Tag Archives: Hunting

Adding more bird species

Posted on by

Up until this year Lira and I spent all our time hunting pheasants but this year that changed.  Yes, we still hunt a lot of pheasant but we also started hunting frequently in Eastern Washington for other upland birds as well as spending some time in the woods hunting grouse.  Trust me hunting is the appropriate word for grouse, we didn’t spend much time killing grouse.   So far this season we’ve added four new species of birds to our list.

Chukar

Chukar have sort of always intrigued me as a game bird ever since reading East of the Mountains by David Guterson.  Tough terrain to say the least and they are hard to hit.  Early in the year we hunted some planted chukar at Cooke Canyon just to get Lira onto a new bird.  While deer hunting in Ellensburg we saw so many chukar that I decided it was time to hunt them for real and have spent several days now along the rimrock and high flats searching for them.  We have managed one wild chukar and that is one Lira literally grabbed out of a bush.

Continue reading →

Stalking oneself

Posted on by

During this year’s early muzzleloader mule deer hunt I learned a lot about stalking deer and managed to get within 30-40 yards of a bedded down buck after a very long stalk.   I had spotted this deer from over a mile away at just the time it was getting ready to bed down.  I’d already blown two stalks where I only had gotten to about 100 yards from the animal and this time I was very careful and managed to get much closer.  I just forgot one final part in the process of stalking a deer and took one step too many busting the deer but still it was an experience I probably won’t forget and I learned many lessons from it.  I’m now getting ready for late season and was thinking back on the early season hunt and the things I need to remember later this month to be successful.

Continue reading →

Trip to the dry side

Posted on by

The rains started in the Snoqualmie Valley last Thursday and things got wet fast.  Friday mornings pheasant hunt was wet and windy, we got out of the woods when big branches started crashing around and we never found a bird.  With the rivers rising and no end of rain in sight it was time to head east and get into a drier climate.   On Sunday I packed up the shotguns and Lira and met Lisa for a 3-4 day trip to Ellensburg to hunt chukar, quail and pheasants and also, hopefully, to break my slump.

Continue reading →

One month in slump

Posted on by

The last bird we took home was a previously shot one Lira recovered.

Pheasant season has been going for about a month now and I’m in a slump which I’m hoping will break soon.   We’ve managed to get in 14 days of bird hunting so far and have bagged 14 pheasants but this week Lira has worked her tail off and found 10 birds and I’ve missed or not had a shot on all of them.   Up until this Sunday I’d been hitting the majority of birds but now I can’t seem to hit anything.   What changed?  I’m still shooting my Benelli 20 gauge, still using my Carlson Early Season choke, still using my Prarie Storm FS Steel, …  I have started wearing gloves part of the time and yes, a few of my missed birds were because i didn’t get the safety off,  I’m also wearing a jacket instead of a few layers of wool.  I think the real problem though is I’ve got myself psyched out.  Shooting is a mental game for sure and I know when I’m in a trap slump it gets way worse before it gets better.

What to do?  Going to mix it up and head east.  Go after some quail and chukar instead of only pheasant and hit the sporting clays course.  Maybe I’ll pull out my 12 gauge, my only issue with it is that we don’t seem to find birds when carrying it and am convinced it has an old Italian curse on it,   Probably hitting the local fields tomorrow then off to Ellensburg for 3-4 days and hopefully bringing something home for the freezer.

Muzzleloader mule deer hunt

Posted on by

This year my plan was to have an easy hunt to fill the freezer with a cow elk early and then have a challenge hunt to really push it trying to get a 3pt or better mule deer buck with my muzzleloader.   Well, the elk hunt didn’t quite pan out so that put a bit of pressure on the mulie muzzleloader hunt.   I knew if I’d done this hunt during rifle season I’d probably be able to take a deer but really I wanted the challenge of a true stalk and having to get in close, especially since I’ve been so lucky the last several years.   Given the difficulty of a buck with a muzzleloader I decided to do the hunt at Red’s in Ellensburg and got access to their 16,000 acre Mt. Baldy Preserve and was the only hunter during muzzleloader season there.

Continue reading →

Pre-season tune-up

Posted on by

With hunting season starting to open up I wanted to get Lira out for a pre-season tune-up hunt over at Cooke Canyon in August so we headed over to Ellensburg on the 30th for a morning in the fields.    Lira was  beside herself when she saw the orange come out and as soon as we arrived in the field she began doing high speed laps in the parking lot.  She was obviously ready to get out there and find some birds.

 

I picked Area 1 since it is the closest thing to Western Washington with some fields, some trees and brush on the borders.  Lira did great, no problems finding any of the birds and had to do a bit more work than usual.  One bird had basically dug itself into a hole underneath  some roots and just would not flush.  I finally reached down and felt what was going on and told Lira to “Get it, get it” and she did, bird in mouth and handed off to me.  Another spot she found a bird deep in the willows and had to push it out to the edge of the field.  The bird took  flight at my feet but flew low.  I missed the first shot but never had another shot as the bird headed across the open field, Lira in chase.  The bird hit the ground at about 100 yards and was immediately tackled, it managed to get loose and run towards grass but Lira caught up in the high grass and came out with bird in mouth.  Otherwise she retrieved shot birds well and even found two coveys of quail which were new for her.

All in all I think she is ready to roll for October though I’ll get her out at least once more between now and then plus we’ve already been out looking for grouse one morning and will get in more of that this month.

 

 

Elkless in Oregon

Posted on by

This year I didn’t really  get any good draws so have decided to do a muzzleloader mule deer buck hunt in late September and to try for a cow elk in the early season in Oregon to see if I could fill the freezer in August and take the pressure off of getting a buck.  With that in mind I headed down to John Day in smoke filled skies with temps in the mid-90s on the last day of July to go elk hunting on the opener with Broken Horn Outfitters.   After a six hour drive I arrived in John Day, got unpacked at the hotel and talked to the guides to set up a meeting time for early the next morning.  I roamed around town a bit and saw a bunch of quail and a few deer, my hopes were up.

Continue reading →

Turkey Season 2018

Posted on by

My first big Tom

Last season I did my first ever turkey hunt over at the Double Barrel Ranch in Rockford, WA and got totally hooked.   This season I had planned a trip with a friend to go back and also do some bird hunting but between Lira going into heat and a changed commitment with my friend I needed to figure out Plan B.  I’d also pulled a muscle or tendon in my shoulder a week before so tried to change the dates but couldn’t so taped up my shoulder and hoped for the best. Since I’d already paid a deposit for two hunters at Double Barrel I decided to go on my own but instead of hunting the ranch we opted to hunt the Cheney area on some private ranches but I also got to find some public land in the area that holds turkeys as well as mule deer and elk.

Continue reading →

Tips for the adult-onset hunter

Posted on by

I was given a shotgun the day I was born, that is how much my dad was into hunting back in 1960.   I grew up having him teach me to shoot and ultimately tagged along on many a hunting trip going after squirrels, rabbits and pheasant.   By the time I was 14 or 15 I was going out with friends fishing or hunting, sometimes both in a day.  My parents would drop us off in the woods with loaded shotguns and come back to pick us up hours later, it is amazing no one ever got hurt.  I did my last hunt as a teen home from college break, some college friends wanted to go bird hunting so I went along and bagged a pheasant which was possibly the first thing I ever shot on my own.

I stopped hunting shortly after that trip and didn’t do it for decades.  I kept fishing most of my adult life but it was almost all catch and release trout fishing.  I even gave up fishing for part of the time but ended up back into it since I just loved it so much.  When I got sick and needed to eat meat I got back into hunting which was a bit of a challenge as an adult even having grown up doing it.  Now there are aspiring adult-onset hunters or fishers out there and they face a big challenge getting into the sport.  Having done it I hope I can offer a bit of advice.

Continue reading →

2017 – A lot of firsts!

Posted on by

My seasons of 2017 – spring lake rainbows, spring turkey season, tenkara trout,  summer fly fishing, summer steelhead fishing, pheasant hunting, elk hunting, late deer season,  chukar hunting

I can hardly believe that 2017 is drawing to a close already, where did it go?   As I sit back and look over the year I realize that I have had one heck of a year with a lot of firsts.  For the first year in a while health was just not an issue, as you can tell from my lack of health related blog posts, so it freed me up to get back into fly fishing, to really get into hunting and to finally reach my goal of stocking my freezer by myself.   On top of spending almost one-third of my days in the field I was able to get out for daily hikes (and later runs) with Lira and still find time to work all year long.

Continue reading →