Sitting here today, I came across a question posed by another upland bird site that got me thinking. “What was your most memorable upland bird hunt”? I thought about it hard, but couldn’t come up with just one. My last two chukar hunts with Grady definitely didn’t fit. They were my 61st and 62nd chukar hunts of this season, and even though we covered lots of elevation and ground, we only brought one bird home. We have plenty of hunts that end up this way, but I don’t write about them. There isn’t anything to say. So you only write about the good hunts.
I wasn’t surprised by most of the answers. Almost all of them were about the number of coveys pushed or a limit of birds. I have to admit that those things make for a fun hunt, but I can’t remember a time that seeing a couple of hundred chukars in a day or shooting a limit made that hunt any more memorable than others. Over the past 50-odd years of bird hunting, there have been several hunts that were memorable. The number of birds or a limit had nothing to do with how the hunt stuck in my mind.
There was the hunt when I fell and tore my Achilles tendon. My gun was full of mud, and I had to clean the barrels. My two dogs held point through it all as I gathered myself to move back up to their point and shoot. The boys retrieved the birds, and I couldn’t have been prouder of them. I don’t remember how many chukars we got that day, but I recall that incident vividly.
My first German Shorthair Pointer’s first limit. Tucker was only five months old. He pointed all 8 of my birds and partially retrieved them for me. I knew I had a winner. If I went back through my journals, I think most people would be shocked at how many limits of chukar he produced. And there’s Tucker’s son, Dakota.
He had a very memorable hunt on Christmas Eve. He was on point on an outcropping of rocks. The point wasn’t his normal intense point, and I was soon to find out. I startled a mountain lion from the rocks, and the next thing I saw was the cat on Dakota’s tail. I had no time to address the situation and shot the lion at 7 yards. I was shocked that my load of 7 1/2 shot dropped her dead. Once again, I don’t know how many birds we saw or got that day, but that moment is embedded in my mind.
Of course, there’s my sons, Doug’s first chukar. After missing chukars on so many hunts, you could have heard his success scream for miles.
And our GSP mix, Alli. She was a rescue pup intended to be Doug’s hunting dog. Doug was still in high school, so you know who she ended up hunting with all the time. One particular hunt over at Brownlee reservoir, I was hunting with her. I had shot a few birds. and decided to film her for a while. Another hunter was on the hill and came over to me. He had heard me shooting and wondered if he could tag along and maybe get a chukar. I didn’t mind, but before I had my camera ready, I heard a chukar fly, and the guy shot. At first, I thought it was his Labrador screaming in pain. I soon realized it was Alli. Making this story short, I had to pack her 2 miles to the truck down a steep rocky ridge. At 85 pounds, it wasn’t an easy task, but she stayed motionless to help me keep from falling. Once again, I don’t recall the number of birds we got, but I remember the vet saying she had over 100 pellets in her, and if none were in vitals, she would come out of it fine. None were, and she did.
Greg Allen had a group of friends from Alaska. They had never shot a chukar before and wanted to give it a try. He asked me if I could bring Tucker and Dakota along. I had never hunted “Team Tuckota” with anyone else and wasn’t really sure how it would go. The first thing out of the truck, Dakota spooked a covey of huns about 200 yards up the hill. I heard one of the guys mention something about wild dogs. I’d seen it happen many times and wasn’t concerned about it, but still wondered how my boys would hunt for others. Even though I had my shotgun, I decided to hang back, worrying about my dog’s safety. I was very happy to see how conscious the hunters were of my dogs, and everything went great. Everybody got some birds, and we came off the hill having a good time. I don’t know the bird count. It doesn’t matter because I was so proud of how my dogs performed.
One of my memories that I’m not quite fond of is the time I went and shot 19 times without touching a feather. Something I’d like to forget, but that memory has brought me back down to earth the few times I went 8 for 8.
I don’t feel that a memorable hunt is defined by the amount of success. It should be defined by the special events that happened and the special people you might be with. In my case, it’s always been the special dogs I’ve been fortunate enough to hunt with.
6 more days left in the Oregon and Idaho season. Get out if you can.
The Reigning Chukar Champions 