I ran into a friend the other day who gave me crap for not posting anything for a while. I appreciated it.
This used to be my favorite time of the bird season. Not as many people to contend with. Peace and beauty of a remarkably different quality. The “certain slant of light.” Snow concentrated the birds into predictable places, and they seemed to hold better.
Now I just feel sorry for the birds and don’t have the heart to bother them. Big snow Januarys, along with very cold air and lots of wind make it hard to find bare ground and food. Their will to live far eclipses mine. I’m not sure if chukar do this, but I know ruffed grouse spend a lot of the winter in snow caves they make, which shield them from wind and much colder temps than if they were out walking around or roosting somewhere. My dogs smell them through the snow, and they’d point them and bust them, giving me another chance to miss (if it was before the end of the year; they still point and bother grouse in January). To me, that’s not fair chase.
Being back in galliforme country this year has been wonderful. Our two-year remote yearn, idiotic as it was, helped me appreciate the good days we can get in the field here. And we got plenty — not as many as we’d hoped, but they were almost all good days. And we’re older, which should equate to more patience somehow, although — for me — it’s debatable (especially if you ask Leslie; some things do never change). The worst thing about feeling our season is done is seeing how pent-up the dogs are. But they’ll get over it. I have more things to do than they, so it’s not as hard for me.
We aim to enter next season in better shape than we did this year. For some reason, we failed to get chukar fit by mid-September. Too much golf? Just lazy? Still, we hunted into chukar shape and were able to do some tough hikes. We haven’t practiced getting old, so feeling we are old is odd. Something else to figure out. Or just accept. I’ve been keeping busy trying to get my first real estate client (hasn’t happened yet), writing a bunch of stuff, including a short novel set in chukar country which I haven’t been able to get anyone interested in yet (not surprising, but I like it and think it’s good).
I’ll end with this because it’s been on my mind all season: I’ve noticed more boot-prints in places I never used to see them, on ridges far from anywhere a UTV can go, which means people are spreading over more chukar terrain. I think that’s great. Get out there.