Lucky to spend the weekend in Hells Canyon, and lucky to be able to hike in great weather in that awe-inspiring place. We didn’t find as many birds as I thought we might, but we found some. The lack of moisture has so parched the earth and all its vegetable accoutrements that it feels like walking on talcum powder. Springs, the ones I went to anyway, didn’t yield any good numbers (or any at all) of birds. They’re out there somewhere. We just didn’t find many, except very high, and scattered in ones and twos in rockpiles. It was, actually, good chukar hunting. The tarnish on all this, which gets worse each passing year, is the uncontrolled, rapid spread of medusahead rye. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s completely taken over every surface in Hells Canyon within the next ten years. At that point, it will be truly unhuntable. So get out there and enjoy it while you can. We are.
The light patches of grass in the background are medusahead, which wasn’t in this area just last year.All medusahead, crowding out even the cheatgrassLight-colored medusahead patches on the Oregon side are spreading, too.Peat retrieves one unlucky chukarI’m down there somewhereJust add water, then we’ll have something.
It’s this. I spent most of today’s hike weaving together phrases of future, present, and past memory fragments: stressing to keep up with the dogs through backlit bunchgrass on 45-degree slopes toward the water punctuated by dried cattle hoove divots; no concept of my identity but just a pursuit; no concept of the fact that I’m in an environment that’s not “usual”; the occasional, hysterical interruption of the sudden realization I don’t know where my wife is, or where I am, or where the dogs are, or — oh, yeah — eruptions of birds, unannounced, interwoven with the sky, lenticular wisps of clouds, glint of the barrel swinging, sun stinging my eyes on the miss, the diminishing blur of reddish tailfeathers, shadow patterns careening off puckering water, basalt outcrops, redlined heart-rate, heaving chest, butt on dirt and parched cheatgrass, a smiling dog with a matted feather stuck to his gluey gum wondering, “what now?”
Ten minutes in on this second day of the season, after a gorgeous mistake yesterday, Peat bee-lined from the shore up a wee crotch of a draw and froze. Angus soon joined him and validated the point. Both held solid until I hoisted myself the hundred or so yards, and then they burst. It’s on the video, in slo-mo, even. I hit the first three, not even sure how many birds took off, then watched more waves of ones and twos going every direction, in the air, on the ground, in my memory. Fantasy start. We worked hard chasing them, finding new coveys, dogs going nuts, and Leslie made the shot of the day, a crosser across a ravine. She saw it land but couldn’t find it. Then Peat pointed it (it’s on the video, too). What a day.
The big yellow school bus recently started up its route again driving back and forth on our gravel road twice a day, spewing a cloud of dust behind it. We knew that would happen, just as we knew Bob would be returning to the classroom to teach literature and poetry to rural Idaho High School kids. Days around here are noticeably getting shorter, the air is getting cooler at night, and chukar season starts in a few short days. September 15th to be exact. I always think I’ll have plenty of time to get my body ready, the dogs ready, and to practice shooting, but before you know it it’s time. This approaching season will be my 12th year of chukar hunting. The first ten of those I wasn’t actually carrying a shotgun but instead following Bob and the dogs up and down the mountains and rock outcroppings with my camera in hand, documenting chukar hunting.
My anticipation for the upcoming season always brings excitement and a tangle of emotions. Thinking about being in the thick of things again to witness first hand and intimately the magic of the dogs working up and down the terrain instinctively and methodically and in perfect harmony thrills me. With that it brings the hope that I’ll anticipate the moment right before the birds bust after a long steady point and be ready for it. I also look forward to the elation often followed by sorrow when my dogs carry in their soft mouths a downed chukar or Hungarian partridge directly to my hand. I have deep respect for these birds that live in these brutally dry western desert environments, and I don’t think of killing one as revenge for the hard work and determination it took me to put myself into the position to possess one. Often, I have to remind myself that these non-native game birds were originally introduced for the sole purpose of being hunted. It doesn’t always convince me to feel better about killing one, but I owe it to the dogs every once in a while to allow them the pleasure and reward of retrieving a bird they worked so hard to find for me. I want to think they understand the praise that soon follows.
We know our two Brittanys aren’t perfect text book bird dogs and we also aren’t the best trainers. They’ve adapted to our style of hunting and we rely on their pure natural instinct, prey drive, and good breeding to guide them and pray for the cohesion of dog work and gun handling to happen at just the right time. It’s a beautiful thing to see elegant and well-seasoned Angus being backed by young and quick-footed Peat.
Tangible gift
Perfect harmony
I’m probably an anomaly in the world of chukar hunting: female for starters, and I’m 55 years old and I didn’t handle a firearm for the first time until last year. I have no doubt this tough and mean country with its steep talus slopes will remind me again that I’m another year older. I’m prepared to have to dig deep and push my body to some uncomfortable extremes. I’m up for the challenge. I love the challenge and I’m not afraid to go out alone by myself again which I did a few times last season.
The past couple of years, besides thinking about my age creeping up, I’ve dreaded that quite possibly it might be 11-year-old Angus’s last season, not because he can’t physically do it; we know he can. This past couple of weeks while out grouse hunting he’s been covering more ground and ranging farther than Peat, but he’s slowly going deaf and his eyes are starting to look cloudy gray. I worry that one of these days we might lose him on the mountain. The GPS tracker collar that I was dead set against purchasing and using in the first place because I dislike fussing with too many things has now become a reassurance to find a confused and wandering lost dog.
The old warrior, Angus
Heading up to the clouds
Downhill traverse
Mouth to hand
Rushing to the point
Fruits of labor
Lastly, anticipation for the upcoming season also becomes a moment of reflection from past seasons. It’s those great memories that make us hungry for more. The culture of chukar hunting for us is about the beauty of the unhindered landscapes, the hard ascents up into the clouds, the smells of damp sage, the cold harsh mountain winds that remind us we’re alive, the sound of a covey busting, and for that intimate connection and trust we have with our dogs.
“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.
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.
-Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)
Andrew Wyeth, Turkey Pond, 1944, tempera on panel.
Some of Leslie’s chukar hunting landscape photos from this fall and winter…
