Not just for the birds
Some things are rituals. It was never discussed on Saturday but over the course of the last four months it was customary or tradition that we'd bird hunt on every Sunday. Last Sunday morning while sitting in front of the wood stove drinking coffee and looking out the living room window toward the mountains, Bob …
A week later, the withdrawal symptoms have begun. Peat's evening hotlaps have intensified. Angus seems more lost than his age and illness can explain, insisting on some daily me-time around dusk to see if any game birds have interloped on our plot. Leslie made the video. I'm having more meltdowns than usual, at least in …
Bob and I stood there at the bottom of the mountain for a couple of minutes looking up the steep ridge and up to a rocky outcropping high up on the ridgetop. We scanned the terrain for obvious paths made by animals. These paths usually prove to be the easier route up to the place …
This final Sunday of a marvelous chukar season finds us all, for the first time this season, called to something other than hunting. Leslie and I, forced to take a sick weekend, are watching the growing covey of quail scarf corn while the dogs get an unprecedented seventh straight day of no exercise. These diluvial …
My dogs don’t make me reach between their legs to light the fire. But they do sit right in front of it, waiting and looking and wondering until it’s warm enough for them to lie down and go to sleep on their cushy pads and chairs, and they’re there when I leave, in the dark, …
My dog does not care where heat comes from, but he cares ardently that it come, and soon. Indeed he considers my ability to make it come as something magical, for when I rise in the cold black pre-dawn and kneel shivering by the hearth making a fire, he pushes himself blandly between me and …
I live for this moment. This sequence. My dogs look like they're onto birds. I sense it from subtle nuances and have learned from training and experience how to read their body language. If I'm hunting with just one dog all my focus is on that one dog. If both of my dogs are in …
Perfect timing for that post-holiday shopping withdrawal let-down: Chukar Culture beanies, embroidered patches, and stickers! Check out the Shop for the latest stuff. I've also lowered the flat rate shipping fee a wee bit.
Heading out with the Quilomene Upland Bird Vest, nothing in the bird bag yet Just before New Year's my new Q5 chukar vest arrived, which I'd ordered on November 30th: the Quilomene Upland Bird Vest. I'd been using the Badlands Upland Vest (no longer available) for the past couple of seasons and -- as the …
This has been an angst-filled season (and it's not quite over) but it's also had some unprecedented good things. Here's what I've learned this year that contributed to the angst: Leslie, in her 3rd season, gained confidence and skill, as well as an independent hunting style, as any good hunter should; this proved difficult for …