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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:12 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 16 Jul 2015
Posts: 2124
Location: Hudson,Wy

I imagine a couple of folks think I dropped off the face of the earth, but nope, not quite anyway. I basically went hunting for the past 5 1/2 months. Not every day, but mighty close. I have felt a tinge of guilt, not coming on here and participating more. The truth be known, it's mostly a photo thing. It takes a lot of time to upload to a host site, choose the proper size, transfer the pic over here, etc. when you tend to use plenty of photos. The flip side of that coin is that now, everybody gets a whole gallery of them.

It has been a great season. Of course, when I really think about it, they all are. Hunting here was spotty for most species, thus I put in plenty of windshield time and hiked a mountain of miles in search of feathered game and the soul stirring encounters that they and their habitats provide. I found what I was looking for.

There were road trips to Nevada, New Mexico, and North Dakota. Sort of an "N" theme there, unintentional though. Sometimes I slept in my camper and other times I slept in the back of my gas saver 2wd Ranger.

My season began with Himalayan snowcock and blue grouse in Nevada. That ended rather well and I nearly returned for a second round in October. I cancelled that when the young fella I was supposed to meet out there gave up after his first day due to snow depth up high. I guess he will have to make that an 8 year attempt instead of 7.

The season was also filled with grouse: sage, blue, ruffed, and sharptail. The grouse as always, added their own unique flavor the aura of what it is to hunt wild birds.

Chukars proved a mainstay during much of the winter and huns proved to be more of a rare treat. There was the one day that I came home with 5 chukars and only 3 empty hulls. Sometimes you get lucky and several line up on the rise and you actually see it coming.

Through a lot of hard work and being adaptable in my hunting tactics, I found ways to find a lot of good shooting on pheasants in North Dakota in spite of unharvested corn that turns pheasant hunting into a game of "Wac-a-Mole" with a shotgun. There were enough alternatives to largely avoid that issue. A few cherished local wild roosters here in Wyoming also ended up in the game bag.

During the short time I owned the Baker 16 ga. I took it out for snipe numerous times and one day shot a personal best of 8 snipe in 10 shots. I never dreamed it possible. The next day my average caught up to me and everything at the marsh edge went back to normal. This was the first season in a long time I gave snipe the attention they deserved.

Of course snipe and duck hunting go hand in hand since I find them in the same backwaters, so most of these were combo hunts. I expected to hunt ducks more than I did, but have no regrets. Most of my ducks fell to either the 16 ga. Baker or the 16 ga. 00 Smith, both fairly open choked guns.

The Smith claimed a few geese too. I will admit that most of my geese fell to a 12 ga. Leftover Nitro Special that I customized. The 10 ga. San Marco O/U came into play too. Even the Parker damascus 10 saw goose action. I hunted geese fairly seldom compared to normal, but devoted the last 7 days of season to hunting Canadas. A close friend and I closed out the season yesterday with a challenging hunt that went very well.

The season gave me plenty to ponder and the time to do it. I met some new friends and hunted with old ones. Mostly I just wandered the mountains, plains, prairies, and deserts with my dog Rusty when I wasn't guarding my decoys from the aerial assault of duck and geese. I used most of my guns from the 10 ga. pair on down to the 28 ga. I never got around to using the .410 for some reason or other. The 16's received the most "love" of course even if Rusty doesn't care which one I use, as long as he gets a mouth full of feathers afterward.

Not everything went as planned or turned out all rosy though. Dove hunting here was almost nonexistent. My plans to hunt mountain quail never quite developed. My ptarmigan hopes crashed when a major snow storm hit Utah. I felt no desire to hike 10-14 miles each way in deep snow. No prairie chicken hunt either. This is all good though, I know what to start planning for. The promise of future unknowns is a powerful motivator and helps channel a tiny bit of that post season energy.

There have been some magazine articles in F-F-G, American Waterfowler, and Shooting Sportsman. A "cast and blast" feature is coming in SS soon, not sure which issue yet.

The UpChukar Podcast had me on as a guest twice and recently I was also privileged to be a guest on Project Upland's podcast. I really had fun with those and there will be more in the future.

At this point, it's time to "return the quill to the inkwell" and just let everybody enjoy the photos that help show a very small portion of what defines an entire autumn and half of a winter out in the "peaceful big lonely".
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Last edited by WyoChukar on Mon Feb 17, 2020 9:25 pm; edited 2 times in total

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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:23 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 16 Jul 2015
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Location: Hudson,Wy

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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:30 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:40 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:46 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:52 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:58 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:03 pm  Reply with quote



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skeettx
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:08 pm  Reply with quote
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WOW!!!!

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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:08 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:14 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:20 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:25 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:29 pm  Reply with quote



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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:35 pm  Reply with quote



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