I have to imagine the U.S. Olympic skeet team’s training regimen is a little more disciplined. Of course, they’re gunning for something altogether different.
Let’s face it. Shooting clays is to hunting birds what Game ranch is to Wilderness Sitcom is to Shakespeare Veggies are to venison Friend-zone is to first kiss Randy Savage is to Rulon Gardner Coffee-mate is to cream Teddy is to grizzly Gas is to charcoal Fluorescent is to full sun Pool is to, Read More
I was standing in the worst looking duck habitat I had ever seen and I didn’t even have decent waders. That was fine. I was chukar hunting. I didn’t need waders. Or ducks. It was January, the end of upland season was looming, and I had been wrecked by a cold for the last, Read More
Can’t see her, but I could find her even without the GPS collar. She’s radiating bird vibes. It’s the only place in the willows with negative sound. And tension.
It had been a lackluster day for pheasant hunting in Montana. Tragically, after covering nearly a mazillion miles of normally productive cover we had seen exactly one rooster. A rooster far enough out we would have needed a .243 to take down, not the 12 gauge I was lugging.
What to do with all the free-range, organic, grass fed, fair trade, non-GMO, shade grown, hand harvested, artisinally butchered, small batch, low fat, gluten-free, dolphin friendly, lightly perforated white-meat cluttering your freezer? Chuckar Poppers!
“Dada, Dada, look! Is that chukar poop?” asked the kindergartener. “Not sure son. It’s bird poop, for sure, but probably not chukar poop. Hard to say.” “Well if it is, than we’re in a goooood hunting spot, cause there’s LOTS of it!” The cards were stacked against us. We knew that much going in., Read More
By Kirk Billings I finished up bird season last year with a bad knee, a mile and a half march across obscenely muddy flats, and a single chukar in my vest. I’d had to scrounge shells for my 20 gauge to eke out the day and a broken strap on my gaiters flailed along, Read More
There can be no light without darkness, no life without death, no joy without despair. I can make peace with the inescapable truths. But, as the days grow longer, and chukar season grows shorter, how the hell do I explain these facts of life to my dog? Maybe it’s for the best that she, Read More
There are tears in your eyes. Or maybe it’s sweat. In either case your vision is a salt-stung mess. The watery glimpses of black dog that you catch – cresting the ridge directly above you and birdier by the stride – quiver and bounce like a glass of water in Jurassic Park. There is, Read More