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I just finished a wonderful weekend of bird hunting and thought I would share the stories. Berlin, my 3 1/2 year old GWP and I headed north of Emmett to a ranch we normally hunt. We had hunted this ranch earlier in the season and seen more than a hundred quail so figured it was worth another trip.<p>No reason to start hunting too early so we arrived at 10:30 and opened the truck door to the sound of valley quail calling, and they were close. By her level of agitation I could tell Berlin already knew where they were so decided to leave her in the crate until I was all suited up and loaded. The five does standing at 150 yds were startled at the sound of the dogs claws doing their best to grab traction on the trucks plastic bed liner. <p>The birds were talkative and excited about our arrival. A spring bubbles up in the middle of a flat area and flows through a stand of large locust trees. The big attaction for these birds is the fresh green sprouts growing along the waters edge. <p>The birds jumped wild at our approach although some flew close past us. The sound of the birds and their shear number made my jaw drop and paralized me for a second. The covey was close to a hundred birds and the vast majority flew and then landed in the draw we were planning to hunt. Of course Berlin is now in hyper drive and she has taught me it is not much good to try and rein her in at this moment. She blast up above the birds and downwind and immediately goes on point. Oh boy, a late bird and 20 yards to any cover. I begin to move into the point when I see a quail scoot from one sage brush to the next and then again to the next bush. During the second sprint you could see the left wing hanging a little low and unnatural, it was a broken wing. Berlin is still doing the statue imitation when I holler, "Dead bird....Fetch". She must have also seen the bird and broke directly for it and after a 5-10 second chase she fetched the bird.<p>The creek was only a hundred yards away and I knew it was full of quail, of course Berlin also knew where they were. There were so many birds that I decided to only shoot birds held to point and males only. It made for better sport to sex the birds ahead of time; while looking down the barrel of a 20 ga. O/U. After collecting 7 males and one female (we all make mistakes!), we started heading back towards the truck. Less than five minutes later we reached the limit of 10 birds. <p>Berlin picked up sent in a dry wash leading away from the creek. It is a favorite trick of our pheasants to move up these draws so I followed the determined dog up the draw. After 200 yards and a couple of false points she locked up solid. I had already agreed not to shoot pheasants on this ranch due to the low number of birds but couldn't help swinging on the bird and hollering bang. Berlin gave me that quizical look like I had lost my mind and went back to work. <p>We made it back to the truck in less than two hours after seeing a ton of birds, only shooting singles, and not loosing a single bird. It appears all of the birds in the surrounding hills had moved down into the creek and as we followed the singles we jumped additional large coveys. <p>The bright sunny day was all as good as Idaho quail hunting gets! Rick