It's official - Eric is the most successful quail hunter we've had at the ranch in at least ten years.  He got one, I got zero with the 2 shells I had.

Tom, I used Ben Butts' 16 gauge.  Don't get too 'competition technical' on me, but- what is a 'normal' length-of-pull?  Can you answer in terms of "put the butt in the crook of your arm and your finger should be XX", like we do with rifles?      We chased them all over the brush in Grasshopper and Prune Ridge and South Flat and Paradise and Garrison's Roost and some places in between that have no name.  We got few shots off because of lack of shooting lanes and short flights between brush and walking vs flying and flying too low and ... 
It was a challenge.

It was definitely a challenge - much tougher than hunting them in the lava beds at Tulelake. We had little problem finding birds but seemed to continually push the birds out in front of us - maybe a blocker/driver kind of hunt would be most efficient - a good bird dog would be paramount as well, but I guess you'd need to be able to kill something first. I was fortunate that the one I did hit dropped in the short stuff and was easily found.

Also having modern ammo might help. Bill was using some stuff that was so old the shells were made of paper. I haven't seen any like that since I was 10 years old.

Never-the-less it was a hoot - I'd do it again in a second.

Eric