When miles from civilization: Don't lock the keys in the car.

So, again we find ourselves putting around the desert in search of "Desert Ghosts" better known as the Gambel's Quail. We've started to call them desert ghosts because it seems no matter how many of them you flush and get to fly a short distance away, you rarely seem to be able to find them again. They simply vanish. Well today I must have seen a few hundred quail, and they were everywhere, but I only managed to bag a few. Granted: most of the quail we saw were sprinting away from us 100+ yards away because they saw us coming from 200 yards away. My father-in-law, and wonderpup were along for this adventure that turned into a nightmare before the hunt was over.
We set out at around 1:30 for some evening hunting and arrived at our dove spot, which is usually just good for dove. But we had seen large numbers of quail earlier during dove season so we went there to try it out. We drove in and shot 1 and after an hour or so we came across several coveys of birds that formed to make 1 large covey. In the fray, we left the truck to run them down (becuase they started running away once they saw us) and we left the pooch behind because she'd have charged the covey and would have ruined everything. But alas, the covey took off flying anyways, so I went back to get the dog out of the truck so we could persue them and I locked the door once we got her out of the cab. Turns out my father-in-law left the keys in the ignition and boy was I never more sorry to have locked a door. More than an hour later the mother-in-law came to rescue us, but I did chase down and bag more quail in the process of waiting for her to arrive. So the moral of the story: the next time you're out in the brush, bring a spare key, and don't invite me to come along unless you love adventure.

-A.A.