More Reasons to be Thankful

The weekend before last I kind of took a beating. I didn’t have very much time because of the new babies, but I still slipped out for a short hunt on Saturday and on Sunday. At the end of the weekend I only had a couple of birds to show for the effort, and considering the little bit of sleep that I have been able to get lately it hardly felt worth the effort. It was one of my slowest weekends of bird hunting ever, but I am not going to complain. That why it is called hunting.

This weekend things were very different. I was able to get out two days and was fortunate to find a huge amount of quail. Friday I was able to bag a limit of quail and 4 chukar. It was a great hunt and if I would have had more time I am sure that I could have finished up my chukar limit as well. On the drive home I made the easy decision to head back to the same spot to specifically hunt quail the next morning. We don't get a lot of good opportunity for quail in Northern Nevada, so I wanted to be sure to take advantage of it.

Early Saturday I was back to where I found the quail the day before, and it did not take long to locate them. Within an hour I had my limit, and I had two happy dogs. I also bagged one chukar, but only becasue he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, not because I was hunting for them. On the way back to my truck I ran into some Mountain Quail, but I did not shoot any. For the life of me I could not remember if the two Mountain Quail limit was in addition to the 10 Valley Quail limit, or if it contributed to the 10 quail limit. So, I decided to play it safe and leave them alone. There was no reason to be greedy, and because I wasn’t 100% sure of the regulations it was the right thing to do. I know they are there, so hopefully I can find them again in the future. As for the Valley Quail, there are plenty left, but I am going to leave them alone for a while. Maybe until we get some snow on the ground. I cant think of anything more fun than hunting quail in the snow.

Last weekend I had as much fun hunting as I have ever had. I am thankful for the opportunity.

Cash on Point

Porter on Point

Porter retrieving

Fridays Birds

Cash Retrieving

Saturdays Birds

A beautiful Valley Quail
Jay Kincaid

Ready for a Road Trip

I have spent the last few weeks staying really close to home, as my wife and I have two new little ones to look after. I have been able to sneak out with the dogs for a few hours at a time to get them some exercise, and maybe bag a few birds while we are at it. This has resulted in some surprisingly good days of hunting close to home, and also some days that were not so good. It’s no big deal either way, as the expectation isn’t very high. If the dogs get to run for a couple of hours and we can score some birds in the process, that is a good day. With that said, I am ready for a little bit of road time. I am not sure when this is going to happen, but I have a four day weekend coming up, so maybe it will happen soon…..

Below is a picture of Cash on point in the rocks. For some reason these Chukar wanted to be right in the middle of a fresh burn, despite the fact that there was good habitat in all directions surrounding the burn. This burn looked like the moon. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why they wanted to be there, as there certainly appeared to be much better options close by, but they did. Most chukar hunters will read this and assume that maybe the birds were there because there was green up in the burn. That’s the first question that I would ask. Chukar hunters know that desert game birds are obsessed by fresh green sprouts of grass. There was no green grass though, so who knows why, but them. Regardless that is where they were, and it was a challenge getting close to them.
Jay

Twins, Sleepless Nights, and…… Chukar

My wife had twins about a week and a half ago. A boy and a girl. In honesty I can say that it was the most amazing day of my life. It took six days but we all came home from the hospital together, happy and healthy. Now back at home I am getting caught back up on work and life in general. This has meant sleepless nights and a lot of learning, but it is all good. Did I mention sleepless night?

The dogs have reacted really well to the babies, as we assumed that they would. They are both very curios and they have both been very gentle. Porter likes to check the babies out, but does the majority of his observation from a distance, but each day is becoming more comfortable around them. Cash on the other hand is already trying to sleep right next to the babies and investigates with his nose as close to them as he can possibly be without actually touching them. We are obviously very happy with both dogs. My dogs are genuinely part of the family and that has never been truer than it is now.

Despite all of this baby business I have been able to sneak out a couple of times locally to run the dogs on some chukar. I have had a lot of fun hunting locally and have actually done pretty well considering the time constraints.

I had to bonk a rattle snake over the head with a big rock on Sunday. He was the most aggressive rattler that I have ever been around striking at me from a distance immediately. I was probably going to kill him regardless, but because of his bad attitude I enjoyed killing this one. I hoped that they would have gone to bed for the winter but apparently not. It seems like I am hearing stories of lots of snakes this year. I have been buzzed more than a couple of times myself and that is never fun. The dogs have avoided them so far and hopefully we can make it through another season without incident.

Below are a handful of hunting pictures from the last week.
Jay

Cash proudly retrieving. As he should be.

Porter putting in work.

Porter finding another one.

Cash with another fine retrieve, after another fine point.

More Questions than Answers

Some days, specifically hunting days, I am left with more questions than I am answers…..

How is it that 5 days in a row I can get out of bed the exact same way, but on the sixth day my dogs know immediately before I am even fully dressed that we are going hunting?

How is it that an hour in the field only feels like fifteen minutes?

How is it that an experienced dog can smell the difference between a live bird and a dead bird?

How can you see a covey of birds land in the sage brush 75 yards in front of you, but 2 minutes later they can vanish as if all along they were just a figment of your imagination?

How can a dog on the very worst hunt still run with the same high energy and optimism for hours on end, even if we haven’t seen a bird all day?

Why does Spam and Eggs taste like the greatest breakfast that you have ever had when camped out in bird country?

Why does a cold cheap beer taste so much better after a day in the field?

Why do I sometimes still see chukar tracks in the snow when I close my eyes at night?

When dogs dream, do they dream of chukar hunting?

Is whiskey really as necessary as it seems around a camp fire?

How can a crippled bird with 2 ½ inches long legs give a long legged hunting dog a run for its money in a foot race?

Jay

More Of The Same

I was able to get out and hunt two days this weekend and like always, we had a good time. Friday I hunted with my buddy Justin and we got into some birds right off the bat, but then spent the rest of the hunt struggling. Funny how that can happen. I had the opportunity to hunt some new country, and I always enjoy that.

Sunday I hunted with my friend Paul. We hunted an old tried and true spot and put a woopn on them. I played around with a GoPro head mounted video camera and got some cool video. I will post that when I figure out how.

The dogs hunted really nicely all weekend long and I could not have been happier with them. They were pretty beat last night, so I was happy to see that they looked refreshed this morning. I am hoping that they don’t both come down with Kennel Cough, but that is another story. Apparently it is supposed to get cold, and I am really looking forward to that. I got buzzed by another rattle snake on Sunday and I will be relieved to not have to worry about those for the rest of the season.

When your dog does this, you had better be ready. It’s on!

Jay

Local Birds

It is hot here in Northern Nevada, and rather that make long road trips to only be able to hunt for a few good hours, I spent this weekend hunting close to home. There are a bunch of birds within an hour of town if you know where to look for them, and that is lucky for me, as I am going to be spending a lot of time hunting close to home this year. My wife is due with twins in just over two weeks, so for the most part that will keep me close to town for the rest of the season.

Do you ever have a day in the field where everything you do is just unlucky? All day it just seems like you make the wrong move and nothing ever really works out? Well that happens with dogs too. Cash had one of those days yesterday. He never necessarily did anything wrong, but he just kept having bad luck. As many great days as he has, yesterday was just one of those bad days. No big deal, it happens to all of us from time to time, dogs included.

I was lazy with the camera and did not take many pictures this weekend, but I took a few here and there.

Cash retreiving.

P-Dog making a retreive.

Cash with another one.


Jay

Waterfowl

My co-worker/friend Paolo and I got invited to go duck hunting here in Northern Nevada by our good friend Darin Elmore on Wednesday, so we took Darin up on the offer. Paolo and Darin are waterfowl hunting nuts, and I grew up hunting waterfowl, but for me it had been maybe 8 or 9 years since the last time, so it all felt new to me again, and that was really fun.

There were a ton of ducks in the area and we shot a good number of birds. Darin’s retriever named Cash (He also has a dog named Cash) was the star of the day, finding our birds and doing all the hard work. He is a great dog, and whether we are chukar hunting or waterfowl hunting I and am always happy to be around him.
Big thanks to Darin for the invite and the hunt.

Cash retrieving a Redhead.

Cash in the Blind, waiting patiently.

Darin and Cash – Primetime hunting.

A Redhead.

A pair of Greenheads.

Jay

Heat, Blood, and the Chukar Partridge

As excited as I am to be hunting upland birds this time of year, it is this early part of the season that I like the least. When the temperature drops, snakes go to bed, and you can run your dogs all day long with out fear of either heat stroke or snake bites. I could care less about hunting birds while they are on water, I am ready for cooler weather, and longer days in the field.
It was unpleasantly hot this weekend, not just for me, but more importantly for the dogs. We killed birds and had some good times in the field, but it was stressful. Between keeping a close eye on the dogs as to not allow them to over heat, to worrying about snakes, to dealing with a faucet of a cut on Porter’s leg, to seeing Cash urinating blood, stressful is how I would describe my weekend of hunting. Despite all that, the dogs had a good time and were brought home safe.
Attached below are a few pictures from the weekend. The first picture is of another great Nevada sunrise, and the next two are of me giving the dogs some extra love at the end of a hunt. (Cash is such a goofball.

 

 

Jay

Owyhee Desert Bird Hunting

There is a place in the Owyhee Desert in Oregon that I hunt every year that I consider to be one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen. I was introduced to this place about 8 years ago by my friend Hank, who is no longer physically with us because of an illness. It was there that I met a group of Hanks friends that along with him have been hunting that general area since the late 70’s. In fact back in the day they used to fly their planes in and land along the river. These are a great group of guys, this is an absolutely amazing place, and I feel really fortunate to have the opportunity to travel there every year.

The hunting this year was really good, but not the best that I have ever seen it. Between Chukar and Quail there were lots of birds to keep your attention. I took a bunch of photos this year, so I will let them help tell the story:

Another scenic view from camp.

Cash on point in the perfect place.

Some kind of desert lizard.

Cash making a 100 plus yard water retrieve on a quail. Not bad for any retrieving dog, yet alone a pointing dog.

The moon coming up over the ridge.

Cash retrieving another one.

Cash on point.

Porter pointing a single bird that is holding tight.

Porter making some retrieves.
Jay