August 22, 2003

Highland Trail, Boise Front

I took a hike on the Boise Front last night to run Z and work her on quail. I saw a dozen or so Dove and one family covey of Quail. I just may end up here opening morning chasing dove, I had a half dozen “shots” last night. Z continues to impress me. She is finding birds and pointing like a champ…well, ok, like an amateur that is trying really hard! This area had a fire on the west side of Highland and Cobb Trails, in late June or early July I think. Also, the north side and some to the east at higher elevations on Highland Trail were burnt. The burnt area has been restricted for use until the vegetation greens back up. There was no water in the ravines along Highland Valley trail, but it did hold patches of Willow. The area is 10 minutes from my house, the trail is well maintained, and there are a few birds around. I have seen a few cyclist but very few other hikers or people working their dogs.

August 25, 2003

Highland Valley and Shaw Mtn Roads

ONE WEEK!!! HURRAY! Ok, maybe I’m a little obsessed. But I am truly looking forward to this fall of hiking, camping, fishing and hunting. Sunday afternoon I drove up Highland Valley road and then up Shaw Mountain road. I took Shaw Mtn rd. about half way up to the peak and hiked around working Z. We found one covey of quail along road 8. I saw several dove down low at the beginning of Highland Valley and a couple more along road 8. Sunflower patches and along power lines seem to be good places to find the doves.

September 1, 2003

Opening Day of Dove and Grouse

Wow, what a great day…my legs are tired!! I spent opening morning and evening chasing doves in the Boise foothills and a little time in the afternoon looking for grouse around Bogus Basin. Being Labor Day, Bogus was packed with hikers, hunters, and Sunday drivers! Needless to say I didn’t stay long up high and I didn’t see a single grouse…but dove hunting was a different story.

I woke early and was sitting on a knoll waiting for the sun to come up and the birds to start flying … as you saw the sunrise was fantastic. The dove didn’t start to move until 7:30-8. It was really windy for the first couple hours and made for some interesting shooting. Dove are fast birds but with a 15-20 mile/hour tailwind they can whistle past you before you even think about raising your gun…and a bunch of them did this to me.

The first dove of the day was a great opportunity…the stage was set perfectly for me to open my game bag and let it fly in, but overconfidence ruins many plans. I was walking into the wind when I noticed a dove working hard and more importantly slowly towards me, but down hill a ways. I’m thinking…Awesome…first bird is going to be an easy one, I wonder how Z is going to react, will she retrieve, ok get ready, gun up, geezzz gun down arms are tired, wow it’s turning right towards me, where is Z?, my nose itches…as slow as the this bird was flying I really had all these thoughts!! Finally my gun was up tracking the bird, don’t aim just point, let your left hand lead, move all the way through the shot…BANG! BANG!….WHAT THE *()&*&%^^*%* BANG! Ok I could have refrained from the third shot…the bird was in Oregon by then! Z was about 50 yards down range, where she obviously expected the bird to be…I just turned and started walking head down. But I did redeem myself. Hard hiking and improved shooting paid off with 9 dove in the bag and only one unfound to feed the coyotes…Z has some new retrieving training, starting tonight!

September 3, 2003

Up High

I left work at 6 and still was able to get 2 hours of good hunting in. At the end of the evening I was cleaning my limit of dove, 10 birds. Talk about some great shooting and a fun way to polish up my shooting technique on live birds. 13 shots and 10 birds, that’s not bad if I do say so myself; and several difficult crossing shots…and no those weren’t necessarily the 3 missed birds! I hiked high in the foothills and found doves in large groups in little hillside depressions, much like where I would expect to find Huns. I probably saw 100-150 birds. The birds were mostly on the ground feeding in these depressions; all but one of the doves had at least ½ full crops. So my shooting consisted of flushing shots when I could keep Zealot close and passing shots when she was ahead. Z is having lots of fun, has learned the dead birds are downrange of the gun, but has lots to learn…heck this was only her second real hunt. I had a bird down and called out “dead bird”, her new favorite words. She raced over to the area the bird was lying and immediately locked up on point, I had to laugh, she didn’t see the bird on the ground but it was honestly 6 inches directly under her nose. If she had been panting at the time her tongue would have touched the downed bird. I said dead bird again and she raced ahead completely unaware of how close she was…she’s just so excited she can’t slow down long enough to figure things out. What will be interesting is to see how much different her behavior is at the end of the season. This morning was dove and eggs again, dang.

September 6, 2003

Hunting with Patrick

I took a friend up to chase doves late Saturday, 6:30-8:30, for his first hunt of the year. We ended up with 5 doves and got a lot of difficult shooting in. The birds are definitely becoming more skittish. We had a hard time getting as close as I was getting before. There seemed to be fewer birds on the hillside. I topped out on the ridgeline and we found birds from the bottom to the top.