May 31

So far, this year weather mimics last year’s weather. Lots of good moisture keeping the hills green. It warmed up a little sooner, but we are having thunderstorms come through and soak the chukar hills, keeping them moist enough that we should have a plethora of insects for quite a while this summer. On a short hike yesterday, I found loads of tiny grasshoppers and other insects hopping and crawling through the greenery. Very similar to last year.

So, if you liked last year’s chukar hunting, you should be very happy again this year. The cover is very similar and hatching conditions are perfect right now. Barring thunder storms killing some of the hatch or bad brush fires this could be that boom year. A good year following a good year. I’m very excited about the possability.

On a few of my shorter walks we have been seeing some still paired chukars and huns, which in my mind means they are not sitting on nests yet. But we haven’t seen many. They should be sitting soon and 23 days later the little ones will be scurrying around. That’s when we don’t need that cold wet rain.

I mentioned about all the ruffed grouse I’ve been hearing. Well that’s still happening a lot. I had a male strutting in front of my f350 and wouldn’t back down. I’d creep forward and he’d came running toward the truck in full fan mode. He must have had some good looking girls close by.

The geese were down this year. We normally have over 100 goslings on the pond this time of the year, but we only had about 35 this year and they already headed down to the river and have vacated the place. Doesn’t really hurt my feelings. We get tired of tracking goose poop all over the place.

Big game are doing well. We are finding several babies, both deer and elk.

Back to the chukars. Everyone I have talked to is reporting favorable conditions. The Owyhee’s got a bunch of moisture this year and they say there is a lot more cover this year and the prospects are good. Another friend reports very favorable conditions more towards eastern Idaho. The Nevada/Idaho border is also looking promising. All of eastern Oregon had very favorable conditions as well as western Idaho. The Snake river from Lewiston to Ontario should be hammered with little chukars by the first of July. Also, all of those places closer to Boise should have more birds than usual.

In other words, unless some kind of catastrophe comes, we should be able to find good numbers of birds in any of our old chukar playgrounds. Come July, I think the doctor will give me the pass to go anywhere I want and I plan on covering a lot of chukar country to see if it’s really going to be as good as it should. I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, have a safe summer and get your hounds out for some fun.