I’m starting to hear more good news. One guy reports of double hatch and lot’s of birds. Somehow I forgot the name of the place he mentioned. Another fisherman told me about good numbers along the reservoir. He also didn’t mention which body of water.
My report is pretty positive also. The boys and I took a drive up high, away from the water and were surprised with three covey busts on our short hike. All three covey’s had about 10 birds in them and the young were somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks. Several of the trails had chukar tracks on them but I realized I have hardly seen a chukar turd this year. Maybe they are courteous birds and step off the trail to relieve themselves. I also saw two covey of chukar off the road. One very photogenic and the other very non social. Both covey’s had about the same numbers and looked to be the same age. I’m guessing born around the first of July.
It’s not that 180 birds per square mile but it’s a good start. Just think, only a month away.
The Reigning Chukar Champions 
I had another positive report from this mornings hike with the dog on some Army Corps owned land near Lucky Peak. In approximately a 3 mile round trip hike I bumped 3 large groups of quail (15-20 birds per group) near the bottom where I had parked and up near the top where I turned around the dog pointed two coveys of chukars. The first covey had six birds and the second covey had 8 birds. I have hiked this area for years and this was the most birds I have encountered. The chuker were about 2 miles from the reservoir and away from any springs or creeks so I have to believe that they are able to get enough water from insects or vegetation to survive. If they were getting water from the reservoir they would have to navigate through several large parking lots, a camp area, and boat ramp.
I will be curious to see what the Idaho/Oregon bird forecast looks like but I recently saw an article in the Pointing Dog Journal that chukar numbers look “dismal” for this area but I’m not sure where they are getting their information.
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Thank you for the report. Sounds promising. I too wonder where the information comes from. I know much of the information comes from counts done while driving the back roads. If I were give a prediction on chukars from what I’ve seen from the roads I’d say it was going to be dismal also. Maybe good as far as the quail go but as you mention a good hike and suddenly things change as does the outllok.
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Like you mentioned with the streak of hot weather I don’t think there many people have an accurate assessment of numbers. I know I was sitting in an air conditioned house the last 6-8 weeks as were many others. Worst case scenario is that there should be enough birds to make things interesting. From what I have seen is there was not a complete decimation of the population like as can happen during brutal winter. With that said, the fall after Snowmagedon was my best year in terms of number of birds harvested. Go figure!
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Managed to squeeze in a recon with this feeble and recovering shoulder last week. 5 chukar coveys, one with 15 or 16 4-6 wk age, the rest with approx 11-12. All were 4-6 wk except one that was full grown. Not saying it’s gonna be banner, but def’y some positive signs….and have to add that kind of surprised that these birds more than likely hatched during the brutal heat of early July. Seems like we had good conditions 1st couple of weeks of June and went to crap bout the 2nd half.
Regarding the above PDJ excerpt, read that too. I believed PDJ polled Knetter and he was issuing that based on severe drought we’ve had and it’s typical effects on upland ranges and what to expect….so far what I seen and a few valid reports it appears may be at least a fair season ahead.
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