I was lucky enough to guest on Scott Linden’s excellent podcast “Upland Nation” this week. He asked great questions, and I think it went well (I didn’t hate the sound of my voice more than I normally do). Unfortunately, I think the pressure got to me and I really shorted talking about our dogs and about the paradox of killing something you love, which are the two words in the subtitle of my new book, Chukar Culture: Memory, Dogs, Paradox. If you’re interested in those topics, the book rather focuses on them.
Still, I’m grateful Scott wanted to include me on his show. Anyway, here it is:
In other things chukar, we’ll soon post the winner’s best retrieve story, and in a week or so should have a new bunch of Chukar Culture hats. More to come.
Do you have a good retrieve story? I know there are some great ones out there. If you want to send your best story as a comment (please keep it under 500 words), I’ll publish the best one as a separate post (Leslie & I are the judges, and we’ll ask for a photo of you and your dog), and send the winner a copy of my new book, Chukar Culture: Memory, Dogs, Paradox.
The topic of retrieving, in fact, can be so stressful that humor is often forgotten. It shouldn’t be that way. Leslie just reminded me about the time I shot a chukar on Brownlee that we could not find. Three people and two dogs looked and looked, and finally gave up. As a last resort, we ended up looking for it along the cliffs when we were boating back to the ramp, and a friend of mine actually free-soloed up the cliff to check for feathers and found the bird!When he proudly brought the chukar back to me, we all noticed Angus sporting a wisp of arugula and a trace of mayonnaise on his lower lip, the last of my friend’s roast beef sandwich.
Years ago, when I was a kid and long before I began hunting, I loved Farley Mowat’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be. I think it was the opening of the book where he told the story of his dad’s dog who’d accompanied him downtown to a gun shop. Finding a nice side-by-side, the dad took it out on the sidewalk to see how it felt. Tracing an imaginary duck or goose, he said, “Bang!” The dog took off to who knows where, and his dad went back in the shop to haggle with the shopkeeper. A few minutes later, the dog ran into the shop with a taxidermied duck from a store down the street. At least that’s how I remember it.
Retrieving, and how well our dogs do (or don’t) do this, has been on my mind a lot in the first weeks of this new season. Bloom, for example, seemed to start off deciding he was no longer interested in retrieving; he’d be the first dog to a downed bird, pick it up, and drop it, sometimes several hundred yards down a steep hill, forcing me to lose all that elevation and get it myself. He did this on the first couple of hunts. I was dreading having to work with him to get him back on track. But before I had a chance to do anything, he shined on the next hunt, retrieving everything to hand. Since then he’s been perfect for some reason. Fingers crossed.
Bloom with one of his “reformed” retrieves (Peat’s happy just to watch)
Bloom did so well, in fact, for a couple straight hunts that I thought Peat had decided it was much more fun to watch, like Peter Sellers in Being There. But then…
On three consecutive hunts (the last three hunts I’ve done), Peat found birds I winged hundreds of yards from where I saw them land. Each time, he hadn’t seen the bird fall because they’d busted in all directions, and — like a good shooter — he’d followed a single bird or two which happened to be birds I did not shoot at. I had to call him over to the area and hope he’d pick up the scent. In all of the cases, he went a direction much different than I thought the bird had gone. In all cases, he disappeared for at least ten minutes in dense brush. And each time he came trotting up the hill with the still-live bird softly clamped in his mouth. There is no way I would have found a single one of these birds. He’s saved me, three times now, from losing any birds this season. He’s 10-1/2 years old. I’ve raved about him before, but — as Angus did before him — Peat seems to get better every time we go out.
We’ve seen a lot of birds this season so far. But I’m curious to know what y’all think about this photo, posted on the Nevada Chukar Hunters’ Facebook page of some Nevada men on Brownlee Reservoir in Idaho recently (click the photo to go to the post).
I’ve never hunted chukar in Nevada, but have wanted to for a long time now. A few years ago, we met some nice folks from Nevada who’d kindly agreed to meet us for dinner in Winnemucca and maybe point us in the right direction. I posted about it last November, although the events in question occurred in 2022.
The upshot is that when we got down there, after having purchased upland game licenses in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and Wyoming that fall, I (stupidly) assumed I could waltz into Wal-Mart in Winnemucca and buy one from Nevada. Even if the manager had been able to remember his login credentials for his licensing system, he would have turned me away empty-handed.
Unlike the other five states I’ve been licensed in, Nevada has a non-resident requirement for all hunters born after 1960 to provide evidence of having completed a “hunter safety course.” I’d lost my card from the hunter safety course I’d taken after moving to Idaho in 2000, but I was able to go online to ilostmycard.com and (after paying $10 or $20) — wow — get a duplicate of my certificate from Idaho Fish & Game. The course I’d taken was targeted at bow hunters, but covered all of the material for the rifle/general hunter safety courses offered in Idaho, plus extra stuff specifically relating to bow hunting.
We weren’t able to plan a trip to Nevada last year, but I was excited to plan something this season. So I logged onto my Nevada Department of Wildlife account and tried to purchase a license. A popup window told me that I needed to have my hunter’s safety course added to my record, and then I’d be able to purchase a license. The information included an email address to which I was to send my proof.
So I did that. A couple hours later, I received an email that read, “Unfortunately, we cannot accept a Bowhunter Education Certification as proof of Hunter Education. If you have taken a Hunter Safety specific course, please provide a copy of that so we can add it to your account.”
I responded, but was shot down by someone named Harmony. Apparently, Nevada will only accept (but they don’t tell you this anywhere) hunter safety courses taken from their approved vendor (hunter-ed.com). I’ve spoken to several other non-resident hunters, including some born before and some born after the magical 1960 date. They all informed me that they were easily able to purchase licenses online for Nevada without the hunter ed requirement.
So I ask you, those of you from outside NV who’ve hunted in NV, what’s been your experience getting a license to hunt there? Asking for a friend.
After all the pretty contrast of life and death Proves that these opposite things partake of one…
–Wallace Stevens, from “Connoisseur of Chaos”
Click the photo to go to the ordering page
Well now I have a book about chukar hunting to offer. I published it myself (through my little press). It’s being handled, for now, by a print-on-demand business (Lulu.com), which prints and ships the book when someone orders it, although you still order it through Chukar Culturehere (or you can just click the photo above and it’ll take you to the ordering page). It might take a week or so for orders to arrive. If it takes longer, or there are problems, then I’ll change things up.
In the meantime, I’ll tell you I’m fairly happy with it. It’s largely composed of edited versions of many of the blog posts I’ve published here for the past fifteen years. There are some unpublished longer pieces, too, which I like as well as any of the already-seen things.
The one thing missing, of course, is what I’ve liked best about keeping this blog going, which is the dialog from readers. The book would be twice as long (and twice as good) if I’d been smart enough to figure out how to include comments. Next time?
