Second Hunt Faron and Carl Stiefel
All images, maps, and written material
are Copyright of
What a second day! I think we got 12-14 flushes. A few of them singles or doubles but mostly small coveys. It was awesome but bad at the same time. I should have had my limit of chukar and a few hun to boot but poor shooting from all of us left us with only 7 birds in the bag. It was also one of the bad days when my shots were not bringing birds down hard. Instead I left them hitting the ground running or worse continuing to fly, wobbling down and around a ridgeline out of sight to travel who knows how far. This is the worst part of bird hunting to me, not finding wounded birds.
Zoë
and Z were hunting hard. I get more and
more impressed with Z every year. Her
retrieves this year had me saying more than once…I love my dog. She’s always wanted to work really large when
looking for a downed bird and then would get sidetracked with other scent. I would have to routinely call her back to
the area the bird went down getting frustrated at times. But now I let her have her own head and just
patiently wait (well most of the time).
She has really picked up on trailing running birds. I got to watch today as she bolted from the
area the bird went down…nose stuck to the ground as if there was a magnetic
pull. She will run the bird out and 30
seconds later is 100 yards away on point again with the bird alive and hiding
in some brush or returning with the birds that are dead at the end of their run.
We were hunting one of my best spots but the birds were pretty wild being close to the end of the season and this spot gets hit pretty well. We were all getting shots but the birds that were getting up tended to be at the backend of range. After a couple wounded birds in addition to a couple in the bag I twisted my poly choke and tightened up my pattern. I think it helped a little but by the end of the day I still had left 3 more birds in the field unable to find them. I don’t think Carl and Faron were wounding as many. Had I been hunting alone I probably would have put the gun up for the day since my concentration was not there, I wasn’t in the zone. But this was my last day to hunt with my brother for the season and I held on to the hope things would improve.
It was cold and because of Baron’s front pads were torn up we had him bundled up in a Foggy Mountain Dog Coat and stuck in the back of the truck. He like most good hunting dogs was not at all happy with this arrangement. But the dog was locked up and the three humans were off up the hill with just one dog. We were 15 minutes from the truck when Carl yelled down to Faron and me that he found a friend. Low and behold here comes the hobbling blue-coated Baron not so nimbly racing up the hill to join the hunt. He had to be hurting but he was charging up hill as best he could on tender feet while dressed in a heavy coat. The boy had drive. Faron turned back down to the truck with Baron while Carl headed up to the ridgeline. I worked a little up and then side-hilled to a point above the truck to wait for Faron. I watched with a smile at Baron’s efforts from above as Faron and his pup finally reached the truck and Baron was put away for the day.
Only
a few minutes after Faron worked back up to me we hit one of my favorite spots
and true to the past the birds started flying.
The first birds up were off a sweet point from Z. It was an odd couple though a single chukar
and then a single hun. I nailed the hun
but the chukar was the first victim of the day that got away. Faron started to work downhill a little and
he got off a shot. The shooting
continued.
We moved out of the hot zone and while rounding the ridge we heard shooting from Carl far above us. Little did I know the birds he flushed flew down and landed directly where I was going. It didn’t take Z long to find the landing strip of the chukar Carl had blasted at and then show was on again. This time though Z and I worked the birds bagging one and the birds flew down and around the ridgeline directly towards Faron. If I remember right he got off a surprised shot but nothing fell. It was still fun to realize that those birds had leapfrogged to each of us.
I had yet to shoot a chukar over Carl’s dog Zoë. She tends to follow Carl pretty close and Carl. We had just started to work our way up the slope back to the road when I turned a sharp ridge to move into gully with Carl below me and Faron below him. When out of the sage just up hill of my head a chukar busts out catching us by surprise. At the moment the chukar breaks I see Zoë behind it a little further up the hill on point. The bird tries to make it across the little gulch and around the next ridge but Carl and I both pop it and it tumbles hitting the opposite slope with a thick thud. Of course we have to both claim it was our shot that brought it down. I eventually tricked Carl that his shot was taken when the bird was already tumbling. The funny thing is he bought it until the drive out when I told him I had no clue who shot the bird.
The day progressed like this until about 2 p.m. when we finally make it back to the truck for a late lunch and to recap the hunt. We had covered some ground and each gotten off a few shots. We ate and relaxed while the dogs milled about the truck drinking water and begging for tidbits of our food. The dogs were tired, well Zoë and Z were tired Baron was all too anxious to run on his sore pads until his feet rubbed off. We had a 2-hour drive home and I think we decided to call it a day so we finally loaded up and headed back out.
On the way out I pointed out a few more spots I’ve hunted with some success and to Faron’s and Carl’s credit they both were up for another push…I was tired but I wasn’t going to say no. So we picked out this short trip that normally takes me around an hour and off to the races we went again. We headed up a small ravine and I took one side, Faron walked the bottom and Carl took the other slope. I was walking my slope about halfway up when Z got birdie and of course worked all the way to the top out of sight. I knew she was on scent and was half hoping she would come back when Carl yells from the other slope that Z was on point up top. Yep, end of the day, tired legs, sore feet and my dog goes on point “up top”.
I
put myself into a half speed-walk up the hill to get to Z and I’m not too proud
to say I had to stop for a few moments to catch my breath. I got up to Z and she’s holding point, I
worked upwind of her and around with nothing.
I turn and release her to relocate.
This happen a second time but on the third time when I turned to
relocate her she wouldn’t move…I knew then I just hadn’t kicked the right
bush. I move out ahead of her again and was
rewarded with a covey of huns. I bag a
bird and lose a second. Z retrieves and
after some hefty petting I turn to head back towards Carl and Faron. As I crest the hill they are sitting waiting
below. I let them know what had happened
when I noticed Z wasn’t with me any more.
I turned and with a locator beep determined she was on point again. Figuring she was on the old hun scent I went back up top to retrieve her. She was holding a hard point I bet only 40
yards down slope from the last birds we had just flushed. A straggler? The wounded bird?
I moved in to have a small covey of chukar bust out of the sage and snow. I hit one and it spun towards the ground. I knew it wasn’t a dead shot and I moved quickly to the spot I thought the bird should be. I looked and looked finding nothing. I was just about to recall Z to the spot when I saw her heading down the opposite slope in a short zigzag run fading to a straight out nose to the ground blood hound brush busting run downhill. She was a hundred yards from me when she ran into the winged chukar which tried to take flight. After a short chase Z had the bird. What a treat to watch from above.
I returned over the ridge crest to where Faron and Carl were waiting before but they had moved on. I worked further up my ridgeline to the crest I could hear Carl calling for Zoë ahead of me. I walked just far enough to look down the north slope to see Zoë at the edge of small ravine. I yelled down that she was on point behind them! They had walked by her split up enough to not flush the birds Zoë was holding. They turned back and with a flutter of a dozen wings the chukar took flight. Both Carl and Faron popped off a shot and a single bird dropped hard from the flight. Either they shot at the same bird or one of them missed completely. I watched from my high vantage as the covey cruised around the slope and dipped out of sight a long way off without any other bird faltering.
The highlight of the day came at days end. Because of the number of birds we took 2 hours to travel the area I normally cover in an hour. It had been a long day of steep slopes, happy dogs and now tired hunters. I made it down to the road about a ½ mile away from the truck with Faron cutting across the field towards me. Carl had hoofed it straight to the truck and was waiting there by the time we were a hundred yards away. I had unloaded my gun as my brother and I walked the edge of the gravel chatting happily about the day. It was about 50 yards from the truck when it clicked that I hadn’t seen Z running somewhere. I instantly knew she was on point somewhere but given the ditch edge and thick brush I thought maybe it was a rabbit. We stopped and within a few moments found her locked hard on the opposite side of the ditch. I love these points; she was facing downhill in a low stance with her head turned slightly into the wind. This was no mammal point there were birds in front of her. Seeing as I had my gun empty Faron took to the ditch and was in line when the single hun took flight heading straight down the ditch bank. Faron took the bird cleanly and Z was almost back to the truck when she picked the bird up for the retrieve. What a way to end a great day.
