Not just for the birds

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  • Chukar Spaces

    Chukar Spaces

    Chukar spaces

    It’s rare in life to be embraced warmly by the unexpected, or at least in my life it’s been rare. Now that we’re “old people,” I think I’m more attuned to the expectation that things shouldn’t change very dramatically, but this seems dramatic somehow. It’s not so much that I’m thrilled my wife is hunting, but more that she’s not stopping at wonder. Or maybe it’s that she’s reconnecting with the curiosity that tends to get drubbed out of us the older we get, starting back in middle school. So to me in a sense it’s uncanny what she’s doing. I like uncanny.

    Our first three weekends of chukar season have been excellent in many ways. We’ve hunted lots of new ground, found more birds than expected, had great weather, enjoyed textbook dog work (with a couple excusable exceptions), bagged a lot of birds, and welcomed a new hunter into our family. I guess the reason I haven’t written much yet about this season is that I’ve just been enjoying it.

    Leslie and her gun (and Eberlestock Mini-Me pack)

    Ruminating on Leslie taking up the gun (and losing the video) has been the biggest change for me this season. It’s wholly positive, and the thought process goes something like this: I can’t believe my wife, at 55 years of age, who worries about cows and feral cats being cold in the winter, has taken up the gun, and has killed some birds, and is more motivated each time we head out.

    Rendezvous
    Space for togetherness and wind

    Our last two hunts together remind me of Khalil Gibran’s oft-quoted wish (usually at weddings), “Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” It’s interesting to think about this, since yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the date I proposed to her, and it was on a mountain-top in Idaho, not far from where we hunted. Anyway, we had split up early in the hunt, she taking Angus and Peat accompanying me. She’s got a decade of following me with a camera rather than following a dog with a gun, so she’s learning the difference. After the hunts, she fills me in on the action she had, describing her spaces and how the dancing winds from the heavens shaped her experience. The places we’ve hunted have been blessed with more chukar than I expected, and Angus still has it, so she’s had a good number of opportunities on solid points from the old warrior. She hasn’t connected yet, but I’m sure it’ll happen soon.

    Peat’s been stellar

    For me, I’m enjoying the action, and being able to hunt with Peat while Leslie’s off with Angus. While his nose is terrific, it’s not as dialed in yet as I’m sure it will get. He’s muddled a few coveys he should have smelled and pointed, but he’s also nailed some classic, thrilling points. My shooting still hasn’t improved much, but seems to be getting better; I’ve never practiced nearly as much as I have this year, mostly thanks to Leslie wanting to work on her shooting. She outshot me at trap last weekend.

    As for the video, I miss making them and having the footage to work with. I’m not sure what to do about that. Once Leslie starts nailing the birds, I might leave my gun at home occasionally. Who knows. Maybe if I was to sell all my Chukar Culture hats and t-shirts I could hire a videographer to come along. Ha ha.

  • Chukar Boot Review: La Sportiva Gore-Tex® Trango S Evo Mountaineering Boots

    Chukar Boot Review: La Sportiva Gore-Tex® Trango S Evo Mountaineering Boots

    Red shoes for the redlegged devils

    Since my beloved Asolo Cotopaxi boots bare-treaded out on me at the beginning of last season, I’ve been searching for a suitable replacement. Last year I wrote about some boots I tried, and they got me through the season. But I wasn’t satisfied. So I kept looking. Key ingredients for me are sole stiffness and ankle support, both equally important. Next in line are (more or less in this order): narrow Vibram sole (not particular about traction pattern), Gore-Tex liner, full rubber rand, easy lacing system. Fit is an obvious necessity, but everyone’s feet are different, so the lasts that each manufacturer uses are going to work for certain types of feet and not others. Fit — as far as boot features go — is a non-issue; you gotta find the maker for your own personal foot.

    My feet are really wide in the front and very narrow at the heel. The Asolo Cotopaxi were the best boots in the world for me because they were really tall and stiff (amazing ankle support from the 10″ top, mounted on a mountaineering platform), but they did cramp the front of my foot a little bit. Convinced that boot height was the key to protecting my glass left ankle, I bought a pair of Zamberlan insulated hunting boots last year. While they are Cadillac comfortable, the soles are not nearly stiff enough for chukar hunting and the insulation, even in sub-zero temperatures, was too much. I then tried a pair of mountaineering boots that didn’t really fit my feet (and was able to return them, thankfully).

    Enter the La Sportiva Gore-Tex® Trango S Evo Mountaineering Boots. When they arrived I put them on and wore them around the house for 8 hours. I did some yard work, drank a beer, played with the dogs, sprayed some wasps, hit a few golf balls, graded some student papers, basically replicated your typical chukar hunt. After 8 hours my feet were happy. So I kept them. On my first hike I tested their side-hill worthiness, focusing on the ankle support. I was impressed, despite these boots being about two inches lower than the Cotopaxi boots: the ankle collar is heavily padded and somehow really stiff, with hardly any lateral give. At this point in the season, I have 34 miles, 24+ hours, and 9,000 feet of climbing in these boots. No blisters, no sore feet, no complaints. I’m surprised I like them so much. I wish they were taller, but, frankly, I’m starting to rethink the height thing.

    One reason for the re-think is that the Trangos are unbelievably light: my size 42 (Euro sizing) boot weighs 26.7 ounces. My first Asolo boots (the ones I destroyed my ankle in) weigh 30.4 ounces each. The Cotopaxis weigh 32.1 ounces. And the Zamberlans weigh 36.5 ounces. The differences between these boots might not seem significant, but when you consider you lift each foot about 750 times per mile of chukar terrain, that’s a difference of about 460 pounds of lifting, per mile per foot, between the Trango and the Zamberlan. On yesterday’s 6.6 mile hunt, if I’d worn the Zamberlan boots instead of the Trangos, each of my aging chicken legs would have lifted 3,032 more pounds. That’s better savings than K-Mart Blue Light Special Savings. If I really wanted to get depressed, I’d do this same calculation for how much more I weigh this year than last year at this point in the season. But for now I’ll focus on the boots. They make me happier than my growing gut.

    Tread wear at 34 miles

    Chukar hunting’s soul uses the whole sole

    Not everything is super-swell with the Trangos, however. The soles are wearing a bit faster than I’d like; since traction is pretty important in chukar terrain, you need some well-lugged boots. But it’s a trade-off to get a rubber compound that isn’t so hard it will slide off rocks instead of grabbing them, and these soles do well in that regard. And the colder it gets, the harder and slicker that rubber gets, so there’s no miracle material for soles as far as I know; it would be lovely to have a thick-lugged sole that was grabby in any temperature and never wore out. Something for NASA to think about.

    34 miles of cheatgrass seeds

    The only other thing so far that isn’t a total positive for the Trangos has to do with the fact that they’re meant mainly for use in snow and above-the-timberline activity. This means that in chukar territory these boots collect lots of cheatgrass seeds (see photo). Yes, cheatgrass seeds weigh something, but not enough to worry about. The concern here is that if you don’t periodically clean those burrowing seeds out of the tongue area of these boots they’ll penetrate the Gore-Tex liner and end up making their way inside and impale your fleshdogs. I’m not certain if this is even possible, and it’s really not that big a deal to clean them out of the tongue area (although it did take some time and tweezers).

    Chukar boot hardware gets subjected to lots of rock grating.

    Time will tell if this is the boot for me. I wore the Cotopaxis for 7 full seasons. I doubt these will beat that, but I’d be thrilled if they made it three seasons. If my feelings change about these boots, look for an update. As always, I welcome comments.

    Based on my initial enthusiasm, my wife, the most finicky-footed creature in human history, decided to try a pair. After one hike, her jury’s still out. I like the women’s color better, though…

    Women’s model

     

  • It’s an Upland Thing

    Some of you might have seen this already, but the good guys at Project Upland asked if I’d be willing to write something about chukar hunting for their website. If you’re not familiar with them already, it’s an impressive operation of ardent upland folks devoted to preserving and celebrating the whole enchilada of pursuing game birds. So I wrote a “how-to” thing on chukar hunting, aimed at those who haven’t done it yet. I’ll eventually post it here, but for the time being here it is…

  • No Country For Old Men or Women

    No Country For Old Men or Women

    Salmon River Breaks

    Like many of you, I spent much of the summer trying to get in shape for chukar season. I ran about 10 to 15 miles a week, rode my bike, hiked, and — for the first time in a long time — did a little strength training. To be honest, I’ve been a little nervous about it all since — because of the low bird count around here — I’m expecting to do a lot more hiking and a lot less finding. So, on opening weekend we hunted, for our first time, along the Salmon River because we’d heard there were a lot of chukar down there; I wanted to maximize the chance Leslie would bag a chukar on her initial outing as a hunter.

    Castles

    The bird report, from what we saw, was right. We saw plenty of chukar on both days. That report, though, didn’t help me visualize the experience of hunting there. It is steep and rough, nothing to be trifled with. My physical fitness, which I felt was good going in, was not a comfortable match with the terrain. And Leslie — because we “strategically” split up for a while on the first day — ended up hiking farther than I and ascended about 2800 feet, 400 more than my toughest climbing day since I’ve been tracking my chukar hunts. Much of that ascending, for each of us, came in the shape of climbing boulder piles on ridge spines, which was easier than scaling vertical walls to get out of the numerous steep crevices and ravines we ran into all day. I did actually climb a couple walls (the shotgun sling made this possible, if not smart).

    Going down

    Climbing wasn’t the only challenge. After gaining all that elevation, we had to get down, and by then our legs were jellifying, and the old quads (the ones God gave us) began feeling pretty shaky over the loose steep dry rocky terrain.

    Crossing over
    Going up

    This all almost sounds like a complaint. It’s not. It was awesome because it was new ground, and the birds were everywhere. The big rocks, though, and our dogs’ dry noses seriously curtailed the number of pointed coveys. I never actually got a shot over a pointed bird on the first day, but it seemed as though I shot all day long at wild-busting birds, or birds that Leslie bumped above me, or vice versa.

    Leslie reflecting on Recoil

    And Leslie’s maiden voyage as a hunter was impressive, even though she didn’t bag a bird. She got the first shot of the day off a pointed single chukar that Angus held for a long time, allowing Leslie to get into position and experience the unpredictability of a “sure thing” point. She also learned, the hard way, that footing when shooting pointed chukar is important: when the bird flew, it wasn’t exactly where she thought it was, so she had to move her feet before shooting, and in the process lost her balance (assisted by recoil) and ended up on her ass. I have it on video, but she’s asked me to refrain from showing it to anybody. Maybe later…

    The second day just Peat and I hit the hills a bit downstream, which were just as steep but more open than the rocky castles we’d endured on Saturday. Peat pointed many coveys. I shot miserably, though, which greatly irritated me until I remembered I was chukar hunting.

    Listening to and watching lots of chukar

    And when we were done, we were loaded with way more memories and lactic acid than dead birds. The fact that we did what we did, to us anyway, confirms we’re not old despite what we might think a lot of the time. Because that is no country for old men, or women.

    The question then becomes, since Hells Canyon is easier hiking than the Salmon River “hills,” would we rather hunt closer and find way fewer birds or drive all the way down there and find lots more birds but under much more strenuous conditions? We’ll most likely return to the River of No Return.

    The river was a great place to relax after the hike.
  • Firsts

    Firsts

    Leslie locked and loaded

    Opening day of bird season, always grouse, came and went. I had to wait until after school to head out, and even had to turn away a friend who’d stopped by for a beer unannounced (talk about tough decisions). The continued heat, and the lack of sleep and scores of sick students this first full week of school, I must admit, dampened my enthusiasm for the plan to look for grouse after school. But when I got home, Leslie was ready to go. So go we did.

    It was drier than I expected, but also more overgrown than I’d ever seen this place. I wasn’t expecting the dogs to find many birds because of the heat and time of day, but at least the creek would keep them happy, and grouse hunting’s just a walk with a gun anyway, right?

    In 150 minutes we saw two birds, ruffed grouse. Leslie shot and killed one, and I shot at and missed the other. Hers was the first creature she’s killed, and it moved her as I thought it would, but I knew she couldn’t know how she’d feel afterward. On the walk back to the truck she said she was over it and wanted to hunt again. For me, if she had decided, after killing that grouse, that she never wanted to hold or shoot a gun again, that would have been fine. I’m glad she wants to keep trying, and gladder that she got the bird on the first outing. It’s valuable data for her, and for me. I reflected on the first ever bird I shot, also a ruffed grouse, dogless. You can’t compare that experience because you can only really know what’s in your own head and heart. Shortly after she shot the bird, we separated for a while, letting the creek divide us, and I was glad she had some time and space to think about it. For those who’ve killed scores of creatures, this might seem like a dusty memory but I appreciated the time I had to contemplate the event and compare it to my own first ever. I drew no conclusions and didn’t need to.

    The delivery

    Peat found the dead bird in the dense thicket, after both dogs had run amuck trying to find it.

    To hand

    He brought it straight to Leslie, which amazed and greatly pleased her. That was my favorite moment of the day.

    On the walk back, as we stood listening near the creek while the dogs investigated the brush, Leslie said, “Chukar!” High on the hill above us, in the rocks, crowing. I’d been so focused on the hope of hearing grouse wings beating near the creek that I wouldn’t have noticed. Those were the first chukar sounds I’ve heard this year, a joyous relief after the past winter, spring, and summer of discontentedly wondering whether there would be any chukar this fall.

    The other first I’ll mention, which tarnished the evening, was that while we were putting our guns in the truck Angus was viciously attacked by a dog from a nearby pickup.