It seems like forever since I’ve been able to get on the hill with my dogs to chase chukars. The wait was worth it. Although, I’d like to see some moisture, the temperature is cooperating some. I left home in the dark at 29 degrees and by the time I got to my destination, it was 37.
As Grady, Layne and I headed uphill, the sun was still blocked by the mountain but it wasn’t hard to feel warm. I tried to watch the dogs work, but once they got past a hundred yards my blurry eyes couldn’t see them. It was frustrating for a while. My Alpha said the dogs were 200 yards away and once in a while I could hear a covey of chukars takung off. Not knowing whether it was an accidental flush or that maybe Layne was going her mach 10 right past them had me wondering. I like my dogs to range out about three hundred yards and they never got close to that so I never used the beep sound to recall them. I had to just trust.
After about an hour, the Alpha said Grady had treed his quarry. He was about 120 yards uphill. As I approached, the Alpha said the same about Layne. When I approached, Layne was honoring Grady. All of a sudden my legs weren’t tired and the excitement took over.
As I walked in front of Grady, the birds flushed. Through my blurry eyes I picked a bird and it fell. I don’t know what Layne’s reaction were but Grady got to the bird and soon she was tring to take it from him. Grady was having no part of it and soon had the bird in my hand.
The rest of the day just kept getting better, even though the temperatures were rising. Most of the action was Grady pointing and Layne honoring, but twice Layne found the birds and Grady showed his fantastic style by honoring the action. Here is one of Layne’s points. I didn’t center the image well. Maybe because I was so excited to see her knowing the game at so well at 8 months.
Layne’s at the right edge of the picture with Grady honoring. She never moved a muscle while I went down the slope and back up in front of her. I was out of sight of her for about two minutes and when I reappeared both dogs were still stationary. The only bad thing that happened was that even though Layne was closer, Grady beat her to the retrieve. Laynes only retrieve of the day was when Grady was off looking for birds and as she crossed in front of me at about thirty yards, she slammed the skids on to a beautiful flat back point down hill. I swung around to the right of her and knocked a bird down. She had the bird back to me before Grady could get there.
I don’t know which dog had the honor on this one, but it deserved a picture. They both watched me walk to the front and get a double on huns. Grady had the first one back to me and than found number two while Layne was more interested in the one he had already found. She’ll get that figured out soon.
For those counting, it was a better than average day on the mountain for us. Even with the dryness. I guess we pushed 9 covey of chukars and two of huns. No huge coveys. One of the hun coveys had maybe 30 birds but the rest of the groups were between fifteen and twenty birds.
A fantastic day to be alone on the mountain.
