Never

This will be the most miserable post I’ve ever written. I always try and keep chukar hunting as positive as possible, but honest.

Over the last thirty some years, I have had only two days that I never saw a chukar. There were several trips I might have come home empty handed, but I always at least saw some chukars. On the reverse side, I’ve had lots of limit days and even some double limits of huns and chukars in Idaho.

I have been very fortunate. There have been a few trips where I had to quit shooting because I had a posession limit and ended up just walking with the dogs and filming them. I’ve been on quite a ride chasing chukars the last fourty plus years. There have been phenominal years, normal years and a couple of lean years, but my trip last week found me visiting a hunt I never thought posible. Especially since my last two trips, before this outing, I found good number of birds.

I went down to the Owyhee’s for a six or seven day chukar trip. It was a place I’d hunted many times over the past fourty years. I had some good tips that the bird numbers were decent in the Owyhee’s, so I was quite excited about the trip. Epecially because the temperature had finally cooled off and we had some moisture.

Day one, I went to one of my favorite spots. I knew that with the rain from the previous night Grady and Layne were going to have a ball pointing chukars. Five minutes from the truck. we busted three chukars and I was thinking it was just the beginning of a fun day. Five hours later, we were back at the truck with zero birds. I had gone four and a half miles, gained 1800 feet of elevation and was very tired. Layne went 18 miles and Grady covered 14. We never saw a bird after the original three.

Day two, Greg picked me up from camp and took me deeper into the Owyhees in his side by side. I don’t know how far we traveled , but we were riding for almost an hour and a half. On the drive in, we saw three different coveys of chukar. About 15 to 20 birds in each covey. Spirits were up, and I was excited to get Layne on her first solo hunt. Three hours after we began the hunt, we met back with Greg at the side by side. Layne and I hunted through the best looking chukar country I have ever seen. Pockets which should have held large coveys had no sign of birds in them. I did see a few chukar tracks on a dusty trail, but that was the only sign of birds that I saw. Talking with Greg, he did see one covey and dropped a leg on one bird but never found it. Those were the only chukars he saw.

Day three. I went to a place where Conner had seen several coveys of young birds in July. I know he doesn’t exagerate so I was expecting at least some action. Having two dogs out covering a lot of ground produced exactly 0 finds. I never even saw any old chukar turds in places where I usually find them roosting. I know Conner didn’t lie, so what happened? Either the chukars died over the long drawn out summer we had or they flew to happier grounds. But they weren’t there.

Every place I went in the Owyhee’s had plenty of cover. It was very dry looking and even on the rocky slopes where you find green sprouts almost year round were void of any green up. I don’t recall seeing any grasshoppers either. I know there are chukars out there somewhere but I wasn’t willing to put the miles on those rocky two track roads to find them, so Barb and I packed up and headed over towards Huntington.

I knew it had burned up over there, but wasn’t ready for how destructive that fire was. We had planned on camping along the reservoir and traveling the roads leading away from the reservoir, hoping to find some unburnt country. There was no place to camp where you weren’t in a burnt out area. We decide to cut our trip short and return home and reconsider other hunting grounds.

So, in the end, I have to admit that this might be the year to not make that long drive to Idaho or Oregon for a dream hunt chasing chukars. I’m sure there are still thousands of acres of great chukar country with chukars on them, but they are going to be a little harder to come by. I know me and two dogs are going to find some chukars somewhere, but coming home with limits is going to be tough.

3 days of hunting chukars with good dogs and not one point. I never thought there would be such a time.