Weird April

I don’t know how else to describe April than to say it was weird. For the most part it was much colder than normal with a lot of moisture including snow. Than suddenly it turned into summer. Today, the 29th, the high was 87 degrees. The normal high is 68. Ten days ago the low for the day was 22 degrees. Go figure. It’s supposed to be in the mid 80’s for the next week and than hopefully it will return to normal.

March and April was filled with moisture and the hills are green and looking great for the wildlife. But it won’t take much for this temperature to dry our chukar hills up. We still need a moist May to help with that crop of chukars we’re hoping for. As I said, we’re looking goodso far but we still need help from Mother Nature in the next month and a half.

The good news for me this month was finding three new chukar spots. Places I never hunted before but by chance found chukars. Actualy, one of them I didn’t find. Conner found it on a recent shed hunting expedition. He said he saw several singles and doubles of chukar and heard many calls coming from the cliffs. He also said that I shouldn’t go there alone because of the steepness and rocks. I guess he’ll have to go with me. Maybe we’ll find the other half of this nice bull. We measured it and came up close to 165 boone and crocket points. With a similar second side and a 40 inch spread that wold put this bull around 375. Pretty impressive. Oh, he said the name of that draw is “somewhere in Idaho”.

The second place was a spot where Conner and I went rock chuck shooting. In between shots I was constantly hearing the call of chukars. While Conner was glassing for chucks I was glassing for chukars. It will be an interesting place to visit in July to find how the hatch is.

Number three place was a spot that Conner and I have hunted turkeys a few times over the past 11 years. Once again, as the early morning sun rose, we not only heard turkeys, we heard chukars also. Although it was music to my ears, I had to concentrate on the larger birds. I will also be visiting that spot this July.

That turkey hunt turned out very special. I’ve called or watched Conner call turkeys in every year since he was ten. I’ve seen him shoot twenty turkeys but he has never been with me when I shot mine. So it was real special when we doubled up on two long beards together.

As you can see by this picture, Conner is becoming quite the photographer. He is going to try and make photography and the outdoors his life work. He’s already photographing for a couple of guides and has some great stuff.

Back to the chukars. We’re pretty strong right now but we need this heat trend to back off and let some cooler and wetter weather take over. If it does we’re in for a banner year. It doesn’t take a lot of rain from this point on. Just enough to keep the insects thriving. The cover is already exceeding normal growth in most areas.

A side note. Conner and I went to the Chukar Chaser’s of Idaho banquet last night. What a bunch of classy guys. Brandt, the president, put together a great group to represent chukar hunters in Idaho. I met a few guys from the blog that I have never seen before and ran into a few of the ones that I have visited with in the past. What a great night of talking chukar. Seems like we’re all looking towards a good year. Can’t think of a better way to spend a night.

Have a good Spring.