My Opening Hunt

By Karl DeHart

The season had already been on for 4 days and I had yet to take a gun into the field.  At 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday September 4^th I woke in Maryland to start my trip back to Idaho.  The flight would take me to Salt Lake City, my brother and nephew picked me up and we headed to their place for a short visit with my family and then I was on the road to get back to Idaho.  I only had the next day to check in at work, take care of any brush fires there and then go home to prepare for my trip the morning of the 6^th for Atlanta.  Reflecting on the situation during the drive I couldn’t believe I was going to wait until the 11^th of September before I followed my pup into the field with a shotgun in my hand.

I was about an hour out of Boise when Travis called and asked about hunting the following day.  I knew I needed to go into work, pack and take care of the “life” before I left again for 5 days.  But, true to form I quickly relented and booked an early morning meeting to head out for some Ruffed grouse with Travis and Huntley.

My travels were not over for the night.  It was 9:30 p.m. and I had been traveling since 7 a.m. with the last 4 hours on the road.  I didn’t get to just stop in Boise and throw my head on the pillow.  My pup Zealot was in Nampa with Glenda.  I pulled into Boise at 10:30, dropped by the house, extracted unnecessary items out of the truck and replaced them with guns, boots, shells and other necessary hunting items…ya know the important stuff.  In short order I was on the road again heading over to Glenda’s.

I was up early to meet up with Travis.  I was pretty excited since it was day 5 of the season and it was my first hunt of the season.  I did the typical morning rituals of packing the lunch, protein breakfast for Zealot and over-stuffing the truck.  We meet up at the gas station on the Garrity exit. 

A couple funny things happen while we are fueling at the gas station.  The first thing was Travis’ new purchase of a hunting rig, an older model Jeep.  Being the smartass that I am, one of my first comments has something to do with it breaking down.  The other thing that happened was inside the store.  As I walked through the isles I picked up a couple candy bars, some soda and a bag of Doritos.  As I reached for the Doritos I realized I had just entered the hunting season “diet zone”, fast junk food.  I’m just not the kind of person to wake up 30 minutes early or go to bed 30 minutes later so I can prepare and pack a proper midday lunch.

We were finally both gassed up and ready to go.  I gave Travis one of my new 2-way radios and we were off to the races.  We had been traveling for about 20-30 minutes, just about to turn on Highway 55 off of State Street when this “feeling” came over me.  Maybe it was more of a sudden realization versus a feeling.  My shoulders slumped and I rolled my eyes while I said, “ahhh shit!” out loud.  I didn’t even look; I just reached back behind the seat and felt for…yep, you guessed it, no gun!  The next thing I had to do was even more disheartening; I radioed Travis with my news.  Being the good friend that he is he responded with something like, “Good move du*)&^(&(ss!!”.  Maybe he was still mad that I referred to his Jeep as an “Older Model”.

Now here is the funniest part about me not bringing my gun…flashback to earlier that morning…I was finally on my way out the door when Glenda asks, “Should I look for through the house for you?”  This is a question my friends and family ask when I leave their homes.  I have a reputation for leaving stuff behind.  But, as I walked to my truck caught up in my excitement to get on the road for the first hunt I said “nope, got everything” and got in the truck and drove off.  Yeah right I had everything!  I had even forgotten my camera and for those of you that know me that’s a pretty important item for all my hunts too.  I know what some of you are thinking…yes the dog was in the truck and probably only because Z doesn’t let me leave without her.

After a brief mental struggle my decision was to keep going…after all I intended to go to work for a few hours in the afternoon so we didn’t have time to go back and then get a decent hunt in.  I couldn’t believe it, my first upland trip of 2007 would be a spectator sport.  I resigned myself to my dilemma and luckily decided to be happy with it instead of bummed.

We had gotten as far as Horseshoe Bend and I had traveled only a little ways up the road to my Ruffed grouse spots when I noticed Travis wasn’t behind me.  I slowed a little and still no Travis, so I stopped.  No sooner had he come around the bend then he was slowing down and stopping.  He stopped for a minute and then started up the road again.  I think the common word for the situation was that I “jinxed” him back at the gas station by asking if the jeep was going to make it.  His rig was going for a ways and then dieing.  Starting back up wasn’t an issue but the progress was just about as non-cohesive to getting a good hunt in as me going back for my gun.  Luckily Travis is just as obsessed with bird hunting as I am.  He parked his rig, loaded up everything in mine and decided we’d deal with the trouble after the hunt.

The hunt was great, well as great as it could be as a spectator.  We got to the main drainage I wanted to hunt and put the dogs on the ground.  Huntley decided she needed to expend a little energy before hunting with us and headed off into the woods for 10 minutes.  While she was gone Z breaks into the first grouse.  There is just enough brush between Travis and I that he doesn’t see the bird head back the way we came.  Once Huntley was back we continued on through the brush. 

In all we saw 4 Ruffed grouse.  The highlights were a point from Z and then a point from Huntley.  Travis connected with both birds and so for my first day hunting in 2007 I got to watch Huntley point her first Ruffed grouse, Z point a grouse and Travis shoot his first Idaho Ruffed grouse.  I know I forgot my gun and camera but had I not done that maybe the hunt wouldn’t have turned out as enjoyable as it did.

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