La Brulla - Chocolate, Cancer Man Dec 9, 1979 Hunted today with the David Duques, Bill Banninze, & Paul Clearys. We drove up Chocolate grade above San Tomas and a few miles along the road we began seeing coveys of birds, several over 100. Finally chose one & perhaps 20?, but they went quickly up on steep hillside at the hunt soon lost me. I was struggling up the foothill slope - sliding, falling & cursing - while the shooting moved steadily away from me uphill. Nonetheless I caught up with a few strays & downed six, retrieving four. The other three boys had 34 birds. Two of the men - James Duque & Jody Banning - are regular bird dogs, walking behind their husbands, spotting falls and retrieving. We reassembled at 18:30 and started for the lunch spot under a big sycamore tree at Cancer Man. There we had a most elaborate lunch. First we all sat in a circle plucking quail, until we had 20 or so done. Then two charcoal briquette grills were set up & lit, one for the grill, the other for toasted bolillo's. After a nice sequence of tequila drinks the birds were cooked and everyone ate two or three beautifully done quail, basted with butter, john apple sauce, melon slices, peparags, toast and white wine. Then after barely clean-up we set out looking for a covey to replace the birds we had eaten. Found a big bunch nearly at shot 24 more. This was easy walking as I got four birds, no strain, no sliding. I loved it. Bag for the day - 12 adults & 50 young, good production. Hurrying out we found a number of coveys but three of them, totalling at least 250 birds, were within 1/4 mile of one another. He still hasn't had an opportunity to get into the morning dozes.