Start Here: Upland Bird Hunting in California

You have the license and most of the gear. This is the order to put it together in, whether you are new to bird hunting, coming over from ducks, or new to California.

A lot of the messages we get on Instagram ask the same thing: everything's bought, so where do I actually start? This page is our answer. It is the sequence we would hand a friend, with the piece we have written for each step. Matt grew up hunting quail in the Central Valley. Peter came back to bird hunting as an adult, after two decades away.

Pick Your Starting Point

New to bird hunting. You have taken hunter education, and maybe you shoot clays. Start at step 1 and go in order.

Coming from ducks. You already have the license, the early mornings, a dog that retrieves, and years of nonlead shot. What changes is that you walk instead of sit, birds flush close and fast instead of committing to a spread, and the upland game bird validation goes on your license next to the duck stamps. Upland and duck seasons run through most of the same weeks, so upland days go where duck days don't. A Lab that has only worked water needs to be in shape for October heat, and checked for foxtails every night. Read steps 2 and 4, then foxtail season and heat safety.

New to California. You know birds and dogs. What's different here: nonlead shot is required for all hunting with a firearm, everywhere in the state; public land is a patchwork of federal and state agencies, each with its own rules; seasons open in heat, among foxtails and rattlesnakes; and wild pheasant is a narrow hunt in this state, while quail is everywhere. Read steps 1 and 3 first, then the quail, pheasant, and chukar pages.

The Order We'd Do It In

1. Get the paperwork right

A California hunting license with the upland game bird validation. Add the free HIP validation if you will hunt dove, band-tailed pigeon, or snipe. Buy nonlead shells and pattern them before the season. Our hunting resources page has every license and regulation link we use, and the dove regulations piece explains HIP. On shells: nonlead planning and pre-season clay practice.

2. Pick one bird for your first season

For most people that bird is California quail. It lives from the Oregon line to Mexico, most of the state's season runs from Oct. 17 to Jan. 31, and you can hunt it on foot without a dog. Dove is the other easy start: Sept. 1 to 15, and again in the second split, Nov. 14 to Dec. 28. Start with the quail page or the dove page, then the California valley quail guide.

3. Find ground you can legally hunt

A map layer tells you whose ground it is, not what that agency allows on it. Public land designations is the two-minute legality check, and the e-scouting shortlist is how we choose ground from a desk before we drive to it. We don't publish spots; we teach the method that finds them.

4. Learn the first morning

Listening for the covey, walking the birds up, working the singles, and finding the bird you hit without a dog: Hunting California Quail Without a Dog. Wear brush pants; the chaparral will teach you why.

5. Take care of the bird

Leave a fully feathered wing or the head on every bird until it is home (14 CCR § 251.7(b)), and get birds out of the heat. Then cook them: the torn-skin fix for quail and 30-minute dove tacos.

6. Find people to hunt with

CDFW's advanced hunter education clinics cover upland, and CDFW runs drawn quail and chukar hunts on its reserves, family and junior hunts among them; this season's applications closed Sept. 26, so put next September's deadline on the calendar. A habitat workday is the easiest way to meet the hunters who know the local ground, and we wrote about how California hunters show up for habitat in May.

When You're Ready for a Dog

A season on foot first is worth it if you can manage it: it teaches you what you'll be asking the dog to do. When you are ready: picking a puppy from a California litter, and what Peter carries for Alan, his English cocker. Matt's Brittany comes home next spring, and we'll write that year as it happens.

Still Stuck?

Send us a message on Instagram. That's where this page came from, and the questions that come in shape what we write next. The Sunday digest carries every new piece, and you can reply to any issue with a question.