Not just for the birds

Category: Outdoors

Things that happen outside of buildings, usually away from “it all”

  • Ticks and Climate Change

    After my hunt with Peat last weekend, in fairly deep snow, I was surprised to find a tiny tick on him. A month or so ago, after a short walk near the Boise River, I noticed at least a half-dozen tiny ticks inside one of his ears.

    We’ve never found ticks, until now, on the dogs after July 1st. I’m certainly no scientist, but I have to think that warmer temperatures are involved. Why would this matter to a chukar hunter?

    Maybe it doesn’t, but because of the diseases they carry I worry about ticks on my dogs. Ticks can carry Lyme Disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and several other threats to dogs’ health. Even though the chances are low that ticks will carry one of those diseases, it’s a numbers game. After a short hike one spring, we once pulled more than 70 ticks off of Angus. And now that we’re starting to see ticks more or less year-round, the numbers are less in our favor.

    What can be done? I don’t know, other than putting Frontline or Advantix or another (expensive) tick preventative product on the dogs all year long.

    I’m wondering if anyone else out there is finding ticks at this time of year on their dogs.

    Here are some links to information on ticks in case you’re interested:

  • Snapshots of Chukar Hunting

    Sloping in shadow
    The Future?

    “I can’t wait for chukar hunting season,” Bob said just yesterday. We have just over 6 months now. We need time to recover.

    These are some snapshots of the 2015/2016 season mostly from down in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and a few at the Cecil Andrus Wildlife Management Area. We feel blessed to live in a state where we can access lots of quality, picturesque public lands for hunting and other recreation. We hope it stays this way. If you’re a chukar hunter, you’re well aware of the fact that some very misguided (or worse) folks are trying to have our federal public lands transferred to state control out west, which could very likely be the end of hunting, or any kind of use, for the common man and woman (not to mention the fact that many state constitutions – including Idaho’s – specifically disavow any future claim on federally owned land). As Americans and joint owners of this public land, this is the greatest legacy we can leave future generations. You can’t put a price tag on that.

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    Peat’s First Hunt
    Halloween hunt
    Halloween hunt
    Reward at the top
    Reward at the top
    Huns
    Huns
    Early morning start
    Early morning start
    Follow the leader
    Follow the leader
    Bitterbrush or Basin Big Sagebrush
    Basin Big Sagebrush
    Fall is here
    Fall is here
    Steep country
    Steep country
    Pure joy
    Pure joy
    Beauty
    Beauty
    Boat, shed, cattle
    Boat, shed, cattle
    Bird dog trio
    Bird dog trio
    God's country
    God’s country
    Side-hilling
    Side-hilling
    Brownlee
    Brownlee
    Brittany beggars
    Brittany beggars
    Reflecting with Angus
    Reflecting with Angus
    Dog's country
    Dog’s country
    Chukar down
    Chukar down
    South-facing slopes
    South-facing slopes
    Snowballs on feathers
    Snowballs on feathers
    Agony (Peat eats the first chukar of the season).
    Agony (Peat eats the first chukar of the season).
    Early October view
    Early October view
    Typical chukar terrain
    Typical chukar terrain
    Angus fur
    Angus fur
    Brought to you by Vienna Sausages
    Brought to you by Vienna Sausages
    Ready, set, go!
    Ready, set, go!
    Wild turkeys
    Wild turkeys
    Heading back to the pickup.
    Heading back to the pickup.

  • What’s In Your Vest?

    My bag
    My bag

    After watching the Fish & Game videos and learning that a snare trap can kill my dogs if I can’t get the cable off, I decided I now need to carry a pair of short-nose cable cutters along with all the other crap in my vest. Aside from the fact that they’re ridiculously expensive ($65 on Amazon; Harbor Freight didn’t have anything similar, and I found a pair of knock-offs that were made of aluminum), my pack is starting to get heavier than I’d like. So I thought I’d weigh out everything and see what others have in theirs in case I’m carrying too much, or – gulp! – not enough.

    Here’s what I’m working with:

    • Badlands Vest: 2 lbs., 14 oz.
    • 100 oz. hydration bladder & hose, with  sleeve: 5 lbs., 10 oz.
    • Garmin Alpha GPS handheld with belt clip: 9.2 oz.
    • Garmin Delta transmitter (for Peat’s collar): 3.9 oz.
    • 1 box 12g shells (2-3/4″ Rio 7-1/2 shot,1-1/8 oz lead): 2 lbs., 5 oz.
    • Leatherman “Wingman”: 6.8 oz.
    • First aid kit: 14.3 oz.
    • Baby aspirin (for Angus): .5 oz.
    • Vaseline in a container (cheatgrass deterrent for dog ears): 1.1 oz.
    • Panasonic Lumix camera: 7 oz.
    • Smart phone: 6 oz.
    • Wallet: 3.9 oz.
    • Spot Gen3 emergency beacon: 4.1 oz.
    • 6′ dog leash: 6 oz.
    • Snacks for me & dogs: 10 oz.
    • Felco C7 cable cutter: 12 oz.

    Total weight: a little over 16 pounds. The above doesn’t include extra clothes or gloves or hat. When I pulled everything out of my vest I was surprised to find that I had a total of 31 shells in it, extras – including 6 steel #6 shells – stashed in various places. Better to have too many than not enough, but out of the above items I think I might pare down the number of shells I bring with me. I think the most I’ve ever shot was 19 times in one hunt (and that was an epic day: 0 for 19).

    Items I should think about adding? Headlamp? Fire starter? Lighter? More food? Most of my hunts last between 2.5 and 5 hours. I like my vest but have often wished it had larger pockets so I could carry more clothing and maybe a little more food, but this setup has worked well for me the past several years. I’d love to hear from anyone about something I’m a total idiot for not bringing along… As I’ve already established, I am an idiot when it comes to these birds.

  • Watch Out for Traps

    Not what you want to see

    As we finished our hunt the other day, and were milling about the truck a pickup drove by us and then backed up. The driver said, “Hey, just wanted to let you know I’ve got some traps up there.” We’d walked right past his traps, and of course our dogs did, too. He showed us some curly mylar ribbons he used to mark the traps; the ribbons were tied to bitterbrush and large sagebrush plants.

    Although it was considerate of him to stop and tell us about the traps, it’s disconcerting to know my dogs could get caught in one more easily than I previously thought. Trappers have just as much a right – according to the regulations – as I do to hunt chukar. I hope all trappers are as considerate as this one was, but I’m not sure they are. I also hope that they place their traps well away from common access points to chukar terrain, which I’m not sure of now, either. The one objection I have to trapping, and trappers’ equal right to trap on public land, is that trapping has the real potential of harming bird dogs, or anyone’s dog while hiking on- or off-trail. My preferred use of this same public land has little or no potential to harm others. So, are all uses of public land “equal”?

    Regardless of how you might feel about the issue, I found a couple of informative videos from Idaho Fish and Game about trapping that I thought were worth sharing. The first is an overview, and the second shows you how to release your dog from a trap. Hopefully it’ll never come to that, but it’s good information to file away. “Enjoy” (if you can).

  • Angus of the Chukar Hills

    "Angus of the Chukar Hills" by Rachel Teannalach
    “Angus of the Chukar Hills” by Rachel Teannalach

    When the season consumes you, you don’t worry about much else. When it’s over, you worry about everything else. Filling up that worry with good things to carry it away like water helps. Yesterday was one of those good days between seasons. We collected a painting we commissioned and hung it up. It is working already.

    We’d admired Rachel Teannalach‘s work for quite a while. Her eye for light and spirit in landscapes resonated with us. We lucked into taking her for a hike into one of our favorite spots, and she got to work, after we subjected her to what seemed like thousands of “favorite” photos of Angus in Hell’s Canyon.

    Not being a painter, I’d never studied her work closely, but having this on our wall now gives me the chance to see, maybe, what good painters see and translate through and onto their media and make into spirit and feeling.

    Detail: Brownlee Reservoir
    Detail: Brownlee Reservoir
    Detail: Angus pointing
    Detail: Angus pointing

    Only connect. Yesterday my teacher Bruce Gandy won a major bagpipe competition. A year or so ago, after watching a video I’d made about connecting things (one of which was chukar hunting with Angus), he thought he’d found the subject title to one of his piobaireachd compositions. “Salute to Angus of the Chukar Hills” was title he settled on. Having two works of art in sight and sound is good. What’s best for me is the connection between people and animals and landscapes and sounds that make me feel connected.

    Yesterday, we picked a puppy brother for Angus. Peat’ll be ready to come home in a few weeks (more on that later). We also went to a track meet and watched some of my students run well. Bruce won a major competition. We got a gorgeous painting. Ripples in water, crossing each other, making me smile inside, washing away worry.