Chukar Season Finale

Our upland bird season is over, we are a week into the hunting doldrums that is February.  Last weekend Cody and I went out to the desert with our friend Steve for one final chukar hunt of the year.  We covered a lot of miles and had a great time.  A great finale to the upland bird season can be bittersweet because it just leaves me wanting to get out for one more weekend with the dog, but there is a long 9 month wait until the season reopens in the fall.

Chukar!

     It's hard to describe chukar hunting in a way to make it sound fun to most people.  It is a masochistic pastime that involves waking early to spend the day in some of the driest, steepest, most baron, rocky terrain on earth, tromping up and down the ankle twisting hillsides in pursuit of a small bird that can be heard cackling in the rocky precipices far above with a call that sounds distinctly like a taunting laughter.  

     If you are lucky enough to get within shooting range before they flush, and then get a shot  that connects and retrieve the bird, the sense of accomplishment is overwhelming, and will give you the energy to tromp the hillside for another couple of hours, and hopefully connect on another bird or two.