Joined: 16 Jul 2015
Posts: 2126
Location: Hudson,Wy
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The first of my road trips was to Nevada for Himalayan snowcock and a few blue grouse. I also took a 2 wt fly rod along which turned out to be a good thing when day two became a day of rest due mostly to a "sock blowout" that gave me a whopper of a blister after a 17 mile day on day one. Day one was pretty special. Not only did I harvest a pair of snowcock, I had a mountain goat walk out right next to me while I was hiding 15 yards from a snowcock I was about to bag. How cool is that?
Over the course of the week I caught tiger trout, brook trout, and rainbow trout with the fly rod, all right where I camped. Blue grouse hunting was mediocre but a lot of fun. I enjoyed my snowcock dinners which also solved the possession limit issue so I could keep hunting those. Toward the end of the week Travis Warren (UpChukar Podcast) and Jay Beyer joined me. It was nice to have a couple friends show up.
The first day we hunted together, I shot two, but lost the second one when I mistook a separate bird for the one I shot after watching this other bird glide around a cliff. That was painful when I later realized that my bird had indeed fallen into a canyon, a 700 yard vertical drop onto the rocks below, with a broken wing. That night Jay said that he too had seen the wing break right in the middle. Birds don't glide in that condition. Ouch.
Things had unraveled on Jay and Travis during this day. They had three golden opportunities at good shooting range, but a string of unbelievably bad luck left them empty handed. We plan on another meeting next season to remedy that.
I learned many new things about these birds, things that will change how we hunt them. I cracked the code on what they eat and many interesting and predictable habits. I also hunted all week without binoculars, which is unheard of. Rusty really proved his worth, giving advance warning all three times we ambushed snowcock on that day we hunted together. A dog that will hunt from "heel" is very valuable indeed, as is the retrieving aspect.
Of course, bird #3 of the adventure fell 500 feet, out of sight. I hoped Rusty would find him once we finally climbed down and around the massive rock outcropping. Unfortunately, the bird fell on a shelf...somewhere. I played rock climber for a long, tense journey back up a chute, above which I had folded the bird at maybe 20 yards with the skeet barrel of the Cogswell 16.
This yielded nothing. Once back at the bottom...again, a lone feather drifted overhead from sixty feet up. Oh boy, scary stuff. I made the climb and ran out of ledge. Hoping against hope, I climbed down to a ledge 30 feet below. At one point I pulled myself up another short ledge and there the bird was in front of my face! The bird was now stiff, but still warm and my underwear had survived the scariest retrieve of my life.
This is the first time I performed the retrieve on one of these birds instead of Rusty getting it. Bird #4 should have been his to retrieve but I, as already mentioned, lead him off the wrong direction thinking bird #4 was still alive further up the canyon.
Rusty did a good job finding me one last blue grouse the next day before I blew my chance at five snowcock by spooking some deer right through them. Oops! The following morning we recorded UpChukar Podcast episode #78 before heading back to our respective homes.
The weather during this late October/ early November foray was absolutely amazing in the high country, largely T-shirt weather for a guy like me. Never got rained on either. A big plus for a someone who wears glasses. Night temperatures however were cold and crisp. Hopefully next year's event will be as nice.
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Only catch snowflakes on your tongue AFTER the birds fly south for the winter... |
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