Saturday, October 17, is the statewide opener: chukar everywhere, and all quail in Zones Q1 and Q3. Q2 has been open since September 26, and sooty grouse season ends Monday, October 12. CDFW’s zone map settles which date covers your ground. Six days out, the most useful hour you can spend is on the question that ends more opening mornings than a shortage of birds: whether the ground you scouted is open to you that day.

This week’s lead. San Diego County Valley Quail: Cleveland NF Planning — Peter’s planning guide to California quail on San Diego County’s public land, built in the order the county demands: the legal map first, the birds second. Four kinds of closure and restriction stack up on the Cleveland National Forest, and the piece shows how to build one legal map out of four sources, what’s left when you subtract them, and how fire writes both the cover and the access. Zone Q3 opens Saturday. Read →

Coming up in California:

→ Fish and Game Commission, Tuesday, October 13 — Sacramento (715 P Street) and by Zoom or phone. Item 11 is a petition to list the Mount Pinos sooty grouse, the southern subspecies, under the California Endangered Species Act; the Commission will consider it and may act. Petitions to allow air guns for game are on the same day’s agenda. To speak remotely, pre-register by noon Monday, October 12. Details →

→ Inland Empire NAVHDA training day — Saturday, October 17, at Prado near Chino. The chapter’s monthly training day lands on the opener this month, for anyone working a versatile dog in Southern California. Details →

What we published this week:

→ The California Chukar Hunting Guide — our planning guide to the bird from a standing start: the Eastern Sierra, the Modoc Plateau, and the Mojave ranges; why water is the planning variable; escape cover; the elevation band that holds birds in October; and what the ground asks of you and the dog. Chukar opens statewide Saturday. Read →

→ Hunting the Overlap: Sooty Grouse, Band-Tails, and Quail in the High Sierra in September — our Hope Valley trip. A September email of ours linked this piece before it was up; if you hit a dead page then, this is it, and it’s been live since last Sunday afternoon. Better than twenty miles between 7,000 and 9,000 feet, Jeffrey pine against aspen, the band-tails that came home with us, and a covey of California quail we let cross a two-track weeks before their opener. Read →

If you’ve wondered who’s behind the bylines, Peter sat down with Ryan Lynton on The Upland Social to talk about coming back to bird hunting after two decades away and hunting behind a cocker in California. Our note on the episode →

What we’re working on:

· Thursday — our burn-scar planning map, rewritten around California quail and the first three growing seasons after a fire.

If you’re heading out Saturday and the closure map or the chukar guide left you with a question, hit reply. We read every one.

Good luck Saturday, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

The statewide opener is Saturday, October 17, thirteen days from this morning: chukar everywhere, and all quail in Zones Q1 and Q3. Q2 has been open for all quail since September 26. CDFW’s zone map is the authority on which date covers your ground. This is the fortnight to settle the other question that decides an opener: whether you’re allowed to stand where you scouted.

This week’s lead. Public Land Designations: Where You Can Legally Hunt Upland in California — the green on your map app is at least eight legal designations wearing one color, and they run from open to any licensed hunter to a citation if you load a shotgun. BLM, national forest, monuments, CDFW wildlife areas and the pass and entry-permit rules that catch people on the pheasant opener, refuges that are open to ducks and closed to every upland bird, and the two-minute check that settles it before you burn a tank of gas. Read →

What we published this week:

→ The Hill You Don’t Climb: Off-Road Driving Skills for California Hunting Access — two days of instruction at Hollister Hills, and what they changed about the roads we’ll drive to get Alan, Peter’s English cocker, to birds. Mostly, a shorter list of places we’re willing to drive and a longer list we’re willing to walk into. Read →

Coming up in California:

→ Central California NAVHDA training day — Saturday, October 10, near Frazier Park, at Lockwood Valley Road or High Jack Ranch. A week of dog work before the opener; birds are $10 each, up to four per dog, chapter dues are $30, and you sign up and order birds ahead. Details →

If you’re already into Q2 birds, or you’ve got a public-land question the piece didn’t answer, hit reply. We read every one.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

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We spent three days near Hope Valley hunting sooty grouse and never saw one. Alan put up two birds. Peter clipped tail feathers from the first on day one and shot the second on the last afternoon, a short walk away. Both were band-tailed pigeons. It’s our first field report of the fall, it runs this morning.

Quail is opening in pieces. Zone Q2 opened yesterday; Q1 and Q3 open for all quail, and chukar opens statewide, on Saturday, October 17. If the report puts ideas in your head: sooty grouse run through October 12, and band-tailed pigeon closes today in the North Zone and opens again December 19 in the South. CDFW’s zone map is the authority on which of those dates covers your ground.

This week’s lead. The Grouse That Was a Pigeon — how we planned a grouse trip on a bird almost nobody writes about, why two days of country that looked perfect held nothing, why going back to a day-one pin was right. Plus camp on a highway where the campgrounds start closing as grouse season opens, the drive through what the Caldor Fire left, and a covey of California quail crossing the road in storm light, weeks ahead of their opener. E-scouting gets you to the mountain. The mountain tells you where the birds are. Read →

What we published this week:

→ Reading Recent Burns for Birds: The New Fire Layer on California’s Upland Map — the Where the Birds Are map now draws California’s recent burn scars straight from CAL FIRE, colored by age: orange for the one-to-three-year window when the forb flush peaks, amber for burns that are maturing out. Pick your bird, find the counties that actually put it in the bag, then turn on burns and see which recent fires sit inside them. The honest caveat is in there too: the layer shows where and when it burned, not how hot, and not whether the ground has reopened. Read →

About last week’s promises. Last Sunday’s email said a Wednesday note, Reader Mail on Friday, and Peter’s first Letter from the Field yesterday. None of them went out. We were in the mountains from the 19th to the 23rd, and the writing didn’t happen. Reader Mail comes back when there’s real mail to build it from, so if you’ve got a question, a Q2 opener story, or a grouse you found or didn’t, hit reply. Peter’s letter on Alan’s third season will land when it’s finished, not on a promised morning.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

This is the quiet weeks between seasons, the vests are hanging up with the shells still in them, and the only useful work between now and the quail opener is the work you can do from a kitchen table or a dirt road. Alan is on the conditioning ramp and mildly insulted by the pace of it. Matt is dogless until spring and is spending the gap the way dogless hunters do, which is on maps.

Quail and chukar come open in October, on dates that differ by zone — which is easy to get wrong. We are not going to print them here. CDFW’s booklet is the authority, and it is worth ten minutes with a map before you plan anything around them.

First, a correction. Last Sunday’s email linked two articles to addresses that did not exist. Our mistake: the pages were live the whole time, at different URLs than the ones we typed. Here they are, with links we have clicked:

→ The Four Weeks That Decide October: Quail Prep While Dove Is Still Open — the piece about exactly this stretch. The dog work that takes the longest and therefore has to start first, patterning for a bird that flushes at fifteen yards instead of crossing at thirty, e-scouting while the country is at its ugliest and most legible, and a gear check that is mostly checking rather than buying. Plus the honest caveat: none of it finds birds. It gets you to the first morning able to take advantage of a good hatch. Read →

→ What Changes in a Sacramento Valley Dove Field After Opening Weekend — most people scout a field once, in August, and then hunt the memory of it. Four things move in the first week of a season, on four different clocks: pressure, water, cut dates, and the birds themselves. The first split is closed now, but everything in it applies again, harder, when the second one opens in November. Read →

There is no new article this morning, and that is a decision rather than a slip.

What we’re working on:

· No Thursday piece this week. A skipped Thursday is a normal week. · Wednesday — Field Notes from Peter: Cache Creek country at dusk, one covey if he finds one, at the hour of day nobody writes about. · Friday the 25th — Reader Mail, the monthly one, built out of your replies. Saturday the 26th — the first Letter from the Field: Peter on Alan’s third season. Memoir, not instruction, and not trying to teach you anything.

One thing worth doing in the gap: the second split runs November 14 to December 28. Six weeks, cool enough that a dog is not the limiting factor, on public ground that was a firing line on Sept. 1 and is close to empty by then. It is the cheapest hunting in the state and almost nobody takes it.

If you went on the opener — whichever field, however it went — hit reply and tell us. Reader Mail is Friday and it is built entirely out of what comes back.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Two days left. Dove closes statewide on Tuesday the 15th and does not come back until November 14, and in between there is a gap — roughly four weeks with nothing upland open — that most of us treat as an off week and shouldn’t. That gap is what this morning’s piece is about, and writing it made both of us look honestly at our own calendars. Alan is coming off a September of short, hot, low-mileage mornings, which is not the same animal as a dog that can work Coast Range chamise for five hours. Four weeks is about the minimum honest runway between those two states.

There was no Sunday note last week. That is part of what the last item in this email is about.

This week’s lead. The Four Weeks That Decide October: Quail Prep While Dove Is Still Open — the dog work that takes the longest and therefore has to start first, patterning for a bird that flushes at fifteen yards instead of crossing at thirty, e-scouting while the country is at its ugliest and most legible, and a gear check that is mostly checking rather than buying. Plus the honest caveat: none of it finds birds. It gets you to the first morning able to take advantage of a good hatch. Read →

What we published this week:

→ What Changes in a Sacramento Valley Dove Field After Opening Weekend — most people scout a field once, in August, and then hunt the memory of it. Four things move in the first week of a season, on four different clocks: pressure, water, cut dates, and the birds themselves. If you have two days of dove left, this is the ten minutes worth spending first. Read →

A change in how often we publish. From here the blog runs one new article a week, Sunday morning, and sometimes a second on Thursday when the week earns it. That is down from three or four. The reason is arithmetic: there are fifty articles on the site now, none of them have ever been properly maintained, and another piece competing with the fifty is worth less than a week spent making one of the fifty right. So updates to existing articles become real work with a real slot — when a piece gets rewritten you will see it here marked as updated, with a line on what changed. Fewer posts, better ones, and an archive we actually keep. This newsletter does not change: Sunday digests, Wednesday Field Notes, Reader Mail at the end of the month, and the occasional Saturday letter.

What we’re working on:

· No Thursday piece this week. Nothing in the file earns it — the two time-critical dove pieces have run and the season closes Tuesday — and under the new shape a skipped Thursday is a normal week rather than a miss. The next new article is next Sunday morning. · Wednesday — Field Notes from Matt, out of the dead week: dry oak country, mid-September, the day after everyone’s season stopped. · Friday the 25th — Reader Mail, the monthly one, built out of replies. Saturday the 26th — the first Letter from the Field: Peter on Alan’s third season. Longer, slower, not trying to teach you anything.

One last thing before the split closes. If you have two days of dove left and a dog, think about the evening rather than the morning: the last evening of a split is about the quietest a public field gets, and the heat is off it by then.

Then it is quail, and everything starts again.

Hit reply and tell us how your first split went, including the parts that did not work. Those are the more useful ones, and September’s Reader Mail is built entirely out of them.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Two days. That’s the whole weather report. Somewhere in the Sacramento Valley there’s a cut safflower field that doesn’t know what’s coming Tuesday morning, and neither of us can fully concentrate on anything else. Matt’s truck is half-loaded for the Yolo Bypass side of the valley — that’s the plan, anyway, and if eight weeks of prep pieces have taught us anything, it’s that the plan survives until roughly 5:40 a.m. Peter is down to two plans and one dog: Alan’s crate is staged by the door either way, water jugs filled, and the cocker has reached the stage of pre-season where every pair of boots that moves gets supervised. We are not much better. The vests are loaded. The licenses are screenshotted. There is nothing left to prepare, which turns out to be its own strange feeling after a summer spent preparing in public.

From the field. This morning, one last planning piece slid in under the wire: Salton Sea Refuge Dove: Long-Distance Planning Notes — the honest homework on the state’s farthest-flung opener, written for the hunter eyeing the far south shore, the refuge-edge fields, and a very early alarm. We haven’t made that drive yet; the piece says so plainly, and says what we’d want to know before we do — which is exactly the kind of homework-first honesty this newsletter runs on. Read →

What we published this week:

→ Dove Tacos: A 30-Minute Recipe for Opener Night — our first Recipe post. Seared dove medallions, charred tortillas, cabbage, lime, thirty minutes, one burner. Put the ingredients in the cooler now and Tuesday night cooks itself. Read →

→ The Pre-Dawn Loadout Reel — the 4:30 a.m. truck ritual, scripted shot by shot for the camera, and the checklist logic hiding under every frame. Shoot your own version Tuesday and tag us. Read →

→ Heat, Shade, and Water Strategy: Don’t Cook Your Dog on Sept 1 — the protocol for the opener’s most important job: quitting while the dog is still okay. If you read one thing before Tuesday, read this one, then read it to your hunting partner. Read →

What we’re working on:

· Monday evening — the Opener Eve Note, a short one for the night before: the summer compressed into four hundred words and a send-off.
· Tuesday — the opener field report, live from the Sacramento Valley. The first field report of the 2026-27 season, written the day it happens — the whole point of a summer of planning pieces is that the reporting starts now.
· Wednesday — Field Notes from opening morning, still smelling of gun oil and cut safflower.

One more thing, said plainly because it’s the send where it matters most: it is going to be hot on Tuesday, the birds will still be flying when your dog shouldn’t be, and the best morning of the year is not worth a heat scare. Quit early, ice the birds, water the dog, and be the person telling the story at lunch instead of the one at the vet.

Sixty days of prep pieces come down to Tuesday at legal light — a field chosen on faith, a dog or an empty crate, and the first gray blur crossing too fast and too high. Hit reply and tell us where you’ll be — and Tuesday night, tell us how it went. We read every one, and the September Reader Mail is already listening.

Whatever field you chose, we hope it’s the right one — and if it isn’t, we hope the backup is twenty minutes away and full of birds. See you on the other side of Tuesday.

Out the door — actually out the door this time, — Matt & Peter
californiaupland.com · @california_upland

This is Reader Mail — a new monthly post where we answer questions from this list. The honest fine print for month one: the newsletter is young enough that there isn’t a mailbag yet, so the three questions below are the ones we’re asked most often — at the clays range, over tailgates, and in our regular inboxes — written up the way we hear them. From next month on, this space belongs to your actual replies. Names left off unless you ask us to use them.

Q (from a reader in Elk Grove): I’m hunting the opener with my two-year-old Lab. What’s your actual heat protocol for September 1 — not the general advice, the specific plan?

Here’s the plan Peter runs with Alan, his three-year-old English cocker, and it starts before the hunt: August conditioning in the cool hours only, so the opener isn’t the dog’s first hot workout of the year. On the day itself — shoot the first two to three hours and be done. The doves will still fly at noon; your dog should not be there to see it. Bring a gallon of water per dog beyond your own supply, offer it every fifteen to twenty minutes without waiting to be asked, and park the truck where there will be real shade at 10 a.m., not where there was shade at 5:30. Then watch the dog, not the clock: heavy drooling, a tongue flattened wide like a ladle, wobble, or a dog that quits hunting and starts trotting a straight line are all past the warning stage — soak the belly and groin, get airflow, and be on your way out of the field. The honest hedge: we’re hunters, not veterinarians, and a Lab carries more coat and mass than a cocker, so your margins are thinner than ours. The full protocol — cooling, what actually works, when it’s a vet trip — is in our heat-safety piece, and this morning’s post, Heat, Shade, and Water Strategy: Don’t Cook Your Dog on Sept 1, is the opener-day version. Read → If in doubt, the dog stays home — a dogless dove hunt is still a dove hunt.

Q (from a reader in Fresno): All your dove scouting talk is Sacramento Valley safflower. I’m in Fresno — does the sunflower vs safflower logic actually transfer down here?

The logic transfers; our windshield time doesn’t, and it’s worth being straight about which is which. Matt’s field-reading experience is the Sacramento Valley — that’s the country in the sunflower-safflower scouting piece — so what we can hand you is the crop logic, not named fields off Highway 99. The crop logic: doves key on cut or shattering seed fields with bare ground to land on, safflower comes down through August and holds birds off the stubble, sunflower pulls hardest as heads dry and drop seed, and wheat stubble matters where discing hasn’t buried it. All of that reads the same through a San Joaquin windshield as a Sacramento one — what changes is the map: different water districts, different cutting schedules, more almonds in the mix. Your scouting month is the same as ours, though. Drive your county’s grain-and-safflower edges the last two weeks of August at first light, watch wires and dead snags near cut fields, and let the birds tell you which fields matter — they will, loudly, by about 6:45 a.m. If you find something good down there, reply and tell us; the southern Central Valley is country we want to cover properly, and a reader report beats our guesswork.

Q (from a reader in San Diego): First trip to the Imperial Valley for the opener this year. Mostly I’m nervous — heat, logistics, not knowing the ground. Talk me down?

First, the honest part: we haven’t hunted the Imperial opener either. Peter wrote the Imperial Valley planning piece as exactly what it says it is — the homework for a trip we haven’t taken, with our own November drive south on the calendar — so read what follows as fellow planners a few chapters ahead, not locals. That said, the research is genuinely reassuring. The Imperial Valley holds the most consistent opening-day dove numbers in California; the anxiety is about logistics, and logistics are solvable from a desk. Book lodging now — Brawley and El Centro fill for opener week. Every account we’ve read agrees the morning flight is early and heavy, so being set up at legal light matters more than having the perfect field. The heat is real — triple digits by mid-morning is normal — which makes this a first-two-hours hunt, doubly so with a dog (see the first question). And know the ground rules before you go: the wildlife-area and refuge boundaries down there are a checkerboard, so time with the maps and the 2026-27 regulationsis time well spent. The nerves mean you’re taking it seriously. Go, quit by nine, and send us the report — you’ll have hunted it before we have.

If you’ve got a question, hit reply — we read every one.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

Matt Gehrmann grew up hunting the Central Valley for pheasant, quail, and dove, and is based in the Bay Area. Read more → · Subscribe to the weekly digest →

Peter Burnham grew up in Nevada hunting chukar in the Sierras and dove in the valleys and hunts behind Alan (a three-year-old English cocker). Read more → · Subscribe to the weekly digest →

Nine days to September 1. This is the week the season stops being a plan and starts being errands: HIP validation, the upland stamp, ice, sunscreen, and whatever nonlead you still need — seasonal wisdom says the valley-town shelves get picked over from here, so if you’re short on steel 7s, this week is the week, not next week. It’s also the last real scouting window. One more first-light drive past the fields you’ve been watching all month settles the argument between your two best options better than any amount of August theorizing — the birds on the wires at 6:15 will tell you which field won the cutting-schedule lottery. Peter’s tapering Alan like the little cocker’s got a race coming, which he does — lighter sessions at Quail Point, full rest days, nails done, pads checked, crate fan tested before it matters. Matt’s version of tapering is standing in the garage re-counting shell boxes he has already counted. Nine days does strange things to serious people.

From the field. This morning we published the piece this whole week orbits: The Last-Minute Opener Checklist — every errand, document, and piece of kit for the next nine days, in the order to handle them, so nothing surfaces for the first time at 4:30 a.m. on September 1. It’s deliberately boring. The checklist’s whole job is to make opening morning boring in every way except the one that counts — no license drama, no missing shells, no dry dog bowl, just you, a field you chose on purpose, and the first gray birds coming off the roost. Print it, stick it on the fridge, argue with it by reply. Read →

What we published this week:

→ California Dove Regulations 2026-27: HIP, Limits, Lead-Free Zones — the current CDFW rules in one place: licenses, HIP validation, the upland stamp, bag limits, shooting hours, and the statewide nonlead requirement. If you only handle one errand from this digest, handle this one — it’s the only item on the list with a warden attached. Read →

→ Opener Morning Loadout: Vest, Shells, Water, Dog — the truck-bed manifest, item by item: what rides where, the shell-and-water math a real opener actually burns, and the dog station for those of you whose truck bed isn’t missing its best feature. Read →

→ Where to Camp Opener Weekend: Sac Valley CDFW Areas — the wildlife-area camping picture for anyone turning opener into a weekend: the rules that differ area to area, shade honesty, and the early-arrival math that decides whether you sleep or circle. Read →

What we’re working on:

· Tuesday — Dove Tacos: A 30-Minute Recipe for Opener Night (our first Recipe post ever — the meal Matt cooks the night of September 1, with honest quantities: eight to twelve doves feeds two hunters properly).
· Wednesday — The Pre-Dawn Loadout Reel(the 4:30 a.m. truck ritual, scripted shot by shot for Instagram, plus the companion checklist explaining what every shot is actually about).
· Friday — Heat, Shade, and Water Strategy: Don’t Cook Your Dog on Sept 1 (Peter’s protocol for the opener’s most important job — the quit-early math, the shade plan, and the signs that end the hunt on the spot).

Also Wednesday: Peter has the Field Notes slot from the Cache Creek country — the late-August look at the cover we’ll all care about again come October.

One more Friday thing: the first Reader Mail lands this Friday morning — heat protocols for opening day, the sunflower-versus-safflower question from south of the delta, and first-trip nerves for the Imperial Valley. If you’ve got a question of your own, hit reply this week and it may make next month’s edition.

If a piece lands, hit reply.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Sixteen days to September 1. The blue oak country of the Sacramento Sierra foothills — the El Dorado and Amador county savanna where we run spring scouting loops — should be fully crisped out by now, annual grassland gone to straw and holding its breath until the first fall rain. That same heat is the story everywhere we’re planning to stand on opening morning, and it shaped this whole week of posts: the two-week clays countdown started Tuesday, the vest piece is half about water capacity, and Friday’s conditioning piece is entirely about the thermometer. Peter’s August log with Alan is that piece’s anchor: short early sessions, real rest days, and the discipline to end a workout while the cocker still wants more, because the dog never casts the deciding vote on heat. Matt, still dogless until spring, contributed the section nobody likes writing: how to know when the right call is leaving the dog home — and why the hunters who make that call early are the ones whose dogs are still hunting in November.

From the field. This morning’s post argues for a coastline: Central Coast Dove: An Underrated Opener — Peter’s planning case for the grain valleys behind the fog line, where opening morning can run twenty degrees cooler than the Sacramento Valley floor and the crowds thin to almost nothing. It’s a planning piece and says so; consider it a research file handed over, not a guarantee. Read → And a heads-up for Tuesday: the piece to actually act on this week is California Dove Regulations 2026-27: HIP, Limits, Lead-Free Zones — license, HIP validation, upland stamp, limits, shooting hours, and the statewide nonlead requirement, all in one place, two full weeks before you need any of it at a check station. Watch your inbox Tuesday, then handle the paperwork the same day. Future-you, standing in a parking area at 5:15 a.m., says thanks.

What we published this week:

→ Wing-Shooting Drills for Dove: A 14-Day Tune-Up — the clays program that starts exactly two weeks out, built around the crossing and quartering shots dove actually offer, not the going-away birds most range sessions default to. If you started Tuesday, you’re on schedule. Read →

→ Strap Vest Setup for the Dove Opener — shells, water, birds, sunscreen, and where each one rides so you’re not digging through pockets while doves are trading overhead. The water-capacity section doubles as heat prep. Read →

→ San Diego County Valley Quail: Cleveland NF Planning — the October homework, filed early: access, elevation bands, and the chaparral country of the Cleveland National Forest, for the SoCal hunters we keep promising more of. Read →

→ Dog Conditioning for Early-September Heat — the four-week ramp compressed honestly into two, what a conditioning session should look like this week specifically, and the quit-early math that keeps September 1 from becoming a vet story. Built on Peter’s August log with Alan. Read →

What we’re working on:

· Tuesday — California Dove Regulations 2026-27: HIP, Limits, Lead-Free Zones (the act-on-it piece of the month — read it, then do the paperwork the same day).
· Wednesday — Opener Morning Loadout: Vest, Shells, Water, Dog (the truck-bed manifest, item by item, with the shell-and-water math a real opener burns).
· Friday — Where to Camp Opener Weekend: Sac Valley CDFW Areas (for everyone turning opener into a weekend — rules, shade honesty, and the early-arrival math).

Also Wednesday: Matt takes the Field Notes slot, from the Glenn-Colusa side of the valley — conditions only, the way the Wednesday notes work.

Sixteen days is the sweet spot: close enough that the work is real, far enough that all of it still fits. If a piece lands, hit reply.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Twenty-three days to September 1. The Sacramento Valley is deep into its August routine — safflower coming down field by field, irrigation water moving in the rice country, and the Cache Creek hills gone the color of a paper bag, the way that country always looks by mid-August. The next three weeks of cutting decide the opener more than anything you or we will do, which is a humbling thing to admit in a newsletter built on preparation. Peter and Alan are keeping to the early rotation at Quail Point: work done by eight, water pan before the crate, the three-year-old cocker’s conditioning log adding up one cool hour at a time. The dog is ahead of schedule; the handler claims no such thing. Matt spent his week with the drive-by piece and a windshield full of Sacramento Valley field edges — planning miles, not hunting miles, and honest about the difference.

From the field. This morning’s post is the one we’d tell you to read first: Sunflower vs Safflower vs Wheat: Decoding CDFW Dove Field Plantings — what each planting is actually for, when each one starts pulling birds, and how to tell from the road which fields will matter on September 1. Safflower that came down in early August hunts differently than safflower cut the last week of the month; sunflower pulls hardest as the heads dry and start dropping seed; wheat stubble matters right up until the disc buries it. None of that is visible in a CDFW planting list, and all of it is visible through a windshield if you know what you’re looking at. It’s the piece that turns the planting table into a map. Read →

What we published this week:

→ Sac Valley Dove Field Prep: A Pre-Opener Drive-By Method — the windshield-scouting system for the last four weeks: what to look for at 40 mph, when to stop and glass, and how to build a three-field opener plan — a first choice, a backup, and a wildcard — without burning a tank of gas or a Saturday. Read →

→ Nonlead Shot for Dove: What Works at 25 Yards — steel 7s, bismuth, chokes, and the honest ballistics of the shots dove hunting actually gives you. California is nonlead statewide and has been since 2019; this is the load answer, plus why you buy shells in August and not on August 31. Read →

→ Imperial Valley Dove: Why SoCal Has the Best Opener in the State — Peter’s planning case for the long drive south: bird numbers, heat you can lean on, the motel-and-gas math, and why the state’s best opener happens 600 miles from where most of its hunters live. Filed as planning, honestly — the November drive south is on our own calendar. Read →

What we’re working on:

· Tuesday — Wing-Shooting Drills for Dove: A 14-Day Tune-Up (the clays program that starts exactly two weeks out — which is Tuesday, not a coincidence — built around the crossers and quartering birds dove season actually throws).
· Wednesday — Strap Vest Setup for the Dove Opener (shells, water, birds, sunscreen, and where each one rides so you’re not digging while doves are trading overhead).
· Thursday — San Diego County Valley Quail: Cleveland NF Planning (a bonus Thursday slot — the October homework doesn’t stop for dove season, and the Cleveland’s chaparral country deserves the head start).

Also Wednesday: Peter takes the second Field Notes — a hot morning at Quail Point with Alan and the numbers that go with it. Between now and opener, the Wednesday notes are where the conditions live.

If a piece lands, hit reply.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Thirty days to September 1. August is when the Sacramento Valley starts writing the dove opener map — the safflower outside Williams should be cutting about now, and which fields come down over the next three weeks decides where the birds stack up on opening morning. We’ll be watching the cutting the way other people watch a pennant race, because that’s what dove scouting mostly is in August: crop calendars, irrigation schedules, and first-light drives with the windows down. Peter has Alan on the early-morning-only rotation at Quail Point this month — planted-bird work wrapped by eight, water pan before the crate, because a three-year-old cocker’s enthusiasm does not read a thermometer. Matt is dogless until the Brittany pup arrives in spring, so his August is clays, shell math, and windshield time on the valley grain edges. The Cache Creek hills and the Berryessa country we scout in spring can wait until October — this month belongs to the valley floor.

From the field. Yesterday morning the fifth and final cornerstone went live: The California Pheasant Hunting Guide. Five pillar pages in five weeks — Valley Quail, Chukar, Dove, Mountain Quail, and now Pheasant — each one the page we’d hand a new California hunter for the bird they’re chasing, each refreshed every July before its season. If you subscribed sometime this spring, that’s the shelf to bookmark: one page per bird, kept current, everything else we write hanging off it. The arc is done, and the sprint starts now: from today through September 14 we publish four times a week — Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday — everything pointed at the dove opener. Field prep, nonlead ammo, regulations, vests, camping, dog heat strategy, one recipe, and the last-minute checklist, in roughly the order you’ll need them. September 1 is the day more Californians go upland hunting at once than any other date on the calendar, and the four weeks in front of it are when planning has to turn into errands. One more new thing: starting this Wednesday, subscribers get Field Notes between Sundays — 300 words, one place, one thing one of us actually saw that week. No links, no lessons, just conditions. It’s the note we’d text a friend, sent to the whole list. First one is Matt’s, from the Yolo Bypass dove fields.

What we published this week:

→ Where the Birds are — interactive species map showing CDFW harvest information (to start). Read →

→ Patterning Nonlead Steel for California Upland — what a pattern board actually tells you about steel 6s and 7s before you buy a case, and how to run the test in an afternoon. Read →

What we’re working on:

· Tuesday — Sac Valley Dove Field Prep: A Pre-Opener Drive-By Method (the windshield-scouting system for the last four weeks before opener — what to look for at 40 mph and when to stop and glass). · Wednesday — Nonlead Shot for Dove: What Works at 25 Yards (the gauge-and-load answer for the shots dove hunting actually offers — buy your shells before the shelves thin out). · Friday — Imperial Valley Dove: Why SoCal Has the Best Opener in the State (Peter’s planning case for the long drive south — bird numbers, heat, and the motel math).

Thirty days. Sharpen something every week — a habit, a swing, a plan — and the morning takes care of itself. If a piece lands, hit reply.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Thirty-six days to September 1. The high country is at its summer peak — Plumas National Forest above Quincy, the chaparral-to-conifer break at 5,500 feet, the country where mountain quail are calling males off the saddles at first light right now. Peter spent Saturday morning on a Cache Creek ridge in the Berryessa Snow Mountain country listening — a calling male every quarter mile, the kind of summer density that tells you October will be honest. Alan was on a long line, working scent through the dry buckbrush, learning to read a bird he won’t see for two more months. Watching a flushing dog work mountain quail scent at altitude is its own argument for the trip.

From the field. This morning the fourth and final cornerstone goes live: The California Mountain Quail Hunting Guide. It closes the species pillar arc we started July 7 with Valley Quail. Four pillar pages in four weeks — Valley Quail, Chukar, Dove, Mountain Quail — each one the page we’d send a new California hunter for the bird they’re chasing, each refreshed every July before opener. The work has been worth it. Bookmark the one that matches your bird. The fifth cornerstone — Pheasant — lands Saturday and kicks off the August dove sprint, when we move to a Tue/Wed/Fri/Sun cadence through the opener.

What we published this week:

→ Scouting Summer Dove Fields in California — what to look for as you are preparing for the upcoming dove opener. Read→

→ Why Upland Hunters Should Be Rooting for California’s Conservation Groups — the crossover between hunters and conservation efforts and why they matter more than you think. Read→

→ The California Mountain Quail Hunting Guide — the fourth cornerstone. The Trinity Alps to the Los Padres, the chaparral-conifer transition, the running flush, the carrying assembly call, and the early-season opener almost nobody hunts on purpose. Read→

What we’re working on:

· Tuesday — Planning a Carrizo Plain Valley Quail Hunt (SoCal sleeper country — BLM, public access, and the August scouting window before October opens).
· Thursday — Cow Mountain Habitat: Lake County Planning Notes (the Inner Coast Range mountain-and-valley quail belt above Ukiah).
· Saturday — The California Pheasant Hunting Guide (cornerstone #5, the last pillar — and the start of the August dove-sprint cadence: four posts a week from Aug 1 through Sept 14).

If a piece lands, hit reply.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Forty-three days to September 1. The dove cornerstone is live this morning, the third pillar piece in three weeks: The California Dove Hunting Guide covers Sacramento Valley CDFW lands, Imperial Valley if you can stomach the drive south, sunflower vs. safflower vs. wheat, regulations and HIP and lead-free zones, the shotgun and the shot size and the strap vest that earn their place on the opener. If you’re going to do anything before September, read it and start your scouting calls now.

From the field. Peter took Alan into the Coast Range on Wednesday for a heat-tolerance read — temps in the high 80s, cover thick, water on the truck, twenty-minute work intervals. Alan handled it. He handled it because we’d built the conditioning over six weeks. Thursday’s piece is the protocol: when to push, when to pull, the signs the dog gives you before the heat becomes a problem.

What we published this week:

→ California Upland Season Dates 2026-27: Quail, Chukar, and What the CDFW Calendar Actually Says — the dates printed against the 2026-27 calendar with the regional differences flagged. Save it on your phone for opener morning. Read→

→ Heat Safety for Bird Dogs: California Off-Season Conditioning — protocol, signs, recovery. The four-week ramp that lets your dog actually work in September heat without you carrying the dog out. Read→

→ The California Dove Hunting Guide — the third cornerstone. Sacramento Valley, Imperial Valley, sunflower fields, lead-free, HIP, vest setup, the opener morning loadout. Bookmark this one and send it to anyone in your group who hasn’t planned yet. Read→

What we’re working on:

· Tuesday — Imperial Valley Dove: Planning a First Trip South for the Late Split (the SoCal piece — Matt and I are making the November trip; this is the planning document). · Thursday — Spring Conditioning for California Bird Dogs(carry-over from the heat-safety frame). · Sunday — The California Mountain Quail Hunting Guide (cornerstone #4 — the mountain bird almost nobody writes about).

If a piece lands, hit reply.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

The first cornerstone is live. The California Valley Quail Hunting Guide went up Tuesday — the pillar piece this site has been missing, the page to send a new California hunter, the page we’ll update every July before opener so it doesn’t go stale. The California Chukar Hunting Guide is close behind; it needs a few more days in the shop, and we’d rather ship it right than ship it on schedule.

From the field. The Coast Range bunchgrass is doing what it does in early July — dropping seed, holding insects in the dead culms, giving valley quail broods exactly the cover-and-protein combination they need to make it to August. Thursday’s optics piece is the one we wish we’d published a year ago: which 10x42 binocular, which spotting scope, which tripod, and where on the body or in the vest each one earns its weight. Chukar country in particular punishes a hunter who walks before they glass.

What we published this week:

→ The California Valley Quail Hunting Guide — the pillar. Habitat, seasonal cycles, scouting, dogs, gear, conservation. The page to bookmark. Read →

→ Glassing Optics for Chukar Country: The Binocular and Spotting-Scope Decisions That Pay for Themselves — the lightweight setup that lets you locate coveys at a mile before you commit to a half-mile climb. Read →

What we’re working on:

· The California Chukar Hunting Guide (cornerstone #2 — Eastern Sierra to the Modoc Plateau, water mapping, escape cover, elevation bands, the dog and the boots and the lungs the country asks for; coming later in July). · Tuesday — California Upland Season Dates 2026-27: Quail, Chukar, and What the CDFW Calendar Actually Says. · Thursday — Heat Safety for Bird Dogs: California Off-Season Conditioning. · Sunday — The California Dove Hunting Guide(cornerstone #3 — and the Sept. 1 dove opener is seven weeks out).

If a piece lands, hit reply.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Free when you subscribe: the 2026-27 California Upland Season Dates & Limits Cheatsheet — one page: season dates, daily and possession limits, lead-free zones — delivered in the welcome email. Subscribe free →

From the field. The bunchgrass on the Inner Coast Range is gold now — purple needlegrass turning the slopes the color they hold until November. Matt walked a section of Cache Creek country on Thursday looking for July brood structure: hen runs along the spring seeps, dusting bowls under the buckbrush, the kind of cover that tells you which draws will hold birds when the season actually opens. May rain did its job in patches; the country knows what to do with it.

This week. The first cornerstone goes live Tuesday, July 7. The California Valley Quail Hunting Guide is the pillar piece this site has been missing: where the bird lives, how the year shapes coveys, how to scout for them, the dogs that work them, the gear that earns the price, the conservation work that keeps the coveys on public land. We’ll refresh it every July before opener. If valley quail is one of your birds, this is the page to bookmark.

What we published this week:

→ Picking a Puppy from a California Litter: Questions to Ask Before You Pay — health clearances (OFA, PennHIP), what to ask a breeder before you send money, what to actually look for the day you meet the litter. Part two of Matt’s puppy arc. Read →

→ California’s Coastal Sage Scrub for Valley Quail: The South Coast Range from Monterey to Santa Barbara — coastal sage scrub is the most overlooked huntable habitat in the state. 250 miles of the same plant community holding valley quail along it. A habitat-and-planning read for anyone who treats the Central Coast as a beach drive. Read →

What we’re working on:

· Tuesday — The California Valley Quail Hunting Guide (cornerstone, the long one). · Thursday — Glassing Optics for Chukar Country: The Binocular and Spotting-Scope Decisions That Pay for Themselves. · Sunday — The California Chukar Hunting Guide (cornerstone #2 — chukar country from the Modoc to the Owens). · Planning a Los Padres National Forest Upland Hunt: Mountain and Valley Quail in One Day — slipped the week; coming later this summer.

If a piece lands, hit reply.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Free when you subscribe: the 2026-27 California Upland Season Dates & Limits Cheatsheet — one page: season dates, daily and possession limits, lead-free zones — delivered in the welcome email. Subscribe free →

Foxtails are everywhere — pull them off the dog before they go in the truck, not after. Peter watched a valley quail hen ferry six chicks across a fire road above Lake Berryessa on Tuesday. That’s the kind of late-June detail that tells you what October cover will look like: where the broods made it, where they didn’t, where to point a vehicle in early October when the season turns over.

From the field. Matt spent the weekend running through the Brittany breeders he’s talked to over the last eighteen months and finally picked one — working line, fall ‘26 litter, pup home in April or May of ‘27. The first installment of that arc — a breed-decision framework for California terrain — is still in the shop and coming soon. The two dog pieces below are where the arc starts in print.

What we published this week:

→ Foxtail Season for California Bird Dogs: A Handler’s Prevention and First-Aid Plan — the routine, the daily inspection, the warning signs, and the one head-tilt that always means a same-day vet call. Three seasons of running Alan have stripped it down to what stays in the truck. Read →

→ What I Carry for Alan: A California Bird-Dog Kit That Actually Works — cooling vest, water, boots, GPS, first aid — and what Peter stopped carrying. The follow-on to the foxtail piece for everything else in the truck. Read →

What we’re working on:

· The Right Bird Dog for California Upland: A Breed Decision Framework — the breed conversation from the field note above; in the works. · Planning a Los Padres National Forest Upland Hunt: Mountain and Valley Quail in One Day — in the works. Los Padres is the one piece of CA public land where both quail go in the same morning on an elevation break. · Picking a Puppy from a California Litter — health clearances, what to ask a breeder, what to look for the day you meet the litter. Closes the puppy arc on Thursday. · California’s Coastal Sage Scrub for Valley Quail — a habitat-first read for the Central Coast on Sunday, anchoring Monterey through Santa Barbara.

If a piece lands, hit reply. We read every one.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Free when you subscribe: the 2026-27 California Upland Season Dates & Limits Cheatsheet — one page: season dates, daily and possession limits, lead-free zones — delivered in the welcome email. Subscribe free →

The publication went live this week. If you’re reading this, you’re one of the first hundred — thank you. This is the first Sunday note. They’re short by design: one paragraph from the week, then what we published, then what’s coming.

From the field. The hills west of the Sacramento Valley are still green in patches where the May rain held, brown where it didn’t. We watched a pair of valley quail run a strip of ditch grass at dusk on Wednesday — a hen and a cock, no chicks visible yet, which is later than we’d hope but not late enough to worry. The dove fields north of the bypass are getting cut. Foxtails are everywhere. Pull them off the dog.

What we published this week:

→ Planning a Sacramento Valley Dove Opener: What NorCal Hunters Should Do Now — Sept. 1 is 10 weeks out. Scouting safflower, sunflower, public land, and a non-lead supply that won’t be on the shelf in August. Read →

→ Bird Dog Field First-Aid for California Hunters — Foxtails, rattlesnakes, heat. A pocket-sized kit and the protocols that go with it. Read →

→ Planning a First Trip to Chukar Country: The Owens Valley — Planning notes for our own first east-side trip: water, escape cover, and the elevation band that holds birds in October. Read →

What we’re working on:

• A late-July piece on patterning non-lead loads — what actually breaks clay vs. what just looks tight on paper.

• A Coast Range valley quail scouting piece for early August.

• A long-overdue post on the upland stamp — what your $11 actually pays for, and which habitat projects got funded this year.

If a piece resonates, hit reply. We read everything.

Out the door, — Matt & Peter

californiaupland.com · @california_upland

Chukar hunting in the Owens Valley and the eastern Sierra Nevada is California upland hunting at its most unforgiving. The birds live in places that hurt to reach. They flush uphill, often in coveys of fifteen, and they land in the next canyon. They will break your dogs, your legs, and your assumptions about what good upland country looks like. They are also the closest thing California has to an American chukar tradition, and the country itself — the long dry east-facing slope from the Sierra crest down into the Owens — is some of the most distinctive hunting ground in the state.

Why the Owens Valley

The pull is the terrain. Chukar (Alectoris chukar) are not native to California — they came over from the rocky, arid slopes of Central Asia and the Middle East, and when they were introduced to the American West in the mid-twentieth century, they apparently looked at the eastern Sierra Nevada and recognized something familiar. Steep basalt faces, sparse vegetation, reliable water sources low on the slope, escarpment in every direction. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers millions of acres along the Sierra’s eastern face, running south from Bishop through Big Pine and Independence down to Lone Pine — public land, no access fee, no gates. What the maps can’t convey is the scale of it. Every trip report mentions the scale.

The birds that live here are not put-and-take. They’re wild animals that have survived hawks and coyotes and the physics of living on a 45-degree rock face in Mojave heat. Every account we’ve read makes this point, usually as a warning.

Learning to Read the Elevation

The most consistent piece of advice across everything we’ve read: the daily vertical movement of chukar is the key variable, and if you don’t understand it, you will spend a lot of miles walking below birds.

The pattern goes like this. Early morning, coveys move downslope toward water to drink. As the day heats, they push back up into rockier, more exposed terrain. By late afternoon they’re working back toward water again before roosting mid-slope. The practical implication for a first-timer is uncomfortable: if you’re starting from the truck and walking uphill from a valley-floor trailhead, you’re already behind. The hunters who find birds consistently in this country start at or above the water source by first light and hunt laterally across the elevation band, not straight up through it.

Most productive ground sits between roughly 4,500 and 7,500 feet on south- and west-facing slopes. Water — a seep, a stock tank, a reliable spring within a half-mile — is apparently the most useful scouting variable in a landscape this dry. We’ve been marking springs on a downloaded topo for two months.

The Dog Question

We’re bringing a 34-pound English field cocker named Alan. This is, by every account we’ve read, completely the wrong dog for the job.

Alan is built for pushing pheasants out of Central Valley tules and hunting tight to the gun in dense cover. He’s been great on wild quail during tough Northern California all day hunts. That said, the chukar literature is unanimous that you want a medium-ranging pointing breed you can see and communicate with when you’re both gasping at 7,000 feet on a basalt face. Alan will be invisible behind the first rock he passes, and he does not point.

What Alan has going for him is that he is relentless, he handles heat better than most flushing dogs we’ve seen, and he has never once in three seasons declined to go into cover that looked miserable. Whether any of that translates to steep talus and wild birds that flush uphill into the next canyon, we genuinely don’t know. We’ll find out.

The conditioning piece feels especially important given the mismatch. August hill work starts now. A dog unprepared for four to six hours of altitude and rock will be lame by day two — and a small dog unprepared for it will probably be carried out.

We’re also packing more water than we think we need and a full dog first aid kit. That last item came up enough in the trip reports that it’s already staged by the door.

Regulations

Chukar season runs concurrently with the general quail season — typically mid-October through late January. The daily bag limit is six chukar with an 18-bird possession limit, counted separately from the quail bag. Most of the productive eastern Sierra terrain is BLM public land with no special permit required.

The non-lead requirement applies to all California upland hunting, including chukar. The hunters we’ve read have largely settled on bismuth or high-density steel for 12-gauge, citing bismuth’s energy retention for the longer shots this open country produces. We’re planning to work through some bismuth loads before October and get comfortable with the pattern at distance.

What We Think We’ll Carry

The shotgun question is getting real attention. Lots of chukar chasers shoot autoloaders since the third shot helps when birds are scarce and shots are tough. We’ll probably stick to over-under 12 and 20 gauges since that’s what we shoot best. Modified or full choke for the rolling-terrain shots where birds have room to get out; improved cylinder for the tight flushes in rocky breaks. We haven’t decided yet.

Otherwise: an upland vest stuffed with extra shells and water, broken-in boots with real ankle support on rock, layers that handle the cold-to-hot swing from pre-dawn to midday, and a first aid kit that includes dog foot care — that last item came up enough times that it’s already packed.

The Pilgrimage Is Scheduled

We’ve got a long weekend blocked in late October. The plan is to run BLM access roads off Highway 395 and find the springs we’ve been marking, get above the water sources by first light on day one, and let Alan tell us the rest.

We’ll report back. If the country is half of what the accounts suggest, it’ll be worth the miles.

The California-Specific Hazards

Foxtail grass awns. Every upland dog handler in this state has pulled an awn out of a webbed foot, an ear, a nostril, or a sheath. Hordeum murinum — wild barley — dominates grassy edges across the Sacramento Valley floor and foothills from July through winter. A migrating awn is a vet visit.

Rattlesnakes. Northern Pacific rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus) are active from April into October across oak woodland, chaparral, and rimrock — the same country California quail and mountain quail hold. Opening weekend of quail season overlaps the back edge of snake activity in warmer years.

Heat. Dove opener on September 1 can run 100 degrees in the Central Valley. A dog that runs hard for fifteen minutes in that heat is closer to heatstroke than most handlers realize.

What Actually Belongs in the Kit

Carry sterile saline in a squeeze bottle for flushing eyes, ears, and shallow cuts. Hemostats are the right tool for pulling foxtail awns from the interdigital webs and ears — lighter than pliers and safer around a dog’s mouth. Add self-adhering vet wrap, 4x4 gauze, a small bottle of chlorhexidine, a muzzle, a collapsible water bowl, and an instant cold pack for heat episodes.

For snakes, skip the folk remedies. Do not cut, suck, ice, or apply a tourniquet. Keep the dog calm, restrict movement, and drive. Carry the number of the nearest vet that stocks antivenom. Invest in rattlesnake avoidance training before the season — not after the bite.

The Habitat Connection

Every awn-heavy field and every rattlesnake ridge is also upland bird habitat. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and partners like Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever restore cover that keeps coveys on the landscape — and keeps the terrain that demands a real first-aid kit accessible to the next generation of bird dog handlers.

Pack It Before the Opener

Whatever month you’re reading this, the time to build or refresh the kit is now — not the night before dove opener.

Why the Sacramento Valley Holds Birds

Mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) tie themselves to three things through a NorCal summer: seed, grit, and water. The Sacramento Valley delivers all of them in a concentrated band between the foothills and the river. Harvested safflower and sunflower fields are the headline magnet, but standing milo, stubble corn, and unburned wheat stubble can hold birds just as well once the early-fall cool-down shortens flight windows to dawn and a short evening.

Public Ground Worth Mapping Now

For walk-in opener hunters, the Upper Butte Basin, Gray Lodge, and Sacramento River state wildlife areas offer free-roam dove hunting when the opener aligns with type-A and B area rules. Delevan and Colusa NWRs also open for dove in September. Each of these areas manages cover differently, so the worth of a particular unit shifts year to year based on water deliveries and disking schedules. Check CDFW upland regulations in August for the final dove and validation dates.

Scouting Sequence Between Now and August

Late April through June is a glassing job, not a boots-on-ground job. Drive the county roads around Willows, Williams, and Colusa and note every field where safflower or sunflower is going in. By mid-August those same fields will tell you whether they were cut, left standing, or disked under. The combination of a cut seed field, nearby water, and an approach that keeps the sun behind the shooter is the formula that carries from year to year.

The Dog and the Dove Field

A good retrieve turns a dove field from a numbers game into a meat-in-the-vest day. Early-September heat means short sessions, shaded breaks, and a water bowl in the vest. Gun dogs that will see chukar country in October benefit from dove opener work — it is the cheapest repetition on marking and delivery they will get all year.

Conservation Tie-In

California’s dove harvest is tracked through the HIP program and the Upland Game Bird Stamp, which funds habitat work administered under the CA Upland Game Bird Heritage Program. The safflower rotations that hold doves also carry over as winter food for valley quail and pheasant. A dove opener paid for with the stamp is funding the cover those coveys need eight weeks later.