My last day of upland bird season was just like many of my hunts this year. There where birds available, but it was physically a hard hunt. Between walking through snow on the north faces, and thick nasty mud on the south faces, I was certainly content to be done hunting by the time that I got back to the truck. I hunted with my buddy Justin and he took me to an new area that I really liked. It had a lot of great bird habitat and was really remote, so the birds obviously see little pressure. We both shot quail and chukar, and we ended up with around 12 birds between the two of us.

I made a dumb mistake which was kind of disappointing. I could not figure out why I had a dog on point in the middle of a flat covered in snow, with not a single exposed bush. For whatever reason I ignored the dog, walked right by, then watched a single bird flush out of a small depression in the snow behind me. I was so mad at myself, and my dog must have thought that I lost my mind, which apparently I had. He was obvioulsy on point for a reason. What was I thinking?! Anytime something like that happens you tell yourself that it will never happen again, but somehow it does.

In general this year for me was really inconsistent. From week to week I experienced totally different results. I feel really lucky though as again I had a great time hunting this year, and at the end of each day both of my dogs where happy, healthy, and injury free. I hunted upland birds 43 days this year, which is far from the most that I have hunted in a season, but still a solid number. Looking back on the season my best memories are from the unbelievable Blue Grouse hunting that I found this year. I can hardly wait until September 1st so that I can put the dogs down on the ground with some wild birds and get after the grouse again.

In the meantime there will be lots of dog training and a lot of simulated hunting on pen raised birds. Now that bird season is over I can start thinking about fishing, and I am starting to get excited to get out and catch some trout.

Below is a picture from the early September Grouse hunt mentioned above. This was my favorite hunt of the year. I had my wife with me, we camped for three days, we had beautiful weather, and the hunting was outstanding.

Jay