Liar Liar

Everyone knows there are no better liars than hunters and fishermen. Well I lied yesterday when I said it would be my last hunt until after Christmas.

When I awoke this morning there was a dusting of snow on the ground and the skies were blue. The dogs were rested up and I paced around the house until Barb said “why don’t you and the dogs get out of my hair for a while?” So we did. I headed for a hill not to far away where I hoped the dogs would get some encounters, It gets hunted pretty heavily so the most I was hoping for was maybe a shot or two and some camera action.

Well I got plenty of camera action, but most of the video’s look like a drunk man was walking the hills. I took over 67 minutes of video and ended up with these few clips. But it was fun all the same.

First off, here’s the country I was heading for. I screwed around with the light adjustment and finally came up with this short video.

I knew I didn’t have to cover much country because knothead was doing that for me. Jake was covering the close quarters.

Grady was a couple hundred yards away when Jake pointed these chukars.

The first chukar was caught on the flush but the remaining three held a little too long and one flew into one of my pellets. As usual, Jake made up for my poor shooting with a long retrieve.

Several times I followed the Alpha’s directions to a pointing dog and tried to video the approach but this is all I kept getting.

I cut out the more dizzying parts. There’s no good way to walk with a shotgun and camera while trying to find a dog on point and not trip over things. I did find tracks telling me the dogs weren’t lying.

When I finally located the dogs on point, I could see chukars taking off 50 yards or further up the hill. Luckily for me, one flew our way.

I even got a chance to film Jake with his new found way of letting me know the birds are running. He just started this habit this year and with him giving me 9 great years of hunting I’m going to give him a pass on this bad habit. Most times he does this, I eventually see birds taking off from above and didn’t really care to get there anyway.

With a few birds in the bag we hunted our way back toward the truck and as we got lower ran into a bunch of quail. There had to be at least 50 and they scattered everywhere. I knew there would be some good training opportunities the rest of the way down and took advantage of the situation.

I had several other shaky videos but this longer one is a good one to end it on.

Plus the boys helped me get some good eating.

And to top it off. As I type this, the snow is falling again and a couple of my buddies stopped by for a short meal. I thank God everyday for the great outdoor life that I have and pray he gives me the strength to keep enjoying it for many more years.