Hey from 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