The Agonies of the Monday Morning After

I know, that title doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but somehow after what happened yesterday and how I feel today, and what I feel like I should do tomorrow it all makes perfect sense.  In short, yesterday I got talked into going chukar hunting with two of my sons, Todd and Tom.  Today I feel like I got hit by a bus and tomorrow I got this hankering to go see a psycho to find out why I let myself get talked into this excursion.  Worst of all I have only to look in the mirror to find the guy who introduced these two to the joys of chasing these feathered fiends all over the hills.  When the three boys were small and woke up on Saturday mornings between September and January, wondering where dad was, if he wasn’t elk or deer hunting, they more than likely heard that he was chukar hunting.  So I’m sure there was a certain amount of curiosity as to what this chukar hunting was all about, especially since there was very little meat that came out of these hunts.

In this barren country there is some real beauties such as this water fall which we found a short distance from the road.

 Now I’m reaping my reward for getting them cranked up about such a hopeless cause.  My mind is still saying yes but the body is calling me some awful names.   Deep inside I knew better, but it wasn’t until we stopped at the base of the hill and looked up that I had to face the fact that my smarts had stayed at home.  Roaming the hills for elk is one thing, but chasing these berating little birds is another.

Looking down river on the Snake. This is looking at the south slopes where the snow line is higher.

 The boys were kind enough to give me the south slope of the hill to hike up on as the north slope became snow covered shortly after leaving the pickup.  We had hiked for an hour, seeing no birds and hearing no shots, before I started getting those familiar feelings of being snookered by my own mind into thinking this would be fun.  Shortly after I was reasoning with myself and coming up with the sane idea that there was no birds around and I might as well head back down.  Just then I heard my first bird calling and as close as I could tell it was coming from way up in the head of the canyon.  To those that haven’t heard the chukars’ call, it sounds like their name ‘chukar’, but to those that have hunted them it sounds more like ‘sucker’.  I don’t know what there is in that call that makes us do stupid things, but all thoughts of reason and the pickup disappeared and I headed back up the canyon.  Looking across the canyon I could see the boys struggling in the snow but they had evidently heard them too and were heading up the hill.

Lunch break, Todd and Tom. Thank goodness for the ridges which gave some relief from the deep snow.

Within thirty minutes I too had reached snow line even on the south slope, and shortly thereafter found out what the boys had been dealing with.  I had kind of thought they were over doing it that morning when they put on there heavy boots as I chose my 6″ hikers.  Sons are now smarter than dad.  It was the kind of snow where you could walk on the crust four or five steps then you’d fall though.  First it was up to the knee, then it became up to the high center mark.  I was exhausted, but those birds sounded just around the corner.  The next time I fell though the crusted snow I lost one of my 6″ hikers and it’s just as well as I had to take the other one off too as it also was needing to be emptied of snow.  I hadn’t gone 20 feet when the bottom went out again.  I was just standing awkwardly in this hole wondering if it would work to call AAA to get me a tow truck to pull me out when less then 10 yards ahead of me two chuckers took off.  I should have saved my lead but I didn’t come this far or work this hard just to watch chukars fly off without a fight.  They were far enough out there by the time I got situated good enough to shoot that I’m sure all those #6 shot were responding to gravity long before they got to the birds.   I was thoroughly disgusted with myself and was having a little talk with self when a third bird barrelled out from the same bush.  Bird going down hill, pull below it and fire.  This bird was going down hill, but was still on the rise.   Self, your brain has got to react faster then that.  I had reached my limit so I sat there and waited for the boys to come around to where I was.  As they came I saw at least 4 covies leave the area ahead of them.  These birds had evidently been well educated and were leaving early.

Getting below snow level we spread out for one more shot. Nice thought but not very productive.

When Todd and Tom reached me, they dined on their cold pizza and I on my chicken sandwich as we discussed our disgust for these birds.  These were some of the most uncooperative birds we had ever seen.  One thing we acknowledged was defeat and we might as well start our 1600′ vertical decent to the pickup.   When we cleared snow line we spread out along the hillside to give it one last try.  Hope springs forever, you know, for hunters.   Tom got caught blowing his nose when a bunch of 15 got up and he gave them a ‘fair thee well’ send off.  About twenty minutes later I had a long shot at the same bunch I think.   So as Todd put it, I was 0 for 4, Tom was 0 for 1 and he hadn’t missed all day so he did the best.  I couldn’t argue with that.  It still doesn’t give us much to eat though.

The snow storm hit us about half way down and kept us moving till we hit the road at the bottom.

 The thing that scares me the most about myself after that day is, if the season were still open next Saturday, I’d probably be fool enough again to have another go at them.