trying to slowly circle them unnoticed again, I struck out hard to the north, hoping to get ahead of them and cut them off before they could make it off the property. Eventually angling back towards the east and the homestead, I was confident I had turned them around and pushed them back south, deeper into the property.

Making it back to the homestead, I found my friend where I had left him, sitting in a camp chair and reading a book under a metal awning. Coming up beside him, I said, "I saw some quail - want to chase them?" - or at least that's what I thought I had said. According to my friend, in my excited state, it came out, "Hey-I-found-some-quail!They-were-headed-off-the-property-but-I-circled-them-and-managed-to-push-them-deeper-into-the-property.Do-you-want-to-chase-them?Ok-let's-go!" Also, I apparently didn't wait for an answer before making my way around the backside of the homestead to get a look down the draw where I had last seen them. Looking up and down the draw, I eventually spotted movement, and pointed them out to my friend who had by now caught up with me. I started off with him following close behind and picked our way to place ourselves between the birds and the property line. As we got closer, instead of flying, they began running away, heading deeper into the property, off to the southeast. We adjusted course and again, the same thing. After the third time, a single bird had separated itself from the flock, and on the fourth approach, I finally got close enough that the bird took off. I simultaneously shouldered and swung the Wingmaster, firing off a shot as I swung through the bird. The bird seemed to backpedal in midair somehow, but not confident I had hit it, I racked another round and fired again. This time it nose-dived under a greasewood bush and stopped moving. 

While I tracked the bird, my friend stuck with the flock that had lifted off and followed them to a tree with some brush below it. After throwing the bird into the small game carrier I had, my friend motioned for me to come over and get set up for a flush that would give us a good shot at the flock, but just then they all lifted off and headed across the creek, to the southwest. Since I hadn't chambered another shell, we just had to watch them disappear, unable to follow them through the dense brush they were flying over.

We conceded our pursuit and headed back to the homestead where I cleaned the bird and put it in a Ziploc bag in the ice chest. I waited until I got home in Houston to cook it and it was good enough that my wife even liked it, who doesn't normally like store-bought quail. While we only got one bird, it was a memorable experience, chasing quail in the Texas desert the same way I am sure my grandpa had.