Our annual Christmas Day hunt this year was spectacular. Last year pissing rain forced us to abandon our Hells Canyon hunt and sully ourselves with a silly quail jaunt: it was a 5-minute hunt because I brought 3 shells, which I spent in the first two minutes and hit nothing. Peat was so disappointed that, after I was ammo-less, he pointed and then — as if to demonstrate the sheer ridiculousness of the affair — nabbed a solo unsuspecting quail. Not this year.
Starting to feel a lot like ChristmasCervus canadensisHealthy herd
A thin blanket of day-old fresh snow. Bluebird sky punctuated by running veils of wispy clouds politely skirting the sun. 50 head of strangely calm elk. We went high and found some grouse hawthorned along a tightening draw where we’d busted a bunch of chukar the week before. No partridges in those trees. We climbed higher but it was not until we’d erased half the elevation that the dogs pointed, and it wasn’t until we’d gotten back to within a mile of the truck that we got into numbers. Until then, mostly one or two chukar in random places, in the wind, in the frigid shade, in the creek bottoms. But, even closer to the truck, a big covey busted wild, and we followed, which ended up doubling our outing.
Climbing
I shot deplorably. 2-for-12. Leslie fared better at 1-for-3. But it’s hunting, and was tremendously fun to see so many birds and try to catch up to them in thick cover. The birds we bagged were hard-earned and highly appreciated. Peat stuck with me as usual, and gifted me with some gorgeous points and two stellar retrieves. Angus the aged warrior managed, with some coaching from Leslie, to track down her lightly winged chukar that had run across the trail and into the creek; I watched her nifty shot while high above on a hill. Another gift.
Whenever you go out you have no idea what awaits, and it’s only afterward that you’re aware of that, yet — at least for me — it’s probably the most magnetic thing about chukar hunting. Any hunting, really, if it is hunting. That’s really the gift, life in compressed form in a setting you choose with the creatures who mean most. Every hunt is like Christmas. On Christmas, it’s even better.
Meaningful creaturesAngus’s giftEvidencePredator grateful for prey
Leslie traded her gun for the Nikon yesterday and caught a remarkable sequence on a chukar bust. She actually busted two birds behind me, and Angus went after the lead bird. The bird in the photos is the second bird. When I look at Angus in the third photo, it’s hard to reconcile the fact that he’s almost 12 years old with what I’m looking at. It makes me happy. Click on the photos to make them big.
It was a gorgeous day to be out. Here are some other shots Leslie nabbed. I got nothing. Except joy from seeing so many birds and tracks and happy dogs. And from being able to hike sort of like normal.
A very healthy pheasant population on private land
Sundays have been the day for me lately. I’m cut in half. I have a herniated disk pinching the L5 nerve that goes down my left leg. After PT and a cortisone shot failed to reduce the fire, brimstone, and other medievalnesses, I’m looking at back surgery. After the season, if I can wait. But I’m cut in half. Half the hunts, half the distance (well, maybe more than that), half the fun. Half the time on my feet.
Yes, I most definitely feel sorry for myself. I feel sorrier for my wife and even sorrier for my dogs, because they have to put up with me falling on the ground, moaning, stretching, and, eventually, moving on up the hill. I’m slow. Half-speed. This is new. Not only am I trailing Leslie, I’ve been unable to stay close enough even to watch her from a distance bust birds Angus and Peat point. And Peat’s now outrunning Angus for the first time, not because he’s hunting more or running bigger; he’s confused about why I’m so far behind and ping-ponging back and forth between Leslie and me. Still, it’s much better (for me) than not being out.
Sundays used to be the second or third consecutive day I’d hunt each weekend. Now it’s the day I look forward to all week but dread its arrival. It’s a regression to an earlier time. When I was a kid, Sundays saddened me. It was a day of profound gloom, and Sunday’s dusk was nearly unbearably morose, both the moment itself and my occupation of it. The light oppressed “like the heft of cathedral tunes.” As a middle-aged adult, and until this nerve thing kicked up, I’ve felt pleased by having rescued the day from my adolescent demonization of it. The light felt right, where it should be; there was no “heavenly hurt” to it. Things were in their place, and so was I, perched at the edge of Hells Canyon. The dogs confirmed this, as has Leslie, especially the last two seasons. It’s remarkable how a pastime such as chukar hunting, which occurs for one-third of the year, can dictate an identity perpetually. Until there’s some kind of rupture.
I realize I’m making too much of this, but that’s kind of my MO, for better or worse. Most chukar hunters have been injured. Larry, I believe (correct me if I’m wrong), might be called Full Metal HipsKnees, and he’s the hardest working man in chukar business as far as I know, despite being a couple days older than I. He’s got to have had more comebacks than Broadway Joe. So I expect to solve this and can see the future as rosy. I try to avoid taking things I love for granted, but it’s one of my — and maybe humanity’s — greatest flaws, probably by design: if we constantly stood around in awed appreciation of the thing, we wouldn’t be doing the thing. I’ve been very lucky: aside from paying the price for jumping off a cliff toward a pointing Angus in 2011, I’ve been able to write my chukar-hunting ticket and enjoy taking it sort of for granted.
So the new project is to refashion Sundays somehow. I’m getting a taste of my own medicine, which is fair: I regularly tell my students that if they don’t feel challenged and frustrated they can’t be learning anything, and just to work through it. Try new ideas. As someone close to me likes to say, “It’s another f&*ng chance to grow.” Or as Emily Dickinson sang about the slanting of light in the winter, a metaphor for challenging changes:
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us — We can find no scar, But internal difference — Where the Meanings, are —
“What’s in a name? That we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” –William Shakespeare
I’ve never called myself an upland hunter. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s too broad of a term. I don’t hunt quail or pheasant, and don’t usually go out of my way to hunt ruffed or dusky grouse in the deep draws with thick pine trees or hawthorn stands like Bob fancies doing. These days, when I do feel the urge to shoot a grouse it’s because it busted wild from the ground and wasn’t near any trees whatsoever. The first bird I ever shot was a big ruffed grouse from a tree limb down by a watery creek bed. My shooting it was probably more from the frustration of Peat’s insistent high pitched barking at it rather than me wanting to get my first bird under my belt. According to his breeder, Peat had come “from a long line of barkers,” and at the moment I shot that bird the pup was yapping his head off while standing on his hind legs at the base the tree with his little tail stub wagging furiously. Peat’s immediate retrieve directly to my hand shut him up, but I learned that I prefer shooting at a moving target in the air or one that I don’t have to think about too long before pulling the trigger. I wept for that bird on that early September morning and all the others that have since followed. That grouse was the first thing I’d ever purposely killed besides maybe spiders (which I try to avoid anyway because it would mean getting close to them to do it).
I like hunting chukar, or I might say I’m obsessed with chukar (alectoris chukar) and the wild and expansive open spaces they call home. I thrive on the adrenaline rush of not knowing where a covey might bust from after a sustained point by the dogs as they work together in beautiful harmony. Hunting chukar also suits my competitive personality. Hunting with Bob, I’ve been known to recklessly traverse a steep scree slope just to beat him to a point. I like the challenge of putting myself into position near the dogs to see the covey rise, up close.
The past two months so far, the boys, Angus and Peat haven’t been finding and pointing as many chukar as I’d prefer, but instead they’ve been finding gray partridge (perdix perdix), also known as Hungarian partridge or “Huns” as we call them. I’ve been busting these Huns often in prime-looking chukarish terrain. I’m talking about higher elevation rocky outcropping or just below these rocks on the steep sagebrush covered undulating slopes.
Uphill point on Huns
Recently, I was very surprised when Peat brought a retrieved bird to my hand only to discover it was a Hungarian Partridge. What’s in a name, anyway? Maybe I should start calling myself a Hungarian partridge hunter instead of always referring to myself as a chukar hunter.
In chukar country, when a covey busts, most often flying away from you at rapid speed, you sometimes shoot regardless of whether you know if it’s a chukar or Hun. Most times you don’t have a chance to identify the species beforehand. In the hand, Huns don’t look anything like chukar and are typically smaller, and they usually don’t hold as long as chukar and often don’t often make any noise when they bust. I’m no expert, but I’ve been hiking the chukar hills for years and it’s still hard to tell the difference in that split second the birds take off. Ask any seasoned chukar hunter and they’d probably tell you the same thing.
Chukar partridge and Hungarian partridge hunting season here in Idaho coincide with each other, which is a good thing because I’d feel terrible to shoot a bird out of season. If any of you are reading this wondering why on earth anyone would shoot at a bird she can’t identify haven’t hunted chukar in habitat that is also home to Hungarian partridge.
Peat backing Angus on a covey of Huns
Ridge top Hun
Hun and gun
When Peat brought that most recent Hun to my hand, I said in disappointment, “Oh…it’s just a Hun!” Thinking back on it, I now feel bad for my lack of gratitude while stuffing it into my bird pouch. Have I turned into a chukar snob or connoisseur of fine chukar? Lately, my shooting has been way off, so any bird I can manage to knock down — even “just” a Hun — is something to be grateful for. Do the dogs care what kind of bird it is? Do they even know if it’s a chukar or Hun? I think they’re just happy and proud to bring any kind of bird to me so they can be lavished with the thanks and the praise that follows.
Peat backing Angus on flatter more typical looking Hun terrain
Bob heading to a covey of Huns, Peat was pointing earlier this season
