Not just for the birds

Tag: chukar hunting idaho

  • January

    January

    I ran into a friend the other day who gave me crap for not posting anything for a while. I appreciated it.

    This used to be my favorite time of the bird season. Not as many people to contend with. Peace and beauty of a remarkably different quality. The “certain slant of light.” Snow concentrated the birds into predictable places, and they seemed to hold better.

    Now I just feel sorry for the birds and don’t have the heart to bother them. Big snow Januarys, along with very cold air and lots of wind make it hard to find bare ground and food. Their will to live far eclipses mine. I’m not sure if chukar do this, but I know ruffed grouse spend a lot of the winter in snow caves they make, which shield them from wind and much colder temps than if they were out walking around or roosting somewhere. My dogs smell them through the snow, and they’d point them and bust them, giving me another chance to miss (if it was before the end of the year; they still point and bother grouse in January). To me, that’s not fair chase.

    Being back in galliforme country this year has been wonderful. Our two-year remote yearn, idiotic as it was, helped me appreciate the good days we can get in the field here. And we got plenty — not as many as we’d hoped, but they were almost all good days. And we’re older, which should equate to more patience somehow, although — for me — it’s debatable (especially if you ask Leslie; some things do never change). The worst thing about feeling our season is done is seeing how pent-up the dogs are. But they’ll get over it. I have more things to do than they, so it’s not as hard for me.

    We aim to enter next season in better shape than we did this year. For some reason, we failed to get chukar fit by mid-September. Too much golf? Just lazy? Still, we hunted into chukar shape and were able to do some tough hikes. We haven’t practiced getting old, so feeling we are old is odd. Something else to figure out. Or just accept. I’ve been keeping busy trying to get my first real estate client (hasn’t happened yet), writing a bunch of stuff, including a short novel set in chukar country which I haven’t been able to get anyone interested in yet (not surprising, but I like it and think it’s good).

    I’ll end with this because it’s been on my mind all season: I’ve noticed more boot-prints in places I never used to see them, on ridges far from anywhere a UTV can go, which means people are spreading over more chukar terrain. I think that’s great. Get out there.

  • Resurrected

    Resurrected

    We haven’t made many videos since Leslie traded the camcorder for a Benelli. I was looking through my Youtube channel the other day, and noticed that one of the first videos we made (and one of my favorites) had been permanently blocked because I used copyrighted music as a soundtrack. I have no problem with that, but wondered if there was a way I could restore it somehow. Youtube offered to remove the music so I could restore the video, and it actually worked!

    So here it is, in case you missed it: one of the early Angus hunts back when we lived in Boise. Enjoy!

  • For Peat’s Sake

    For Peat’s Sake

    p1160580
    Good boy’s swag

    Hmm. The past two days have been pretty neat, just hunting with Peat. Today, near the end of our hunt, my friend Sam punched me in the arm and said, “And you were wanting to get rid of him less than a year ago!” Yesterday Peat pointed 7 coveys, and today he pointed at least 10 times. In each case, he held the birds. And of the 8 birds I killed, he retrieved them all, including a double in which he had to descend 150 feet for the first one, and more than 300 feet for the next one. I’m pretty thrilled with this dog!

    The recent rains have generated a proliferation of green-up, which – I think – has allowed the hard-to-find supercoveys to split up, which means that it’s easier for the dogs to find birds. Today, it seemed they were everywhere.

    p1160576
    Early in the game

    Peat literally had a field day. Within the first 30 minutes, he’d pointed three coveys and Sam and I each had at least two birds in the bag. Sam, with 65 years of bird hunting experience and a (only slightly) slower pace than mine, suggested something about how I hunted with Peat that was like a revelation: “Peat will hunt as fast as you can,” he said. “Since he holds the birds, let him hunt and go at your own pace so you don’t have to kill yourself to keep up with him.” Sam also remembered me telling him that this season – before Angus got injured – Peat was kind of lagging back and watching Angus, letting the older dog do the work. Peat had been working more like a flushing dog until today; after Sam told me to let him hunt, Peat was working out near 200 yards, covering way more ground than when he was with Angus, who’s never run very big. But Peat would always check back and return on a circular route so he wasn’t just running out-and-backs. In the process, we found birds all day long.

    p1160579
    p1160582
    Sam, Peat, Hannah (10-1/2)

    I realize we hit a spot today with a lot of birds, which might be barren in a couple weeks, since that’s how chukar hunting seems to go. They do move, depending on whether Bette Midler’s niece is driving a BMW or Mercedes that week. So you never know. But I’m thinking I’ll keep Peat. For now, anyway.

    Here are more photos from the past couple of days.

    p1160568
    p1160561
    p1160557
    p1160546
    p1160526
    p1160522
    p1160497
    p1160493
    p1160480
    p1160482
    p1160484

  • End of season reflection

    A rare conversation
    A rare conversation

    After hiking more miles and vertical feet than ever, the season ended too soon for us. January in this part of Idaho brought us less than ideal hunting conditions. We didn’t get out as much as we wanted to. We suffered through seemingly incessant weeks of thick fog, freezing temps, and post-holing crusty snow. It would warm up and thaw out for a day or so only to bring mud so deep that driving through it would only result in making the local paper about the lost hunters who never came back home again. The cold and flu season also ended up taking its toll. About the only productive thing besides a cough was more time to get our new home brewing system set-up.

    Looking back, we had four months of great hunting. Angus hunted superbly, verifying repeatedly that he’s in his prime. We saw many miles of new terrain, and spent good times with friends and family. Here are some of our favorite hunting and some non-hunting memories of the 2014-2015 season. Enjoy.

    P1080978
    We did some early season grouse hunting in terrain much different than chukar hunting.

    Camping in the boat for opening day. We sure took a lot of stuff.
    We camped in the boat for opening day. Despite taking tons of crap we still managed to forget part of the backpack stove, resulting in chilling, extra-gritty cowboy coffee.

    P1090195
    Angus held his tongue on our coffee debacle.

    P1090201
    We thought it was a peaceful spot to camp until we awoke at 1 a.m. at a 45-degree angle. We learned that the reservoir water level drops during the night.

    P1090217
    We ran into a lot of nasty goat heads/puncture vines.

    P1090253
    We had a couple of cast and blast days early in the season.

    P1090443
    Angus managed to find the only mud bog for miles.

    We crawled under plenty of thicket.
    On one of the few hunts with The Kid this year, we crawled on hands and knees under thicket.

    P1090846
    We did GPS waymarking on every hunt.

    P1090566
    We soaked our hot and tired feet.

    P1090574
    We had fun skipping stones.

    We climbed many steep hills.
    We climbed many steep hills.

    P1090687
    We drank a lot of water.

    We constantly checked for cheatgrass.
    We constantly checked for cheatgrass.

    P1090468
    We removed plenty of cockleburs.

    We sometimes had time to stop and pose for a photo.
    We sometimes had time to stop and pose for a photo.

    P1100086
    We spoiled our bird dog.

    P1090743
    We hunted with brother-in-law, Dave.

    P1100642
    We tried to teach Angus’s nephew how to drink water.

    P1100973
    We saw lots of amazing points.

    Angus hated on-leash time at the campground.
    We had a great time camping but Angus hated the leash.

    P1100536
    We did a lot of side hill hiking.

    P1090759
    We gave a bird away for fly-tying feathers.

    P1110304
    We hunted with an old Brittany named Donner.

    P1110365
    We followed lots of tracks in the snow.

    P1110138
    We had some good post-hunt snacks.

    We almost had Angus's nephew steal our chukar.
    We laughed watching Angus’s nephew try to steal our chukar.

    P1100711
    On Christmas Day, we got a glimpse of two of the last three remaining Brownlee bighorn sheep.

    P1090562
    We even had Angus stick his tongue out at us (he’s not a huge fan of the boat).

    Parting shot. Looking forward to next season.
    Parting shot. Looking forward to next season.

  • Cambridge

    Brittany, chukar, and Bob McMichael
    I like this new area. So do Angus, and Leslie, too (I think).

    I moved to Cambridge, Idaho in August to start a new career as a high school English teacher. For me, one of the draws to this place was its proximity to Brownlee Reservoir, the hills near which are famous for chukar. I pictured endless days of nothing but hiking up and down the cheatgrass and basalt slopes searching for alectoris chukar. School started August 20, reality set in, and weeks screamed by with very little time in boots.

    Things settled down a wee bit in late September, at least enough to feel I could afford a half-day on the weekend to explore the area with Angus and, if she was able to come up from Boise, my wife. Leslie is the skill behind the video and still cameras, girded by impressive fitness and even more by a remarkable interest in this activity, despite having once been a member of PETA. Still, the only shooting she does is with a camera.

    Anyway, I went one place when it was hot and very dry and found one very small covey despite some serious elevation and extended trekking. We took one bird off that hill, thanks to a marvelous but treacherous retrieve by Angus down, and then back up, a few clifflets. Like most reports of the early season’s drought-induced, parched habitat, mine was fairly bleak. Rain and “green-up” badly needed.

    Then it rained and snowed a little and, suddenly, got really cold. Any green-up got frozen and stayed below the surface. A new system with warmer temperatures and plenty of precipitation descended on us in late October, though, and today I saw the first little bits of green popping through the soil. Hopefully it will stay warm long enough for the birds to get full, happy, and healthy for the winter ahead.

    Hungarian partridge, chukar, Brittany spaniel
    Nice work if you can get it.

    Yesterday we found our first good spot and now I’m really excited. We hadn’t intended even to get out of the truck since it was cold, very windy, and raining. But Angus needed some exercise so we took a little stroll up a trail along a creek and suddenly heard what sounded like an ATV on the hill above us. It was a huge covey of chukar leaving the creek. The fun began, and soon we were into chukar and Huns. Less than an hour, two birds in the bag, and I can’t wait for more. To riff on the motto of our principal’s email signature, “The worst day chukar hunting is better than the best day at work.” Yeah.

    Below is a video compilation of the stuff we’ve done so far this season. Look for more soon (I hope).