Mountain quail can be impossible to hunt early in the season. They prefer to live in manzanita patches that are impossible to hunt without a bulldozer. You can hear their purring calls as they run beneath the thickets of brush, never flushing while you and I try to battle our way through the tangles and our hunting dogs worry the edges of the patches, unable to follow, let alone flush, the birds.

But snow is the great equalizer. Mountain quail don't like to have their toes in snow, and many coveys will drop down in elevation to get below the snow line. Many quail hunters enjoy success with mountain quail when the manzanita patches fill up with white stuff and the birds are pushed down the slopes - and into more huntable brush patches. Coveys are concentrated along that narrow band just below the snow, frequently grouping up into magnum-sized coveys.

Mountain quail regulars know that early-season coveys are rarely more than a dozen birds. They are usually one or two adult pairs with their young of the year. On good hatch years, that can mean there are 15 birds, but on poorer years there might only be six to eight birds.