Learning to Gambel

I am headed out to Vegas today. And you know what they say: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

But this one particular part of the trip I feel compelled to write about.

I am out here not to gamble - no, a much more noble cause colors my travels this weekend. First off, and the primary reason for the trip, is a time-honored tradition among fighting men that has passed down through the millennia: a reunion of war-brothers. 10 years ago this fall, the men of 1/5 left Iraq for the last time, following their third consecutive deployment to that "restive" nation. OIF I (which I missed): The Invasion. OIF II: Fallujah 1. OIF: The Battle of Ramadi. I made two of the three - many of my guys, particularly those who enlisted just prior to 9/11, had the distinct honor to make all three trips.

So now, 10 years late, a lot slower and a little fatter and not nearly as mean, we are all getting together in our old Marine Corps Ball haunts, a week after all of the active duty guys have rolled through for Ball season. Vegas calls, and nearly 140 of our own alumni are answering that call, to reassemble and reminisce over scotch, cigars, and warm hazy memories of the finest days of our young lives, and the finest of us that did not return. Best men I've ever known. Best job I ever had.

But that is not the real purpose of this blog post - it is only the platform for a small one-day aside. I got a really sweet "value add" opportunity for this trip though: i found an outfitter that guides out Henderson NV, and booked an upland bird hunt once I figured out that none of the other officers were bringing their spouses. I thought at first we were going t be hunting chukar in the rocky rimrock of the surrounding mountains, perhaps out to the East Mojave near Invapah. Instead, it looks like we are going to be chasing Gambel's Quail, a bird I know nothing about but that sounds interesting all the same.

I hear they are small and fast, but not as small and maybe faster than their bobwhite cousins. All wild birds, out in the arid rocky arroyo's of eastern Nevada, just west of the Arizona border. The guide is picking me up at my hotel at 4am, which will no doubt consume most of Saturday in more productive fashion than would sitting around and drinking all day. Here is an excerpt from the little upland anthology I am reading currently:

The dog, on the other hand, has never experienced an environment remotely like this one. . . .[But] the dog does what every pore of his being is meant to do; he is relentless in his pursuit of a species of quail that he has never experienced before this trip, to the exclusion of numerous other bird species he's never seen before either, but pays no mind to. I find no shortage of marvel in this. He finds them and almost flips over himself slamming to a point. They don’t hold for a second, of course, but start running in a loose, directional flock, flowing around cholla and prickly pear and acacia like a school of fish around dock pilings, coming together again and heading for the nastiest cover they can find. Spindly head feathers bobbling as they run. He moves after them, maintaining something of a vector/point as he goes and I have no choice but to do much the same in pursuit. Quail running. Dog running, freezing, pointing, running again. Human trying to keep up. The whole thing seems comical and about as far from the stereotypical, “classic upland” experience as one can get. But being attached to stereotypes isn’t the least bit productive here, whether you’re talking about putting a few Gambel’s in the bag, or a number of other things. 

Lenny is picking me up in the truck at 4am tomorrow, and we are heading out to the Nevada / Arizona line for a one-day hunt. I've got the 870, most of the kit I need here in the hotel room. Flight out was a breeze. We had a good little get together with everyone tonight, not too much to drink and I haven't even touched the poker tables. Doesn't matter - I'm ready to Gambel.

 

 

One Thousand One

That is how much time you have - as long as it takes to say "one Thousand one" -  to get a shot off at
 a mountain grouse.

In that time you have to hear and process the sound of the flush, stop walking or climbing or stumbling and gain some measure of solid footing, orient on the bird hoping to get a glimpse of feathered wings flashing in the sun, take your weapon from safe to fire, shoulder your gun, swing through the flight trajectory and fire. You've got to keep your finger on the kill button.

The best advice is to fire more than once, possibly until you run out of shells, because some substantial percentage of each shot is absorbed by the thick pine trunks or deflected by the dense Douglas fir or towering Larch through which Ol' Ruff just fled so nimbly. By the time the hammer falls with a dry snick on an empty chamber, the metronome in the back of your head might have gotten all the way to "one thousand two" - if you are lucky.

On the other hand, you might also be encouraged to leave one shell in the gun or to quickly hustle several new shells into the breech - rarely is there just one bird, particularly if you are out of shells. Unlike their lowland cousins the bobwhite quail, who may often flush allgoddamnatonce if you find a covey, these birds tend to flush seriatim, but in maddeningly unpredictable intervals and angles. Neither wood ducks rocketing through the cool misty dark nor doves screaming and twisting at terminal velocity compare to the difficulty of shooting that characterizes the mountain grouse on the wing in thick and hilly cover.

The ruffed grouse that we encountered - maybe a dozen or so over three days - were all fast and wild. Cover was typically thick stands of alder and larch, intermingled with emerging cedars, in draws on the northern slopes where there was a bit more moisture.

We surprised one cocktail grouse strutting in the middle of a fire road, and he hung there just long enough as if to say "look upon my glorious plumage!" until we piled out of the truck with guns at the ready. He got away.

While we didn't see a blue grouse, I do like the looks our their favorite habitat. We hunted the rocky spines of mountain ridges, relatively clear of brush with large grassy glades dotted with mountain pine and bare, crumbling stone outcrops several millennia in the making. I can imagine that a flush up here would send the bird soaring out below, an incredible mountain backdrop to accompany the shot. And just the same, a successful hit on a long bird could easily result in a half-hour effort to retrieve, even with a dog to assist. The rocky slopes were real ankle breakers, and more than once I used a hand or knee or hindquarters to assist a climb or descent.

We saw more spruce grouse than anything else. They are not called Fool Chicken in error, as they generally stand around in the road until you get ready to shoot, flush, and if you happen to miss they just light on a tree limb nearby.

Of course, maybe it is the hunters who play the true role of the Fool Chicken, hooting and hollering while trying to throw a rock or branch close enough to the bird to dislodge him from his perch. This recalls the age-old adage: "Who is the bigger Fool, the Fool Chicken or the Fool who chases the Fool Chicken."

Alas, all in the name of a "sporting" shot.

Grouse Hunting in The Kootenai

Deep within a majestic expanse of boreal forest, a stone's throw from the Canadian border and 65 miles from the nearest cell tower, lies the town of Yaak, Montana. I use the word "town" in the traditional but liberal sense - really, this is a haphazard collection of trailers, houses, sheds, and farms, which appear somewhat clustered around a single intersection but in reality are just generally strung out all along the river. There are at least two commercial establishments, the Yaak Tavern & Mercantile and the "World Famous" Dirty Shame Saloon -  actually, three - if you count the Yaak Tavern and Yaak Mercantile separately (they are conjoined but distinct).

The road in from the Idaho border winds along the north and west side of the Yaak River, with towering peaks to one side and the broad floor of the river valley on the other. We drove in around sunset, racing the last rays of sunlight as we traversed into the upper valley. The sun slipped first behind booming cumulus clouds before bursting out for a brief low angle finale just above the ridge line to the west. And then it was gone, light pink wisps of the day left the n the darling azure sky just as we turned into the cabin.

This place is teeming with life - a dozen wild turkeys and scores of whitetail deer crowded the mountain road into the valley, and ducks and geese sat quietly in a still oxbow pond as our car screamed by. Jays and squirrels chattered the tidings of our arrival to the cabin, and I am sure I heard the brief pounding flutter of a single grouse exploding out of the pines just a bit further up the hill.

We were staying three nights with Tim Linehan, in one of his self-catering cabins (seriously, stock up on steaks and beer on the way in, the Dirty Shame's kitchen was closed and we ate at the Yaak Tavern three nights in a row). Three days to the hills to chase three species of mountain grouse in this beautiful slice of country: ruffed grouse, spruce grouse, and blue grouse. Dean the Dog was along for the ride, taking the flight in stride and anxious as always to hit the treeline although its been so long since he's tasted bird I'm not sure he entirely knew what to expect.

Oh The [New] Places [We Should] Go...

I previously posted a list of anticipated geographical conquests at Oh the places [we should] go.... The list inlcuded:

• Eastern Oregon/Washington, hun and chukar hunting; like this place (warning, blatant Filson product placement)
• Cape Romaine NWR, boating/camping trip fishing for red drum;
• North Dakota, pheasant hunting;

Since then, we've hit one of those twice (N.Dak. 2010 / 2013), and gotten relatively close to another (E. Oregon - flew into Wash. and hunted grouse in the Koontenai 2014). I still want to go after chukar and huns in E. Oregon/Washington, and am now itching to try my hand at Montana fly fishing.

I also think worthwhile to add a few new ones to the list:

• Grouse and Woodcock in Maine or Vermont (idea 1; idea 2)
• Back to Montana
• Central Wyoming
• Northern Baja (I once tripped into Baja del Norte and attempted to summit Pichaco del Diablo (literally "Peak of the Devil"); terrain so barren and remote I left a note on my car in case people eventually came searching for my body
• Nevada for this and this. (ditto re Filson warning, supra)

Glory Days

I really love this picture - coming down off the mountain at the end of the day, shoulders down - not from the weight of the game bag, but from its lightness. The latter light of the day chasing us back to the truck, shadows lengthening. The dog, nose into the wind, wistfully staring back whence we came - surely there must be more birds yet before the truck, he thinks. A long day in the boots, but there is still not much afoot or afloat that beats this life. Glory days.

Dean The Dog in the Kootenai

on the road again

Anticipation

10 weeks from now, Dad, Dean and I hop a flight into Spokane, drive through Coeur D'Alene up into northwest Montana's Koontenai National Forest, to hunt birds with Tim Linehan. As all hunters know, proper anticipation is key to a memorable trip.

The plan is to hunt three days, going after ruffed, blue and spruce grouse in the hills around the Yaak River. Maybe throw in a little fly fishing in the afternoon if the hunting gods bless us with an early limit.

On the way out, I hope to meet up with a few of my old Marines in Coeur D'Alene and have a beer and tell some war stories.

These are the good old days, indeed. Sing it, Carly.

SoDak Redux

Back to the hinterlands of South Dakota in pursuit of the wily Pheasant..





We flocked back this year to our stomping grounds of 2010 - this time, Dad and I, Will and Bill and Jason Palmer, and a few other folks to round out the group. Alas we missed the jovial input of Dan O'Neal, but much fun was had by all.



These are wide open lands - the dogs ran the birds up as we walked abreast through chest-high sorghum and 8-foot corn. As ususal, the flankers got plenty of action as the birds poured out ahead of the beaters.

Not as many birds this year as the last time, and although the weather was much warmer I actually think I preferred the late-season hunt a bit more. The weather made it challenging, but all the fields had been cleared and we got more open shots and views. Not much to see in 8-foot stands of corn other than ... more corn. But all in all, this is a pretty fun way to spend your days, riding around in the back of a truck and jumping out to pen the birds in the field, or sitting around the fire pit late into the evening, BS'ing and drinking beer.

Finger on the Kill Button

Dad and I took to the hills this weekend - his 60th birthday is coming up, and I lined up a half-day grouse
hunt in the mountains of western NC to help celebrate. We had to leave poor Dean at home due to some logistical hurdles, but with Kim at the NCAFP conference at the Grove Park, Dad and I took off to Weaverville NC to meet up with our guide from Curtis Wright Outfitters.

Grouse hunting reminds me a lot of combat – it is exhausting, you rarely see what you are shooting at, you often come home empty-handed, and it is a helluva good time. (NB: Words of wisdom from my former commander: “Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling." General James N. Mattis, USMC).

From handling a weapon, you get an innate familiarity with its functioning. Under stress and through intense training, it becomes a literal extension of your very self. The Marine Corps also has a way of distilling various things down to their core attribute - for example, the safety selector switch on the M16A2 service rifle. Safe. Semi. Burst. Simple enough to just call it the "Selector Switch" or something like that, but the drill intructors in the Marine Corps insist on calling it the "Kill Button." It makes sense, when you think about it, and it subtly reinforces the idea that is what a weapon is for, and nothing less, in case less attentive recruits begin to forget where it is pointed.

There were times I recall from Iraq that I went from “finger straight and off the trigger, weapon on safe” to 4.5 pounds of pressure on a five pound trigger, sights on the target, with the weapon on "Kill." It wasn’t something I had to think about, it just happened. I wasn't ever even aware of the shift from safe to fire - rather, as the immediate stress subsided I caught myself sighting down the barrel of a rifle with set to “fire.” Before long, and well before we deployed, I had put enough rounds out in training that I would just walk around with my thumb perched on the selector switch, so as not to have to look for it when the time came.

Walking the hills outside Weaverville NC with Dad brought this thought flooding back. For the first two or three flushes, we never even saw the bird - just had the dog lock up and heard him fly, maybe we even imagined a slight glimpse of brown on brown hurtling through the hardwoods. After a late trailing shot on the second bird (mostly to save face) I relocated my second finger to that little round button on the right side of the trigger guard on the Remington 870 LW 20 ga. Kept the first finger straight, ready to acquire the trigger, and the second finger poised on the kill button. Nothing less would work, these hills were so steep and the birds were so fast.

We never got a bird, although we had a few more flushes. It would have been nice to have Dean - the guide's dog kept taking off down the mountain after deer or some other such animal. But hell - a nice December day on the mountain with Dad, you hardly need to actually get a bird.

Happy Birthday Dad. Thanks for hunting with me all these years.

No Country For Old Men

The grouse hunt this past weekend was some steep country - the mountains around Weaverville NC make you work for each shot. You can see Bud's blaze orange in the far upper left corner of the picture, as he gazes woefully into the abyss after we missed a bird that flushed out from under us while the dob was off in a briar patch. We didn't even get a shot off, and even the dog couldn't find the one that took off down this hill.

Stand by - more to follow.

Whaler Project: Installation

Over the last few nights, I've gotten the helm kitted back together and things are starting to look a bit more ship-shape. Next step is to finish the hard-install of the seats, console, and hatch to the hull proper, reconnect the battery cables, and see if I can get this baby cranked up. There is definitely a lot more finger-crossing and breath-holding at this stage. But she sure is gettin' pretty!

Photo Album

I finally got around to porting Bryan's pics off of Shutterfly and onto Picasa. He took quite a few - the whole album from the trip is here.

We really were hunting in the snow most of the time, although it was cold enough that it was easy to stay dry. Another unanticipated benefit of my McAlister waxed cotton brush pants is their waterproofness - as great for the snow as well as South Carolina briar brambles. I may have to get a new pair that is the full monty, completely waxed cotton. Pretty snazzy, indeed.

Roasted Pheasant with Wild Rice

Put the first brace of South Dakota birds through the crucible also known as "Cooking With Steve."

The plan: Two birds, cleaned and stuffed with celery, onion, and carrots, wrapped in bacon and garnished with fresh-squeexed orange and rosemary.

Roast for 15 minutes at 500, remove bacon, and continue for 20-30 minutes or until juices run clear.

Remove from oven, split birds into equal halves (remove backbone if not already done) and serve over wild rice with a side of asparagus and a nice mellow cab.

Pretty good recipe - meat was tender and not dry or overdone. The gamey flavor of the pheasant was noticeable but still tasty, but the cab was a little much. Doc says: "it looks like chicken but tastes like pork - weird." I give it about a B- overall - it didn't come out quite as well as the quail from last winter.

Maybe next time I will call up the Undercurrent and see if they will cook it up for us, if we bring a large enough party along.

Sodak Recap

By any measure, the 2010 South Dakota Pheasant Hunt was a success. Good food and lodging, great camaraderie, plenty of birds and fantastic memories. I would highly recommend Marv Schlomer and Pheasant Cove Outfitters to anyone looking for that top-quality genuine South Dakota pheasant hunting experience.

Marv and Carol set us up for success starting the very first night, with the open bar, appetizers, steaks that were 2 inches thick, and a commemorative bottle of Gentleman Jack at each place setting. From there on, it wouldn't have mattered if we froze and went bust, we were having a good time.

Tommy after his "Rained-Out Baseball" hand

We started a little three day tradition of nightly poker, dealer's choice. That didn't mean much to anyone until Tommy pulled out a cocked-up version of the game called "Rained-out Baseball" that I haven't seen since summer camp in junior high. And who would you expect to win, but the big guy himself. After that, we stuck to tournament-style Hold 'Em, which despite the learning curve for the old fogies in our crowd that don't watch a lot of WSOP on ESPN2, resulted in a dominant win by Dad, with Tommy in second place. I think all the young guys just went all-in early so they could get back to the open bar.

Loaded up on Marv's Magic Bus

The first full day of hunting was just that - a full day. Shooting time is 10am, which left room for sleeping off the hangover and a leisurely gourmet breakfast by Carol of french toast, eggs over easy and some local sausage that was out of this world. We kitted up and piled in to Marv's Magic Bus - a converted "short bus" that he bought off the local school district, outfitted with gun racks, shell locker, dog boxes and a folding lunch table. This is really the key to a fun hunt - instead of hunkering down in the back of a snowy pickup, we were carted off in style with all of our shotguns suspended from the walls and the dogs howling to get up and go.

My second bird of the hunt, on a hilly
and rocky strip of natural grassland.

Birds were slow coming in that first day - two or three pheasants per field, lots of walking and blocking and realizing that when Marv tells the blockers to run to get into position, he doesn't mean you should just lollygag your way out there. At several fields, we would see 20-30 birds pour out of the field the minute the bus pulled up, leaving us to cul through the dumb birds that stayed behind. Particularly sneaky were the roosters, which had been heavily hunted for three months now, and knew exactly what we were up to. But hell, a full day hinting beats just about anything else, and we got more productive as the day progressed.

I ended up with 4 birds, more than my share of the group limit, and I know i missed at least three more that I should have had. The last field of the day, and hour-long effort over 20 acres of land, filled out the bag for the group. We got everyone into position the right way, moved the team through the field like we'd been hunting together forever, and walked back to the bus with Rooster # 36 and all his brethren in tow. The last shot I took, Chris and I lined up on the flush at the same time, and I beat him to the trigger by about a half-second, rewarded with a leg drop and feathers tumbling ot the ground. The only bummer was the 5MPH ride back to the house because of a shot wheel bearing on Marv's bus - but cold beer and Carol's two-inch think pork chops (even better than the steaks) quickly remedied this.

We piled into the Suburbans on day two, after another night of beer and poker (and shenanigans in the hot tub), and headed south to Akaska, SD to hunt this other fella's farm. The birds were hot and heavy, and in 90 minutes of walking and shooting we limited out. Which was a good thing, because there were some folks hankering to get back to the lodge to watch the USC-Auburn game. We took a few trophy shots, celebrated our impeccable shooting, a took off back for hot lunch and some football.

         

 

"The Group" - right after "The Field"

We caught the second half of UNC's victory over Ken-tuck, left a couple of guys back to watch the USC game, and headed out in search of the wily Sharptail Grouse. It wasn't that we were bird-hungry - we'd gotten our fix on pheasant that morning. But when you have the opportunity to hunt this beautiful country, you really want to do it until the sun goes down. We worked a couple of fields, moved two coveys around, but they stayed so far in front of us that we didn't have any great shots. The other guys loaded up, and Steve from Minneapolis and I walked it in to the lodge from about two miles out. If you could have seen the sun set over this wide-open rolling Dakota land, you'd've stayed out too.

We got out of bed early Sunday morning to a snow storm, and staged for a quick hunt before we headed off to the airport. I admit, prior to the trip I was a little worried about hunting in the Dakotas in December, but now I think this might just be the ideal time. The snow and the hoar frost and the close silence of nature in winter seems like it makes the bird hunting all the more pure. We roused a big buck out of a copse, and he galloped off through the snow, and the birds flew thick and fast. I was hunting between a couple of locals with a brace of  3:1 lab-pointer cross dogs, and they were in high spirits, which adds immensely to the overall experience. There is something special about working in a dog-man-gun team that makes me care not a whit if I bring a bird home or not. I winged a bird and had to chase him when he stated running - by this time I'd learned that if you give chase, you had better be sprinting, not just at a trot. Even so, every time I caught a glimpse through the grass he was 10 yards in front of where I thought he would be. He started to take off, and I knew the dog wasn't too far behind, so I took a crazy off-hand shot without breaking stride and managed to score a hit. "Spencer" the dog came flying by and finished him off for me in a cloud of feathers and snow, and we trotted back to our flanker position. I wish I could have brought Dean along, because he would have had the time of his young life. One day, one day.

The full photo archive from the trip is online here, hosted on Picasa.

Frosty Sunday Morning Birds

We walked up a winter wonderland this morning, and downed 22 roosters by 11:30. This is gorgeous country, and so chock full of birds that we could spend another week and not run out of shooting.

Location : 5th Ave, Glenham, SD 57631,
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Bag Limit

Three roosters and a Benelli Super Black Eagle, just south of Akaska, South Dakota. Dec 4th, 2010.

Location : 12440 296th Ave, Glenham, SD 57631,
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Sharptails

We spent the last few hours of Saturday pushing sharps around a few square miles of wheat stub. Had a couple coveys of 12-16 birds moving out in front of us, but had very few get inside 50 yards. But the sun setting off to the west and a line of blaze-clad hunters working a half-mile crescent of farmland made an empty bag of little consequence.

Location : 12463-12499 296th Ave, Glenham, SD 57631,
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A Good Morning

We set out this morning for some farmland south of Akaska South Dakota in our convoy of Suburbans and Super Dutys. We would have been in Marv's Magic Bus but we blew a wheel bearing last night on the way in. We started walking them up about 10:15 and by the time we counted birds by the truck at 12:05 we had 36 roosters. We probably flushed over 500 birds total, scared up a buck, and generally shot like it was World War III.



Back to the lodge for lunch and the second half of UNC - Kentucky, then out after sharp tail grouse in the creek bottoms.

Location : 147th St, Selby, SD 57472,
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Number Two

Location : Unnamed Rd, Glenham, SD 57631,
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