Upwards again

I woke up this morning to a few claps of thunder and than this rain shortly afterwards.

It only lasted about five minutes but was a great surprise. So I quickly loaded up the boys and headed for the nearest chukar mountain I could find. Shortly after we started up the draw we were once again surprised by a bear. My daughter has a sick sense of humor and she got me trying to run the bear down to get some footage. Needless to say I didn’t get much.

The dogs had thought I’d lost my mind because they had no idea why I was running. That’s something they haven’t seen very often. Trust me, there wasn’t much speed involved. I wore out quick and the dogs and I moved down into the draw and found what the bear was probably doing there. A few of them even tasted good to me.

We crossed the creek and headed up to the steep stuff and sure enough I heard chukars in two different spots. I’ll use wobbly legs as my excuse for not getting to high on the mountain but the dogs covered the hill well for me.

By the time I got three quarters of the way up this hill we had bumped five covey of chukar and all seemed to have half grown chicks in them. One covey was close to twenty birds. Even with the little moisture on the ground the scenting for the dogs was obvious terrible since I didn’t have a point. But it was very positive news as far as I am concerned. I hadn’t planned well and only took two bottles of water so we made a short time of it. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Meanwhile on the way home, once again we found covey after covey of big and little quail. For those who like hunting those critters, it’s going to be lot’s of fun for you.

Watching that male quail, I was wondering if he was after bugs or leaves. Most of the blue flowers on the skeleton weeds and some of the leaves had a black bug on them. We got some moisture coming up this week end (I hope) so I’ll quit with the quail pictures and start concentrating on the huns and chukars when the boys find them.