Not just for the birds

Author: Bob McMichael

  • 2019-2020 Chukar Season Reflection

    2019-2020 Chukar Season Reflection

    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 me since I’m stubborn and pig-headed and want to hunt my way, which differs from hers. So we often disagreed over where and how and who would get which dogs to hunt with.
    • UTVs are becoming more of a nuisance and negatively impacting habitat, bird numbers, and others’ experiences. I’d heard of folks with big-running pointers driving UTVs along the roads in the Andrus while their dogs scoured the land, and that they’d stop when the dogs went on point and walk over to them. I doubted many did this, and thought about my neighbor Sam, an octogenarian (who only uses his UTV to get to spots to hike; he doesn’t road hunt with it) — I can understand older folks not able to scale the steeps still wanting to taste the chukar medicine, so I kind of forgot about this issue. Until I saw it first-hand: a bunch of able-bodied dudes in their 30s and 40s with multiple UTVs bedecked with custom aluminum dog boxes driving along the road, waiting for their pointers to beep on birds, and then they’d park the UTVs (sometimes right in the road), release the little setters to help bolster the pointer, and mosey over for the murder. I’d say, “To each his own,” but — if you’re able to hike — this is an absolute bullshit way to hunt chukar, and definitely not “fair chase.” This is what the nouveau-riche do on game farms in Georgia and Texas. In case any of this is unclear, I’m not calling out all UTV use in chukar hunting (although there’s a difference between hauling out a limit of chukar and hauling an elk, both of which can be done without a machine). I do worry, though, that public land and wildlife agencies are coming under increasing pressure from lobbyists and manufacturers (and the politicians in their pockets) to expand UTV use as hunters become more swayed by the idea they must have one to do any kind of hunting. Just because you can (and have enough cash), doesn’t mean you should.
    • Long-standing bird populations in certain “popular” areas have relocated, most likely due to increased pressure. Idaho Fish and Game, and other agencies across the nation, report that hunting license sales are declining. Chukar hunters, however, in Hells Canyon and other growing population areas (such as Boise, Bend, Twin Falls, and Ontario) have noticeably increased (Idaho license sales have actually increased 14% since 2011). We’ve noticed this, as has every other hunter I’ve talked to who’s hunted chukar in Idaho and Oregon for more than 5 years. The biologists at the Andrus WMA will concur. The angsty part of this fact is selfish (I’d like bird numbers to improve), but also relates to the previous point about UTVs: when motorized vehicles and big-running dogs cover (often on consecutive days) 40 miles or more per day in prime chukar country (which is 4 to 10 times what a hiking hunter would cover), birds are gonna move and their numbers diminish resulting from what I’d consider unethical harvest and stress (road hunting is not “fair chase”).
    • Covey sizes, birds per mile, and individual bird sizes are down (this is only based on my personal experience and informal surveys of other chukar hunters’ experiences this season, as well as my log over the past several seasons). The season in Idaho starts too early and the harvest limit should return to 6. I’m as guilty as anyone for hunting when Idaho’s season starts because I can’t help myself (and I do feel guilty about that). Neither can lots of people. We want to get out there. But the early start means lots of downy feathers and shrimpy-sized chukar, as well as smaller and more scattered coveys later in the year. Give the new birds a fairer chance at reaching adulthood, when they might fly well enough to beat the odds and live long enough to breed. And I’m sorry, but nobody needs 8 birds a day; based on the tailgate shots I’ve seen this season (often with a UTV in the frame), it seems lots of folks have no problem shooting a limit. I’ve always been able to find birds, but even if I shoot my absolute best, I’d have to hike 16 miles to harvest 8 birds; I’ve averaged about 5 miles per hunt this season, which is a record for me, so unless I double my shooting percentage and miles per hunt I’m pretty safe from limiting (I’ve averaged 2 birds per hunt this season, another best, which includes grouse and Hungarian partridge).
    • Medusahead Rye is getting much worse, exponentially taking over some areas it didn’t exist in three or four years ago. Biologists in Oregon and Idaho are concerned because it quickly eliminates other vegetation and cannot be controlled or mitigated in chukar habitat, and chukar do not stay in mono-typic ecosystems.
    • Chukar will be all but extinct in Hells Canyon and other places in Idaho and eastern Oregon within 20 years if things continue the way they are. Medusahead by itself might accomplish this impressive feat. But with increased pressure, the expansion of UTV use, the early season start, and excessive harvest limits chukar hunting does not seem sustainable. I’m not a scientist, but I know Fish and Game biologists are aware of and concerned about these threats yet they don’t have the budget to conduct studies that affirm these concerns, and the agency and its myopic legislative overlords want to make hunters happy in the short term (i.e., sell as many licenses as possible!).
    • Social media has creepily colored chukar hunting (along with the rest of existence). I’m talking mainly about Twitter (which I never use but only know about because it has become, surreally, our country’s governance platform), Facebook, and Instagram; I don’t consider blogs per se as social media because it takes more time and effort to write and read a blog post than it does to post something on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter — has helped publicly enable and amplify our most vitriolic and inhumane traits; this is obvious to everyone who uses these things. If you’ve followed this blog this season, you’ve seen that attitude leak into some of the comments and a couple of my posts responding to this disturbing trend. If you follow Instagram, you might have noticed several upland hunting wannabe “influencers” out there whose main goal appears to be to promote themselves to get “sponsorships” and amass “followers” and “likes” (which can be, and are, purchased by the “influencer”). One of these wannabe influencers in particular, who’s distinguished himself by posting photos of himself with dead game birds in compromising (highly sexualized and disrespectful) positions, and who was the focus of a mostly slow-motion video by a well-known upland hunting promotional group (which deletes any comments on the video that aren’t hagiographic, as is their right), recently stated that he wanted to be the “badly-needed figurehead” of upland hunting (since when did upland hunting need a “figure-head”?). No, this is not a precis for a bad novel, although the thought has crossed my mind… Predictably, this post generated a mass of attacks from other wannabe “influencers” on Instagram, one of which appears to exist solely to make fun of hunters who take themselves too seriously but actually seems to be focused more on attacking a specific conservation group and its president. And on and on. These little wars and battles. This discourse. Three years ago I was unaware of any of this and obliviously torturing myself in pursuit of public land partridge. Thus my new year’s resolution to unplug from it all: I have enough angst from other, more honest, sources.
    • Small American manufacturers, some of whom make bird hunting vests, don’t appear to be faring too well. The three best known vests for their popularity with chukar hunters have been hard to come by this year, if not impossible. While I have no idea what’s behind this for these particular companies, it’s frustrating and weird (angsty) in the 2020 economy, which is supposed to be so amazing, to see obvious production slowdowns or outright stoppages. Soon I’ll have a review of the vest I waited over a month for.
    • Angus getting cancer.

    Enough ranting. The good things:

    • Angus appearing to beat, or at least hold off, cancer, for now. Diagnosed on August 30th and given 1 to 3 months to live, we allowed ourselves to hope only for one chukar hunt with him. We were ecstatic on opening day to have him with us. He’s hunted the entire season as well as ever (with a few more days off than before, but he is, after all, almost 13).
    • We’re hunting harder than ever, if not smarter and better. This is why I keep a log. In all the categories I track (miles, duration, elevation gain, dog miles, shots, kills, and averages of these per hunt), this season is better than any previous season, with the exception of my shooting percentage, which continues to hover just around abysmal. After last year’s spine surgery-abbreviated season, I’m thrilled my body is working well enough to continue this insanity.
    • We’ve hunted a bunch of new places (thanks partly to ONX Maps) and have been fairly successful finding birds in each one. It’s good to know that if a place looks like it should have chukar, it probably will (although I will admit that we’ve yet to find any place that has as many birds as we think it should).
    • I started reloading our own shells. While I’m pretty sure this is not an economically sound endeavor, it’s been fun and a challenging learning experience. I haven’t found “the perfect load” (open to suggestions: send me your recipes!), but have had some apparent improvements with some loads (although the data set’s pretty small to come to any solid conclusions; biorhythmic theories might hold more water).
    • Peat is better than ever. That’s saying a lot, because he was already really good, and has been since the end of his first season. This season he’s just been great, in both solo and partner situations. He’s become stealthier, and yesterday he showed me more clearly than ever that his number one concern when he finds birds is to hold them or — at the very least — make sure they don’t bust before I’m within range. I’m convinced he knows exactly what my shooting range is and isn’t, which I find remarkable. Yesterday he found a covey of chukar and pointed them from a reasonable distance. The birds slalomed through the sage, but Peat didn’t want to risk busting them so he held still. Angus came along and — as I’ve always known he’ll do — crept past Peat and followed the ambulating chukar carefully. Peat, the consummate backer, wanting to stay connected to the action, executed his short bursts toward the birds, at one point (see photos below) wedging himself discretely between a large rock and sage bush! He’s covering more miles and slightly extending his range and, as a result, finding more birds than ever. He’ll be 5 this spring, and I’m already lamenting (very prematurely, I know) his demise. I should probably take comfort in knowing that he’ll far outlast my ability to hunt these birds (if they don’t go extinct before then).
    • Sunburst Brittanys is not only still in business, but doing very well and still producing phenomenal chukar hunting dogs that naturally point, back, and retrieve. Just as wonderfully, their dogs are good family dogs. This sounds like an advertisement, and maybe it is, but it’s heartfelt. Not a day goes by where Leslie and I don’t marvel at our canine-caused joy, whether it’s somewhere on a ridge during the 4-month season, floating down the Missouri in a drift boat, poaching heat and affection from them in bed, or watching them enjoy being the dogs I’d trade my life to be.

    So there you have it, the bad, the good, and the no-good-to-look-at. And there’s still a few weeks before that sad, long off-season. I hope I haven’t bummed anyone out too much, but it is what it is. At this point, if there’s even one person still reading this, I’d count it a success. Best wishes to all for a good 2020.

    chukar hunting dogs pointing chukar
    Peat moving up toward Angus on point (Angus on the right, mid-frame). Peat bounded to a low spot between the sage brush behind Angus and wedged himself, on his belly, between the sage and a rock (see next photo).
    Peat hunkered between sage and a rock, waiting for his next move toward Angus (top center).
  • Blessed

    Blessed

    As usual, chukar hunting, like some of the best things in life, continues not to make much sense to me. What does make sense to me is that the fact that it doesn’t make sense is probably the reason I keep doing it, not necessarily so I can find some sense in it, but because it’s not subject to the rules of things that should make sense. Things that should make sense are problematic because when they don’t make sense, which always eventually happens, then you get all warped up and try to force something that can’t be forced. Something breaks, or needs to. There are things about chukar hunting that make sense, such as — duh — you need to remember to bring your gun, and your dogs, and all that other crap to make it happen. But that’s not the hunting. I’m talking about hunting. It makes no sense. I love it. That I’m able to do it and not feel obliged to understand it makes it my favorite blessing. I guess that’s why I’m writing about it on Christmas instead of doing it; I’d rather be out there, but there are things that need to make sense today that got in the way. Writing about it is a way of trying to have it make sense, but I’m not afraid I’ll turn it into an understood thing because it’s hunting. Hunting can’t make any sense. When it does, I’ll stop.

    So I’m glad I’m not yet sleeping in an alabaster chamber, partly because I’m not really sure about my level of meekness, but I’m happy to report that I’ve been touched by morning and by noon, several times, in the past week of hiking the chukar hills with our family. It’s been a particularly blessed week.

    Partly because we’ve made a more devout effort this season to hunt areas we’ve never hunted before. Surprise: it’s paid off. Everyone has his or her go-to spots, and ours seemed to have dried up this season, which is good and bad but overall a blessing I think. If the familiar spots had contained the numbers of birds we’d been accustomed to, we wouldn’t have expanded the repertoire and would have missed what’s been there all along but untouched by our feet. I hope there’s a lesson in this we can remember.

    Another blessed thing is that, as the season winds down, I’m amazed that each season we seem to lap more miles, elevation gain, and bagged game. This sounds like bragging (maybe it is), but it’s notable to me because it speaks of a growing desire for something: maybe it’s time with the dogs, especially one whose season itself is a miracle but also the other one who’s getting better each hunt (miraculous in itself when considering our beginning together). Maybe it’s a proof thing: can we do more even though our bodies don’t look or feel as fit and young as only a few seasons ago? Maybe we’re just dumber. Who knows? It makes no sense.

    I’ll take it. I feel blessed. I wish you all the same.

    It seemed miraculous that the antler-rubbed shavings still sat in a pile months after being scraped
    Peat’s ruffed grouse
    Peat’s dusky grouse
    Double chukar
    Peat’s haul Christmas eve: dusky grouse, chukar, and Hungarian partridge
    Peat and a Hungarian partridge
  • Best Chukar Hunting Pants: Orvis Pro LT

    Best Chukar Hunting Pants: Orvis Pro LT

    For the past two seasons I’ve been wearing the Orvis Pro LT Hunting Pants. I’ve worn them from opening day through the end of the season. Aside from a tiny hole on the seat of one of them, from getting hung up on some barbed wire fencing, they still look new.

    I love these pants.

    Taking a knee for chukar in the Orvis Pro LT Hunting Pants, as Peat admires his work

    They’re made of a fairly thin, “stretch-woven Cordura® fabric with advanced hydrophobic fibers woven in for better moisture control,” and are easily the most durable and comfortable pants I’ve ever hunted in. I wouldn’t say they’re “stretchy,” but they don’t bind when hiking up 45% slopes for an hour, as we did a couple of days ago. Despite how thin they are, I don’t get cold in them, but then my legs never get cold (I wish I could say the same for the rest of me).

    If I don’t say so myself, the Orvis Pro LT Hunting Pants do not make my butt look fat

    They’ve got some functionality I don’t use, but it’s not a detriment to the pants (but might add some unnecessary cost): hidden drawstrings in the pant cuffs, and a “quick-release tab” for a cell phone. I don’t carry my phone in my pants when hunting because it’d shatter in the first mile. Oh well.

    My previous favorite pants, L.L. Bean’s Technical Upland Pants, seem to weigh at least twice the Orvis pants, and aren’t nearly as durable. I’ve busted through extensive hawthorn thickets, brushed against coarse basalt, and taken copious soil samples with the Orvis Pro LT pants, and — as mentioned — they honestly still look new. The Bean pants’ soft-shell and Cordura fabric pilled up before the end of their first season, but the Orvis pants just keep taking it.

    They’re a bit pricy ($149 as of today, although I just noticed they’re on sale for $119), but given how comfortable and tough they are, I’m okay with that.

    Finally, in case you wondered, I bought these pants at full price with my own money, and even paid shipping (the same goes for all other gear I’ve reviewed). I wouldn’t say no to a “pro deal” with Orvis (or any other gear company, in case someone who matters is reading), but I don’t spend my time pursuing that sort of thing. Birds, books, bagpipes, and beer are way more interesting.

  • Granted

    Granted

    We’ve never been huge-mile hikers. We’ve never logged more than 9 miles on a chukar hunt, and I think our average hunt is less than 5 miles. But for some reason, each season we seem to go longer. Last weekend I hunted Saturday and Sunday, and totaled about 17 miles, which is a lot for me.

    Angus did about 44. Something about the sensitivity to his condition, and wondering how much he can take, made me realize that I’ve taken for granted the fact that we do this together, human and dog. It’s deliberate, intentional, the heading out, returning together, and everything in the middle. All that cooperating. Checking in. Communicating. Sometimes the obvious things are the most interesting because we take them for granted. Not a new idea, I know, but when you think about what happens between you and your dog(s) on a hunt, it’s really pretty amazing.

    I’m not the kind of person who’s used to tributes being paid to him (one can only hope), but for a dog to hunt with you, you’re being honored. The irony of my just now noticing this is not lost on me since the last post I wrote focused on how Peat honors Angus. Both dogs honor me simply by putting up with me, but to spend most of the day looking for birds I can shoot so they might be able to bring them back to me is ridiculous. It’s idiotically sublime, and kind of a source of shame; it makes me think of that saying, “I’m not sure I want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.” I do a lot of dumb, thoughtless things. What did I do to deserve this honor?

    The answer is: nothing. Dogs grant us themselves. It’s an act of grace, “undeserved merit.” Yeah, we might think that without us the dog would be nothing. We might think that since we spent some serious cash rescuing them from someone who’d give them a more horrible life than we do that they owe us whatever we get from them. We might think other dumb things. Humans do that a lot. We think the world was made for us, that “lower” creatures were made to serve us. Our founders thought this justified slavery. They were wrong.

    This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for my dogs and their unfathomable and bottomless generosity. I’m thankful for their beauty and grace. I’m thankful for the fact that we go places together to do things together, and that we get out of the truck at the same time, hike in amazing country pursuing a variety of pleasurable experiences and recognizing each other in the process, and return to the rig together, continuing the bond of trust that threads my life together like the golden stitch. I’m thankful they want to be with us no matter what, that they’ll spend day after boring summer day baking in the bottom of the drift boat while I get increasingly grumpy from putting down countless trout. Like the honey badger, they don’t give a sh*t: they’ll still love my sorry ass.

    It’s not like I never realized any of this. But it just hit me after two wonderfully long days with a dog living on borrowed time: this is a partnership only because he’s willing. It can’t be forced. He’s granting me himself. He’s done it, without fail, his entire life. That right there, that’s worth thinking about.

  • Back

    Back

    What a word. It’s a verb. It’s a noun. It’s an adjective. It’s an adverb. It’s a body part. It dominated my fall and winter last year. It’s the first word in the title of a great movie. It can signal a return to something horrific or sublime.

    In upland bird hunting, it’s also a thing that, in its absence, can wreak havoc on a hunt, a season, hunters, dogs, friendships, marriages… “My dog backs,” one wants to say. Or, as Richard Wolters, the author of the bible (bird dog training bible), says, “You can criticize a man’s wife, but don’t you say one word about his dog,” and if that dog doesn’t back, it can be awkward.

    During the quasi-nightmare of Peat’s childhood, in which he absolutely terrorized Angus, my second most abiding fear was that Peat would bust every future point Angus would ever make (my biggest fear was that he’d eat every single bird I shot, which — for the first half-dozen — he did). Despite how easy Richard Wolters makes it sound to train a dog to back another dog’s point, I thought it’d be impossible to train Peat to do that. Memories of my first Brittany, Glenna, who’d clear the county of all game birds and spend the day hunting for herself, returning to the truck when she was damned good and ready, flooded back to me during those first few months with Peat, and I fretted over what our first season together would look like. But the first time Angus pointed in the field, Peat froze harder than a pillar of Arctic salt. I nearly cried: massive relief, sudden shock, sheer beauty.

    One of the things I’ve come to enjoy most about chukar hunting is watching Peat back, or “honor,” Angus. When Peat backs Angus, he appears possessed, crouching in electric contortion, an otherworldly concatenation of nerves and muscles. If Peat’s hunting another area and suddenly spies Angus on point 200 yards away, he’ll freeze, conduct a detailed but rapid visual analysis of the scene, noting Angus’s posture, rate of movement, the intervening vegetation and terrain, and determine the optimal course of action to allow him to get — as quickly as possible — closer to the birds without risking anything remotely dishonorable. When Peat does move, it’s with a mechanized precision but in machine-gun-like bursts. It is a marvel to watch.

    Recently, Peat was in rare form, and Leslie got it on video. A couple of times he even bottomed out and actually lay down for a moment, his wee feet out in front of him. Enjoy the video.