On the Cold Trail with Tater ( guest writer, Birdy Balaku )

This gamebird pictured here is a Chukar, aka the red-legged partridge. He is considered to be a very worthy adversary for those that are drawn to hunting this gamebird and was a primary focus of my hunting trips this season. This particular bird I shot wasn't killed cleanly and Tater made a nice retrieve to pick up this cripple that kept fluttering down the ridge. Often times while hunting chukar, you are starting at the bottom of a canyon and have to do what we chukar hunters often refer to as "the death march" to the elevation of where the birds are. Chukar like to run uphill and then escape flying downhill and hooking around a finger or ridge. That is why a lot of pictures I take of Tater are above me, and often times she is checking scent that is being carried by the thermals. Ok, the real reason is because my cardio isn't exactly the best and I'm lagging behind drawing deep breaths trying not to puke my breakfast up.

Here are a couple of buddies from Oregon and Idaho suiting up for our ascent. We had spent approximately two months trying to coordinate a trip together, nasty snowstorms being the main culprit of canceled trips. In January we were finally able to hook up, but I literally was scanning the news and DOT till the last minute. I had everything ready to go, all I had to do was load Tater up and off we would go. But there happened to be major flooding two days before I was to leave and I was landlocked due to mudslides, avalanche danger, and flooded interstate highways. I spent a Friday morning scanning and updating my buddy in Oregon who I was going to carpool over with before an alternative route finally opened up. Yes! We were on our way!

One of my buddies wives put it best" He must have really wanted to go hunting this weekend."

This is the beautiful Snake River canyon covered in a blanket of snow. But there aren't any birds here! :)

Tater and I are taking a break while my buddies work their way over to us. She wasn't happy about having to sit on the cold ground for this picture.

The few times I've tried, the pictures I take don't depict the severity of the slopes that we're on. Looks like a nice bowl as my buddy descends and the fog is starting to roll up. One strategy with multiple hunters is to parallel around the ridge at different elevations.

So this is Tater and I looking back on our 3rd hunting season together. We were able to get out quite a bit this year and discover new areas and visit with friends from out of state, heck, I even managed to scratch a few birds down this year! This post already has me excited and looking forward for the upcoming season!