Mostly chukar hunting with Chaos and my new pup Mayhem.
IDAHO/ OREGON BIRD HUNTING PODCAST
I would advise that if any of you are even remotely proud of the care you give your bird gun, don’t take it chukar hunting. Borrow a gun from your least favorite buddy. You know, that guy who borrows your tools and either never returns them or complains that your tool broke so he had to replace it. Now instead of a Bosch hammer drill or Milwaukee Sawzall, you’re the shamed owner of something from the Universal Tool Co. that sponsors infomercials on late night tv. Borrow a gun from that guy. Details will follow.
Hello, I’m Randy Shepard and welcome to My Dog Hunts Podcast.
I hate to be one of those guys who thinks he’s busier than everyone else. But I’ve had a really hard time the past year and a half putting together a quality podcast. Some of you are probably wondering, “which podcasts were quality?”.
I’ve been working 50-70 hours a week for what seems like forever and in-between, tricking out my van for bird hunting. I know I’ve been threatening retirement for a while now, but I’ve given notice that April will be my last month. That should leave me some time for spring turkey hunting and the crappie spawn.
Don’t think that I haven’t recorded any podcasts in the past year or so. That wouldn’t be true. I’ve recorded several. My problem is that I’m either too critical of the content or I don’t know what tales make good listening. I re-listen to them during editing and ended up feeling like they didn’t have any longevity. If they wouldn’t make a good magazine article or chapter in a book, they just weren’t worth publishing. They seemed mostly lame to me so I discarded them. I’m hoping that this one is better.
You all know that I have a little bit of Chaos in my life. But now, I’m suffering Mayhem too. I never would have chosen the name Mayhem myself. It’s not original, when we already have a dog named Chaos. But, my wife claimed the name “Mayhem” ever since I told her I was getting another springer two years ago.
It kinda irks my wife a little, but I don’t call her Mayhem. For me she’s Maybe. As in maybe she will and maybe she won’t.
Maybe is the perfect physical compliment to Chaos. She’s tall, lean and leggy, while Chaos is stocky and muscular. Maybe will be easier to keep an eye on in the snow with her upper body more black than white and with longer legs, should have more stamina in the snow as well.
I love Chaos to pieces, but I don’t think I’ve bragged on her too much. Truth is she’s a good bird dog, but not the best I’ve had. I’ve only hunted Maybe for a few weeks in Idaho and Oregon, but so far she has me really excited.
Hunting chukar in Oregon and Idaho, I seldom had to direct Maybe. She seemed to recognize bird cover when she’d never been exposed to it, and would hunt 20-30 yards to my side, on a very vertical mountain, without a word or motion from me. Then when that cover ran out, she would drop back down to the next likely looking cover. It might be in front of me or 20 yards below. She just knew where to hunt. It’s difficult to not brag on her.
One thing I’m certain of…..Maybe won’t be a chapter in my bird hunting career, she’ll be a whole book.
My first walk after arriving was in an area that I’d done well on Huns a few years earlier. I only had about an hour and a half before dark so hunted the same short loop I had the first time there. Just as we were turning back towards the rig, both dogs got birdy and 5 Huns flushed crossing in front of me. They were close and quartering away. I hit a bird hard with my first shot and barely clipped a second bird. It dropped at my follow-up but I could see it skittering through cover about 30 yards out. Chaos was hot after the cripple while Maybe was dancing pirouettes. I hustled her to the first bird and she was proud as could be, running to show Chaos what she found. Of course, Chaos snatched it away, abandoning the cripple. Once I convinced both of them that they only held temporary custody, we renewed the search for the cripple. We searched till dark and never came up with that bird.
The following day I drove halfway up a mountain and stopped at a fence where the cover thickened up. I’d walked all the way to the top a few years ago in 8 inches of snow, flushing a couple coveys each of chukar and Huns.
There was a plateau at the halfway point and we walked the entire edge with just one small covey of Huns flushing wild. I realized that there wasn’t any water on this side of the mountain or in the lower hills I’d hunted the afternoon before, so I headed to a spring I located on ONX over the summer. The head of the draw had thick grass and very steep sides with a narrow game trail in the bottom. I felt that the grass was too thick and tall for Huns so wasn’t very alert when I crawled under a fence. Just as I stood a large covey of Huns flushed fairly close. I was so surprised that I didn’t even shoulder my gun before they rounded out of sight. Okay, it was time to pay attention.
Often when hunting chukar and Huns I concentrate more on foot placement than birds flushing. If they’re in range the flush of both species is loud enough to get your attention. I feel it’s more important to have good footing as much as possible, rather than tripping and sliding watching for a flush.
Well, my theory didn’t work so well this time. The draw was beginning to widen a bit when I looked up from the trail and there were a half dozen Huns flying across 10 yards in front of me. I hadn’t heard a sound and had no idea where they came from. There were so many sharp turns in the cut that they were again out of sight before I raised my gun. I could tell by both dog’s expressions that they were as surprised as I.
Okay. This wasn’t going to happen again. I could see a large thicket ahead and just new there would be birds in there. The sun was high by now and we’d just found water. The dogs were mucking the place up which allowed me to get into position before the ups blasted through.
I knew that a shot was going to be iffy. A 50 foot stretch of 20 foot high willows and some other western brush that I’m not familiar with. The pups crashed the party and I could hear birds out the opposite side. Finally they were far enough out that I could see a few, and one crashed into the hillside. Chaos scooped it up while Maybe was convinced that there must be more in the muddy thicket.
Four coveys of Huns flushed and I only got one shot. I’m embarrassed.
The next morning I drove all the way to the top on a steep two track. I never guessed I could make it in a van. I may as well have stayed lower. There were two large winter coveys of chukar here last time, but the cliffs looked like scorched earth. Not a blade of grass or shrub. It didn’t look burned, just denuded. I kicked around for a while looking for bird sign, but there was none.
I drove back down to where we started the day before, to test a western theory. I’d read that you shouldn’t expect to find birds in an area you’d found them in the day before. That it took them a few days to return. So I hunted up the spring cut from the bottom to the plateau without seeing a bird. Then I hopped over a ways and hunted back down another cut that I thought might hold water.
We moved more Huns than the day before but they were all wild. I only got shots at a late flusher from a covey and I missed it. It was getting hot again so I decided to drive over to a flowing spring that I’d never hunted before. Maybe there would be some quail home. I rounded a corner along the trail and saw a small covey skirt across into the thick stuff. I try to not chase birds I see from the road, so let the dogs out and hunted the opposite direction. We got a lot of exercise but didn’t see any birds. There was a truck camping right where I first saw the quail so decided to beat it out of there. We were heading into Oregon in the morning.
I knew it had been very dry for several years in the area of Oregon I shot lots of quail, way back. But I still had to stop in for a day or two just to see how the birds were doing. I let Chaos and Maybe out together in a sage brush flat with a seep 500 feet further up the mountain. In past years I found a covey of around 50 valley quail here. We were about 300 yards from the truck when the pups got birdy. A small group of about 15 quail flushed, flying back past me. I missed with my first shot, then dropped a single. Both dogs charged after the bird, with Chaos arriving first. Maybe dashed a few yards further and pranced around a sage clump while Chaos returned with the bird, while constantly looking over her shoulder. Questioning why the pup wasn’t trying to steal her prize. Maybe was busy prancing in and out of a sage clump. My first thought was that there was a snake in there and I had to grab her. Once at her side, scolding all the while, she pulled a second valley quail out of the tangle. Well, that upped my shooting average.
I was hopeful that we’d find more birds to indicate a larger covey but it wasn’t so. There was another finger with water in most years, just a half mile down the range that might have an overlapping covey. There were quail there, but this was a month into the season and they’d obviously been hunted before. There was again, less than two dozen birds and they were constantly running several hundred yards ahead. I think they had a little scaled quail in their blood. We never did catch up to them and with that few birds, I wasn’t disappointed not shooting any.
That evening, I camped on another spring flat where I’d shot several limits of quail in the past. There was normally a lot of quail on the flat. I didn’t hear or see a single bird when dressing for the day, so decided to climb several hundred feet to another flat nestled at the foot of several mountains. This same spring wound through there, and normally held it’s covey. Maybe they were all bunched up in this more secluded cover.
We were just starting the steep climb when the pups rousted a covey of birds off the spring. The dwarf willows and Russian olives were really thick and I could only catch a glimps of birds. Too big for quail… they were chukar. Two swung across in front of me and I shot a nice double. Not a particularly proud double, as they were close, and flying parallel to the mountain side, not rocketing downhill with gravity.
That selfish Chaos scooped up the near bird and trotted back with it. The silly pup was prancing around all caught up in the excitement, not understanding that there was again, two birds. Chaos bolted back up the slope, retrieving the second bird as well.
We spent the remainder of that day and the next trying to get into an area with Mountain quail but it was a bust. I was able to drive up to 8,000’ and hunted several copses of thick, stunted trees and brush that I felt were unlikely to hold Mountain quail but it was all the area had in the way of cover. After a few hours of driving up switchbacks and across flat mountain tops, in several inches of snow, I was torn between continuing or turning back. Fortunately I met two ranch trucks heading past me, and they stopped to chat. I asked how far I’d have to go to make it down the south side of the range and maybe find quail. They said there were no quail on public land. The only coveys were on private ranchland with flowing water, and I wouldn’t be granted access to them. They said the ranchers were protecting the birds as they were newly introduced. I turned around and followed them back the way I came. It was a full day in and out of this range.
At dark, I was back on a spring that I had tried to find quail on a few days earlier. I had talked to a ranch hand who suggested I hunt it. He said he and his girlfriend had driven along the spring just a few days earlier and they’d seen 3-4 big, big coveys of quail from the two track. I hunted the spring that afternoon without moving any birds and again the following morning. 4 miles down one side and back on the other. Without seeing a single bird. I didn’t understand because it was some of the best valley quail habitat I’ve ever seen. In some places 30-40 yards of lumpy, brush and Russian olive choked hell. The kind of cover you’d have to hunt with a small flusher because a guy could never get to a pointer in that stuff. But still no birds.
I was determined to give this area one more try so I spent the night. By morning, a couple inches of fresh snow had fallen. And I was starting my hunt a few miles downstream from where I’d previously hunted. None of those factors seemed to matter. In many miles down and back, we saw a total of 0 birds. Came across a few quail tracks in three different areas, but the coveys appeared to be very small. Like single digit small. They always lead into semi-frozen marshy areas that I wasn’t about to follow the dogs into.
Back at my rig by mid-afternoon, I realized that not only did we not flush a single bird, but neither had I seen a single spent shotshell along the two-track paralleling the creek. All I can figure is that someone went to great pains policing empties so as not to draw the attention of other hunters, and the quail were shot out, or the ranch hand lied and I had no idea what good valley quail cover looked like. I’m either a slow learner or overly confident in my ability to judge bird cover. I’ll hunt this cover again, only earlier in the season, as I just can’t believe there aren’t quail there somewhere.
Back to Idaho. With Chaos in the rig, I took Mayhem, to a draw with willows and brush where the mountains met the desert. Even whimpy trees and brush indicate that there’s sometimes water present. After a week of hunting Oregon and bordering Idaho I had learned that all coveys: quail, chukar and huns, were sparcely populated with old birds when there was no surface water. I’m talking less than a half dozen larger birds and maybe coveys of a dozen quail. The kind of numbers you really don’t want to deplete. But near flowing springs, I could shoot without guilt.
I’d never hunted within 100 miles of this range before. There was a fresh 5” of powdery snow that would at worst reveal if there were birds in the area. My intention was to hunt this for an hour or two and if birdless, head to a pocket in Nevada that had been spared most of the ever present drought.
Let me tell you, when you park your rig, what looks like a ¼ mile from the hunt, it’s really nearer ¾ of a mile. Something to do with clean, crisp mountain air. Maybe it’s just me, but everything looks clearer and nearer out west than it does in the Midwest. And what looks like a leisurely stroll to the foot of the mountain is really all up hill. Just slightly less uphill than the Christmas card like scene where rocks the size of small cars have crumbled from cliffs the height of skyscrapers. An idyllic scene to view but traversing through the jumble of big rocks covering loose rocks and with the only flat spaces occupied by waist-high, gnarly, sage brush it’s no wonder that my once pristine Wingmaster looks like it was recently engraved and checkered with a center punch and pecking hammer. Somewhat similar to my best work.
Maybe and me were about 75 yards from a thicket where a spring flowed through a cut. I don’t know how else to describe the terrain. These cuts are really separations between mountains. Not deep or long enough to be a canyon. Certainly not gullies in the mid-western sense. These cuts are very steep and begin or end, depending on your perspective, at the top of a mountain.
At what sounded like 100 yards to our right, I heard a covey flush. Definitely not quail, but I couldn’t see them flying through the rocks. I can’t tell Huns from chucker at that range which was another surprising reality for me when I first hunted chukar in Nevada. I don’t game farm hunt so I’d never seen a chukar other than in pictures, but I thought they were a larger bird than they are. I pictured something the size of a mid-western ruffed grouse. I say mid-western, because those ruffs, like I grew up hunting in Iowa, are much larger than northern ruffed grouse. Anyway, I could tell by the sound of the flush that the birds were flying away from our direction and they sounded like they were staying low on the mountain. I made a mental note to hunt that lower edge of the mountain before returning to the truck. Just as we topped a small rise to see the full thicket there was a roar of birds flushing and static flushes higher up the cut. Some as near as 35 yards and out to 75. They were chukar and they weren’t flying far. There was a steep bench about 100 feet up the side that they definitely didn’t fly over and it was a sheer wall that they couldn’t run up. I knew I was going to get some shooting.
Now, this was my third or fourth day of the trip and I still wasn’t in western shape. Hell, I don’t work construction, lift weights or run like I used to, so it would have been generous to say I was in bowling shape. Yeah, that’s it, nothing to do with my age, I was suffering from exhaustion due to neglect. I stopped to catch my breath three times just getting to the steep stuff. The “walk” to the mountain from my truck had appeared to be mostly flat, but nothing is mostly flat in that country.
There was no way I was going to chance an off-hand shot at this flush. As I said, these birds were hemmed in and I was expecting close flushes of chukar without having to climb 2.000 feet. The advance to the birds was very steep, rock strewn and choked with gnarly sage brush in between the rocks. All covered in powdery snow.
There was another group of chukar sounding off from the opposite side of the cut and I didn’t want to mix these birds with those. That over there was really steep with hardly any brush for the birds to hold in. I wanted to push these near birds, toward the earlier flushing covey. Lots of rocks and sage for the singles to hide in.
Little Maybe was ecstatic. I’d shot quail and Huns over her the past few days and she was shagging along with Chaos when I killed a double on chukar in Oregon, the day before. But all those birds were in small coveys and Chaos wasn’t about to let this rascal worm in on a retrieve. So with about a dozen birds in the bag, little Maybe had one retrieve.
Before we could outflank the covey, Maybe flushed a single uphill and to my left. I hit it hard, which was a comfort for her first retrieve. Maybe bounded over rocks and sage kicking clouds of snow in her wake, right to the dead bird. Just as she popped out with her prize, a pair of birds flushed above her and whipped around the far end of the rock wall. That was ok, there were still plenty more to be rooted out. Maybe was dashing back and forth through the rubble, dislodging two more chukar that I could see hopping through the cover up toward the wall.
If you listened to my account of Woogies first retrieve many years ago in North Dakota, you can appreciate the similarity I endured. If not, you can find it in my Sharptails and Huns Combination Limit podcast. It’s just too painful for me to re-address it here.
Maybe was dashing back and forth like a windshield wiper. Not really teasing me, as I’m sure she intended to just keep this bird for herself. Come to think of it, I guess that’s what teasing is. When she swung clear to my left, a single chukar flushed to my right and fairly close. I had my right foot up on a rock and my left wedged between two rocks to keep my balance. As I swung on the bird, my right foot slid off the rock. I still had the bead on the bird’s beak but I knew it wouldn’t be for long. My legs were slipping further apart pulling my barrel down. I pulled the trigger before it was too late, but it was still too early. If I didn’t pull the trigger now, I wouldn’t get a shot off at all, but if I did shoot, there might be just a mess to clean up. There was a stream of feathers trailing behind the bird as it crashed into a clump of sage fifteen yards away. I turned toward Maybe but she was already half way to bird #2…..without bird #1. Oh crap is a mild way to express my dismay. I had no idea where she’d left that bird. Anytime your hunting just below a rock escarpment, there’s a jumble of big and small rocks that gravity intended to pull all the way down the slope, but their progress was interrupted by tenacious clumps of sage and other rocks. The likelihood that a dropped bird will fall into an unseen crevice, is proportionate to your desire to not lose that precious bird, that you drove more than 20 hours to procure.
This was little consequence to Maybe, who’s only thought was she was finished with the old dead bird, when a fresh new bird hit the ground. She crashed into the brush almost as hard as the bird. Once she shook the snow off, a few more chukar flushed far to the right where they only had to fly a few feet to be around the bend. Little Maybe was so confused by all the action that she absently dropped #2 at my feet and took off toward the last flushing birds. She didn’t make it far when another single flushed and I dropped it about ten yards in front of her. (Don’t start questioning my recollection of misses, just yet. There are a lot of them forthcoming.) Besides, these flushes were uphill and chukar without the boost from gravity, aren’t particularly strong fliers.
I saw her drop bird number 3 in a small opening as she began that puppy frenzy believing there must be a bird under every rock. Flushes had slowed a bit so I coaxed her back to the last place I saw her before I shot bird number 2. We had to find that 1st bird, before following up on the rest of the covey.
Well, it didn’t work out that way. After about 15 minutes of searching I knew that if we didn’t get after the remainder of the covey, they’d be grouped back up and heading up the mountain. Besides, it wasn’t like the lost bird was going anywhere. I would stop back when we ran out of new birds and was certain that we’d find it. If Maybe couldn’t, Chaos was only a half mile away in the truck and she would be glad to return and clean up after the pup.
We didn’t make it another 10 yards when a pair of chukar flushed out front. They only had to make it a few feet too disappear behind the edge of the mountain. I pulled on the last bird and dropped a leg at my shot. There wasn’t a chance for a follow-up and I was only slightly hopeful we would stumble on it around the corner. Just a few more inches of lead and I would have killed that bird.
Now I tried really hard to pick up my empties. Did I mention that the temp was 5 degrees when we left the truck? I had to take my gloves off to reload and trying to feel around in the snow for ejected shells, had my fingers about numb. This is just a prelude to explain that Maybe flushed another single within sight of all our earlier ruckus. A straight-away, eye level, lumbering chukar and I couldn’t feel my safety or trigger. I had my fingers curled in the palm of my glove trying to warm them, which further slowed the process.
At this point I was a little hopeful that we’d find the crippled chukar, putting us at 4. This gimme presented an opportunity at #5 toward an 8 bird limit on Maybe’s maiden chukar hunt. And it was still early. I understand that most chukar hunters would have just started to climb by 9:30 in the morning and we should have been over halfway to a limit. But we weren’t. I yanked my whole hand against the safety and trigger but without the dexterity of a single finger the gun didn’t go bang.
Fortunately all the chukar we had moved rounded the mountain side in the direction of the first wild flushing covey. There would be a lot of chukar in the next few hundred yards. And with a series of rock walls along the side of the mountain, at least some should flush in range.
The fresh snow was littered with chukar tracks. They cut the snow like outlines of jig saw puzzle pieces. Too many and in all directions to guess where they might be. I really expected to flush a few singles, but we hunted almost 200 yards without seeing or hearing a bird. We were working between two rock cliffs about 500 feet from the base when I heard chukar calling just below us. They were probably answering those annoying chukar on the opposite mountain. I tried to climb to the top of their cliff but the rocks were very large. The problem with navigating very large rocks is they have big gaps between them. Leg swallowing gaps. I passed my gun ahead of me and finally gained to where I could peer over the top with enough footing that I’d take a chance shot, when the birds shut up. Little Maybe was trying hard to climb with me but she just couldn’t make it. When the birds didn’t flush after a few seconds I thought better of our predicament and climbed down. This was my first of three real falls. I tripped on something under the snow and went down face first. I’ve learned to fall gracefully over the years, with the exception of giving my gun a toss in the least offensive direction. I did bang my left elbow, but my Wingmaster suffered slightly worse. I knew it wouldn’t survive our maiden chukar hunt without receiving some blemishes so the scratches to the stock and forearm were only granted a shrug from me.
I would have to navigate around the end of the cliff and wasn’t expecting a shot opportunity. I was thankful that Maybe was working off to my left. At least she wouldn’t bust the birds before I could see them. I was just around the edge of the small cliff ready to take a few quick steps down hill in the hopes of getting a shot, when Maybe flushed a second group 20 yards away. There were about a dozen birds all heading around the next jumble of rocks. I think I shot 3 times. I’m not sure because I did jack out one live round that wouldn’t chamber. But I only hit one bird. Amidst the flurry, the chukar that I’d been maneuvering toward flushed as well. I glanced a few times behind my back to see if I could get a shot, but they were just a second or two between a flush and being out of sight.
There was a lot of waist-high, snow covered sage here so it was tough to see Maybe. I made it to a pile of feathers where the bird hit the ground and then saw Maybe 10 yards further bouncing in the snow. I didn’t think the cripple would move that far when there was a likely hiding place every foot or so. I just stood my ground watching Maybe. Soon, she pushed the cripple above the cover and it fluttered back down a few feet in front of her. Maybe didn’t know what to make of this. She’d never seen a training dummy go air borne again once it fell. After just a moment of trying to spot the bird in the air, she dashed forward and was obviously trailing it again. The bird flutter flushed two more times before she was able to pounce on it. By now Maybe wasn’t nearly as keen on keeping her birds as she was on finding more. It was less than a minute before I had the bird dispatched and in my coat.
I decided it was time to renew our search for her dropped bird and then head to the truck. I don’t think we were ever more than a ½ mile from my rig and poor Chaos was probably going bonkers with all the shooting. In the past 3 years since we buried Bo, Chaos had never been left behind when shooting was being done.
As it turned out navigating that 200 yards was a difficult journey for the quickly, aging Wingmaster. We tumbled together two more times. The first would have been the most personally embarassing if there’d been an audience. I rolled down the mountain like a felled, old growth cedar log, bouncing over rocks. My pockets spewed shotshells and water bottles like bark and chunks of sap wood. I caught faint glimpses of blue sky between partial blackouts, hoping that I’d hit a rock large enough to halt my increasing momentum. If I didn’t stop soon, I’d be in worse shape than the chukar in my game bag. Little Maybe was probably wondering what kind of game I was playing.
When I finally got to my feet I saw that my wake looked like a skidder trail. I’m surprised I haven’t received a reclamation bill from the forest service.
My ribs and now my right elbow hurt, but at least I’d tossed my gun free. Upon retrieval, she was possibly a little worse for the experience than I. What had appeared to be a fluffy patch of snow was in fact a small skiff of snow covering a scarred chunk of granite. There were gouges in the receiver and a couple of dings in the barrel that’ll require a pint of Bondo to level out. One morning of chukar hunting applied 40 years of ruffed grouse hunting patina to my once pristine Wingmaster. Now she looked like an aged sister of my old Weatherby and Superposed.
I advise, that if any of you ever go chukar hunting, and are even remotely proud of the care you give your bird gun, borrow a gun from your least favorite buddy. You know, that guy who borrows your tools and either never returns them or complains that your tool broke so he had to replace it. Now instead of a Hilti hammer drill or Milwaukee Sawzall, you’re the shamed owner of something from the Universal Tool Co. that sponsors infomercials on late night tv. Borrow a gun from that guy.
The last fall came at the termination of another 10-15 minutes wasted clamoring over brush and rocks searching for the abandoned 1st chukar. It would have been nice if Maybe shared in the effort rather than being hell bent on extracting a bird from my coat. By the third time I’d kissed the ground, the mountain had taken my earlier fanciful notions of a coat full of chukar along with it’s pound of flesh. It was to the point where I thought I should just save myself and head back to the rig. Time to kennel up the pup and bring a serious dog to the search.
When I was halfway to my rig, 2 trucks stopped. They were a couple of bird hunters waiting to chat. I had a hold of Maybe as at home she was fairly congenial around strangers, but after a few days in the wild it was obvious her obedience was in need of correction. The guys were great and asked that I just let her go. They loved dogs and especially pups. They said they’d overnighted in Nevada pouring over maps before deciding this was the exact cut they were going to hunt this morning. They said they drove for 12 miles along the mountain range and hadn’t seen a single vehicle. But when they arrived here, there was a van from Iowa. What were the odds? They asked if I’d hunted here in the past. I said no, I arrived late the day before and after paralleling the range for a few miles decided this was where I’d start. It was obvious I had birds in my coat and they asked how I did. Told them I shot 4 and the pup left a dead bird back there somewhere. I was going to return with my older dog to find it. They said they thought I’d already had a great day and decided to move a few miles down the ridge so as not to interfere with me. We wished each other luck and I headed back in with Chaos.
When we got to where I thought Maybe had dropped the bird, I sent Chaos in and in less than a minute she was out with the bird. Now I could relax knowing nothing but dents and bruises had tarnished the day.
Chaos flushed a covey of about 10 chukar just out of range, as we climbed the cut to get even with the elevation of the opposite mountain, where I’d heard the other birds talking back. We spent the rest of the afternoon making three over and back passes along that slope seeing fresh chukar tracks everywhere, but never moved a bird.
I passed the other guys on my way to camp just as they were exiting their vehicle for a last climb. They said they’d moved a covey of Huns and another of chukar but didn’t have a bird. When I told them Chaos found that dropped bird they were happy for me and repeated I’d had a great day. I told them that from media posts I though a great day was a limit of birds. They laughed and said, don’t believe all the media posts. Any time a guy shoots four chukar in a day is a great day.
Last summer I decided it was time to retire my old Superposed and find a replacement. That Superposed was used when I bought it in the early ‘80’s and I put a lot of shells and tough miles on her in the last 40 years. The action had grown so loose that when I cracked the barrels they dropped open like a hangman’s trap door. I feared a blood letting whenever my left hand was too close to the hinge point. The small pieces of flesh she chopped off on the skeet field was attracting flys and buzzards, so managers requested that I get her tightened up or retire her. If I can get her tightened without any aesthetic alteration of her hard earned patina, I will. But it seems that gunsmiths insist on re-blueing after action and barrel work, and I don’t want that. I’m proud of the torture we’ve shared molding her looks, so I’d rather not shoot her again, than cover those memories.
I soon realized why I chose a Weatherby Patrician pump shotgun in 1974. Way back, I was looking for an upgrade from the first new shotgun I’d owned, a Mossberg 500C. I know what you’re thinking….a length of steel pipe taped to a hammer handle, would be an aesthetic upgrade to a Mossberg. But come on, I was a teenage kid without any adult or peer guidance in the field of firearms. You know the age, when anything “new” was better than the hand me down “olds” I was accustomed to. With guidance I’m fairly certain I would have chosen a Model 12 or with futuristic insights, I would have waited a few years for a Browning BPS. I always thought Browning was cute with naming their models. “Hey, whatawe call our pump gun? Oh I don’t know why not give it an acronym B for Browning, P for Pump, and S for shotgun?” I wonder if their marketing director dropped his mic when unveiling to his board of directors.
Instead my only comparison was between the Wingmaster and the Weatherby. Now I accidently purchased a used Weatherby Mark XXII from an old gun crank in 1970. It was made in Italy with a rock maple stock. I call it rock maple, but I’m not certain. It has beautiful fiddleback shadowing and basketweave checkering.
A highschool friend called to tell me it was listed in the want ads, and I should hurry, if I could afford it. $125 with a hard plastic metal framed luggage case. I showed the guy that my tight little wad of cash only measured $100, but he just smiled at my innocence. “I like you son, and I know you’ll enjoy this gun, but It’s worth every penny of the $125”. I’ll hold it for you for a week if that’s enough time for you to make another $25. He did, it was, and I’ve had that fine gun, for more than 50 years.
So I did know a little about quality in guns and I majored in wood shop throughout highschool so I knew beautiful wood and seemless fitting when I saw it. I could also appreciate sharp, crisp hand checkering as opposed to a stamped caricature of French twist applied with a piece of wrought iron between a couple of hand c clamps. Yeah, I’m talking about the Remington Wingmaster.
Yes, the Weatherby did have an aluminum receiver, but that was necessary to offset the added weight of the highly figured walnut. The flaired pistol grip, sporting a rosewood cap with diamond inlay instead of the cheap plastic washer finishing the abbreviated pistol grip of the Wingmaster. There was also a need to compensate for the added weight of the extended wood forearm that covered the magazine cap. Yeah, the Weatherby Patrician was a bulky, heavy, gun, but it dam sure was and still is pretty. It was advertised for having the shortest stroke of any pump gun. Mine was fast enough that I had fellow shooters say they couldn’t see my left hand move when I shot doubles. I wore the action till the forearm would drop to the stop when I leaned it in the rack at the skeet field.
The two friends that hunted ruffed grouse with me back then each purchased the Weatherby Centurian semi-auto. But being more traders than owners they soon moved on to more expensive guns. To this day, each of them regret selling their Weatherby’s.
I liked mine so well, that I salvaged the remnants of my initial purchase to supplement a newer, used version, my wife bought for me 15 years ago. Unfortunately the internal organs weren’t interchangeable without suffering a premature fate with my grinder and files, so they’re both cabinet queens today. As you know, I’ve spent a great many years, during and after, killing birds with my old Superposed. Well, just last summer, I officially retired her to the cabinet and traded in my sweet Model 12 20 gauge for a……good god, what is it!..... a Wingmaster!!
I know there are a boatload of Wingmaster devotees out there scoffing at me right now. That’s ok. I understand that they haven’t found it necessary to perform the level of surgery on their Wingmasters as I have the Patrician. But I’ve always made allowances for good looks over longevity in more than the field of firearms.
I probably shot 50 rounds of wobble trap with the Wingy last summer and it was the only gun I shot last bird season. I don’t shoot it great, barely well, but I’m determined to work out the quirks between the actual and my desired performance, this summer.
This is Randy with My Dog Hunts Podcast. If any of your friends ask who you’re listening to….please speak kindly of My Dog Hunts.
.