Youth Hunt

Idaho’s chukar season began on September 21. We were still fishing in Montana. On my first encounter with Idaho chukar this season, on October 1, I was hunting in a spot I hadn’t hunted before. I’d tried one other place for the first time about a week prior, but saw no birds or even turds there.

When I finally joined the dogs after a rather epic brush-busting ascent up a steep incline, Bloom, who last season had been in the annoying habit of false-pointing several times at the beginning of hunts, went straight to what turned out to be a widespread, big covey of chukar in a roomy, shady bowl just below a ridge topped with large Ponderosa. Peat, as Angus used to do to him, initially honored and then crept past Bloom to dial in the birds’ location. As I crept close to the nearly supine, pointing Peat, the thirty or forty chukar busted in waves, from an area at least fifty yards wide, so shocking to me that I was able to manage only one prayer of a shot. Which I missed.

A while later, Bloom relocated a small group and pointed them staunchly. I got one shot off and killed a bird, which Peat retrieved to me. It was a juvenile, with just a scant hint of the adult chukar trademark barred flank feathers. A few minutes later, Peat pointed another small group, and I shot one of them, which I saw Bloom retrieving toward me. I regarded with great pleasure and gratitude the balance of my dogs and today’s experience as Bloom brought the bird to me, dropping it at my feet. It was smaller than the first, not much larger than an adult quail. A few downy feathers had yet to be jettisoned. Not even a faint hint of the bandit mask or red beak.

I’m a hypocrite in many ways, but have a long track record of hypocrisy regarding Idaho’s too-early commencement of chukar season: despite always feeling Idaho should match Oregon’s mid-October start, I invariably find myself unable to resist hunting for chukar on or near the opening of the season in Idaho.

This day’s bag of two diminutive, juvenile chukar is just another confirmation of my longstanding belief that Idaho starts too early. There are many who will argue until they’re blue in the face against my assertion about Idaho’s too-early start to the season. Some have even thrown pop-science at me to counter-argue. I don’t even have pop-science on my side, just the evidence of my own early-season bags, which almost always contain numerous drab juvenile birds.

In talking about this with a more knowledgeable friend, who happens (I was amazed to find) to agree with me, she made the point that the big outfitters on the Salmon and Snake that offer cast-and-blast trips in September are an effective lobbying force in Idaho’s legislature, which in turn — even more so now with the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Chevron — basically runs Idaho Fish & Game (instead of science). Remembering that Idaho, not too long ago, delayed the start of chukar season and reduced the daily bag limit from 8 to 6, makes me think there’s hope it might revert to what I believe is a more reasonable approach — especially with climate change seeming to delay lots of natural development — but I won’t hold my breath on this.

I thought about calling one of the bird biologists on the Fish & Game payroll to see what they think (I’ve done this before), and maybe they’d say it doesn’t really matter when the season starts because mortality is mortality and these birds don’t live longer than two or three years anyway, and hunters don’t really impact bird numbers over the long run. Weather, habitat, predators: those variables are much more significant than hunters. I’ve heard this before and it makes a certain amount of sense. Maybe I’d feel better about this if I had a better hand on the relevant science and it in fact showed that start dates and bag limits don’t matter. Even if that were true (which I’m too lazy right now to investigate), I’d probably still feel the same way.

So what it comes down to is opinion, or, even less importantly, taste. Like preferring Coke to Pepsi, or Fords to Chevys. Brittanys to GSPs. I’m fine with that. But personally, I’m not fine with shooting chukar youth. It leaves a stain. But I’ll still go out, hoping my chances intercept adult birds. Hope, and hypocrisy, springs eternal and infernal.