Worth Your Salt

by Karl DeHart

The snow was starting to come down heavy and it was driven by a strong wind. We were still 10 miles from where I wanted to start hunting and the weather wasn’t showing any sign of letting up. It was the worst kind of snow too, slushy. We kept driving into the hills and the snow became less slushy but remained heavy and wind-driven. With my thoughts racing I kept looking in my rearview mirror at the truck following me, wondering what was going through the minds of Chuck and James. I had not hunted with these two before and naturally I was wondering if the inclement weather was going to discourage them (hunters speak for: send them running home with their tails between their legs). But the headlights didn’t flash and the truck moved through potholes and around ruts with a slow ease, the person driving has spent many hours on back roads, a good sign.

We finally arrived at the stop to drop off my truck. I jumped out and I am hit in the face with a scattered shot of snowflakes. My first thought is hopefully this will make the birds hold tight. I turn to walk back to James’ truck. James and Chuck are raring to go, there were no furrowed brows looking out at the wind and snow. After we discussed the plan of attack they jumped out to get ready and they were moving with more purpose then I was. I gathered my things and then loaded Zealot up and we moved up the road.

I had decided to take them out for Hungarian partridge in an area I’ve gotten some grand shooting this year. And of course, the minute you plan something like that the weather turns bad, as did my shooting. We weren’t 200 yards from the truck when Chuck hollers over that some quail flushed from the sagebrush knoll ahead of us into the shrub-laden ravine. I’m the closest to the thickets and see Z disappear into the tangle of shrubs. This is when the quail start popping out, one at a time, a few seconds apart, and each seeming to head in its own direction. This is wingshooting at its finest; but notice I didn’t say it was my shooting at its finest. Four or five shots later and only one quail flutters and drops into the thickets. I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t want to turn around to look at James or Chuck for fear they may be rolling on the ground laughing. My thoughts are racing again but this time thinking that they must be wondering if I was worth my salt. The worst part was we couldn’t get to the quail buried deep in the trunks of the shrubs.

We continued moving uphill to the tops of the series of drainages which I wanted to hunt one after another south to my truck. We had started to side-hill into the wind and Z quickly gets birdie and soon goes on point. We move into the sage and tall grass directly in front of her, nothing. I look for tracks or droppings and don’t see any so I call out to her to relocate. She moves ahead 50 yards purposefully and focused, I know there are birds ahead somewhere. She creeps into another point 20 yards from a narrow line of sage.

I proudly look over at my pup standing on point, head high; at least they will see Z is worth her salt (and then some). The wind is still pelting us with the snow and as Z stands there I notice the snow starting to highlight the edges of her ears, eyelashes, front legs, and head. I wish I would have taken the camera out and gotten that picture. James was positioned above me and Chuck a little further up. I don’t remember if anyone else got any shooting but as the covey of huns rose I redeemed my earlier shooting by dropping a double. Little did I know those would be the only birds I would harvest all day.

We moved back uphill to try and find an earlier covey of huns that had flushed wild far ahead of us. As I crested the top of the hill I see Z just before she disappears over a small knoll working down the rocky ridgeline. She was working towards Chuck this time and I yelled out to him that she was on birds. I doubt he heard me because only moment’s later shots rang out and a covey of huns soared high above me flying hard and fast downwind. Chuck got his first bird of the day over a point and from his description he was looking through the wet spots on his glasses picking out a bird from a flickering image.

We continued up again and seemed to run out of birds. We hit some nice looking areas; drainages, heavy cover, leeward sides of the slopes, open cover, rocky areas, and ridgelines. Nothing. At this point James decides to follow his gut instincts and head downhill again towards the sage at the bottom of the hill. Z was busy working down to some birds at the intersection of two drainages but they flushed wild before I could there. Chuck, Z and I turned to follow James but not to closely. James seemed to have decided when he woke that morning to find the most difficult path to get just about everywhere. If it weren’t for the muffled curses I thought I was hearing I would have concluded he liked crossing snow-covered boulders and bushwhacking through dense willow along creek bottoms.

As James was making his way over the above slippery boulder-crossing Z goes on point, his gut was right. Again she’s holding her head high and I’m thinking the birds are either running or a ways ahead of her and this makes me anxious to get there. She holds this point for a long time while I wait hoping to get James and Chuck in on the birds, but the walking is just too precarious for them to safely get there in relatively short order. Finally my nerves break and I move in and flush a small covey of huns, which gets up just at the edge of shooting range. Nothing tumbles from the flight of the birds, missed again.

By this time James had moved down into the sage and was paralleling Chuck and me as we moved to find the covey that just flushed. Chuck went high to cut off the birds; I figured they would be running up the drainage they flushed into. This worked out perfectly for Chuck. As he walked up to the drainage he called out that Z was on point again. I moved up but stopped short to watch as Chuck moved in on the point. It was a perfect setup, Z held, the birds held tight, and then…Chuck missed! For a second time that day I thought I heard some muffled curses.

In the end we saw five covey rises, covered lots of different terrain, hunted in driving snow, slipped over countless snow-covered boulders, watched a mole snowplow through fresh snow, and brought out four huns. Earlier in the truck James and I talked for a brief moment agreeing that it’s difficult to find people you feel comfortable hunting with. I hope Chuck and James walked out thinking the same thing I was…already planning a return trip next year with these guys on a day without the snow-covered boulders! It was a good day fellas, thanks for the hunt and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Notice the Upland Idaho Cucking Fhukar! caps, thanks for the support guys.

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