Outdoors
& REC
The Observer & Baker City Herald
JAYSON
JACOBY
Failing to
capitalize
on a rare
chukar
mistake
A
s I raised my shot-
gun the covey of chu-
kars flew broadside,
as straight as clay pigeons, al-
though not bright orange.
Also I didn’t holler “pull.”
But the scenario was oth-
erwise about as ideal as a
chukar hunter could hope
for.
(The threshold for “ideal”
being quite a low one, con-
sidering what chukars are ca-
pable of, and the ankle-bust-
ing terrain the birds prefer.
The U.S. military tends to
bestow more noble avian
nicknames on its fighter jets,
such as Eagle and Raptor, but
I keep hoping that the new-
est supersonic high-G ma-
chine will be the Chukar.)
I fired three times in the
span of as many seconds.
All those pellets and I
didn’t ruffle a single feather,
so far as I could tell.
This is a typical score for
me, to be sure.
But rarely, if ever, have I
had so few plausible excuses
for wasting 12-gauge shells
in hopes of bringing down
one of these fleet partridges.
I was hunting with my
brothers-in-law, Dave and
Chuck Britton, in the big
canyon country above
Brownlee Reservoir, north of
Huntington.
Dave and I were on a ridge
near Morgan Creek that reli-
ably yields birds.
Almost none of which
have ever ended up in my
vest, but at least there was a
decent prospect of coming
across a covey or two.
The notion of “flat
ground” is more theoretical
than real on the breaks of the
Snake River, but the spine of
this ridge is quite gentle by
local standards.
I was standing among
shoulder-high sagebrush in
a sort of shallow bowl, the
slope rising at a modest an-
gle to the north.
I actually heard the birds
muttering to themselves
in their distinct chattering
style.
It always sounds to me as
if the chukars are taunting.
But that might just be frus-
tration-induced anthropo-
morphism. Shotgun shells
aren’t cheap.
Since I knew approxi-
mately where the birds were,
I wasn’t shocked when they
flushed.
Which is to say, I didn’t
flinch, as though I had
stepped next to a rattlesnake,
and then nearly fall down
and forget to push the safety
button besides.
And since I wasn’t stand-
ing on a precipitous slope
(like as not coated with
grainy snow with the approx-
imate traction of ball bear-
ings; whoever came up with
the slur “bird brain” knew
nothing of chukars and their
telepathic ability to appear
when the nearest hunter is in
the most precarious position
possible), I had a stable base.
I had time to point the
barrel. I even fancied that I
was leading a particular bird
out of the dozen or so that
comprised the covey.
I worked the pump as fast
as I could. With each blast
I was sure I would see the
telltale sign of a hit — a bird
dropping its legs, or a flut-
ter in the otherwise smooth
flight.
But I knew better even be-
fore the echo from the last
shot dissipated in the chilly
air of early November.
See Jacoby / B2
B
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Ready for roosters
GARY
LEWIS
ON THE TRAIL
W
hen our daughter
invited us for
dinner on a
Thursday night, we already had
the birds in a balsamic vinegar,
olive oil, garlic, soy sauce and
pepper marinade. At her place,
we added pheasant to the
fondue feast.
Into a saucepan went the mole
(pronounced “mole-ay”) poblano to
simmer. A mole sauce is ground from
chili pods, tomato, raisins, apricot,
cocoa beans, anise, cinnamon and
other good things.
When the pheasant came out on
the skewer, we spooned the mole on
then sprinkled it with toasted sesame
seeds. Only the day before, the bird
had risen out of the grain in a shower
of seedpods.
Larry Lee, of Bar-Lee Setters, had
a few dogs that needed field time. He
invited me, Chris Yaeger and Steve
Ries out to Gateway Canyon Preserve
north of Madras for an afternoon.
The hunting areas take in 1,268
acres of croplands and boulders and
rimrock where the canyons gather
water that feeds Trout Creek and the
Deschutes. With crops in production,
fencerows, shelter belts, native grasses
and plenty of water, the preserve pro-
vides year-round feed and cover for
wild birds and the pen-raised pheas-
ants and chukar that manage to out-
wit the pointers and flushers.
Lee and Yaeger let the dogs out
of the boxes. Steve Ries thumbed
12-gauge loads into the magazine
and racked one into the chamber. I
plunked yellow 20-gauge rounds into
the twin steel barrels of my side-by-
side.
Wind howled over the top of the
ridge and brought the rain. We faced
into the gale and the dogs, Jake and
Ashley, cut back and forth in the un-
cut grain.
The two-year-old Jake, a black-
and-white English setter, locked up
on a rooster that skulked in the grass
and Ashley pulled up short behind
him. With a cackle, the pheasant
launched, faltered above the dog then
towered in the wind. The rooster
folded at the shot and Jake made the
retrieve.
We put Ries on the downwind side
and the next time Jake locked up on
a bird, he dropped it. The squall blew
through. Shifting shafts of sunshine
lit the cattails before us. Jake and Ash-
ley bashed into the reeds to find and
hold the bird they knew was there.
Over my shoulder I caught a
glimpse of a pheasant that made
good his escape across the railroad
track. Shortly after that, two more
roosters left another half-acre patch
of cattails to follow the first.
We crossed the tracks in a foot-
race with four roosters. I guessed one
would run away from Ries and try to
escape downhill. I guessed wrong.
Steve saw one clear the top of the
sage and shot it. He heard another
blast away unseen and saw two more
hotfoot it into a rosebush, where they
Gary Lewis/Contributed Photo
Grant Gehrmann hunting out of a box canyon with Liesl the pudelpointer leading the way. Preserve hunts for pen-raised
pheasants extend the upland season until March 31. The extra time affords the opportunity for more time with the dogs,
more golden days in the field.
must have charged out the other side.
In any case, the dogs looked at the
thorns and said, “no thank you.”
Preserve hunting for pheasants
In Oregon, preserve hunting takes
the place of past state-managed bird
planting operations. Today, instead
of hunting state-funded pheasants on
state lands, many pheasant hunts take
place on licensed hunting preserves
like those offered by Gateway, Ruggs
Ranch, TREO outside of Heppner,
Olex Preserve south of Arlington, Sage
Canyon east of Maupin and Horse-
shoe Curve near Pendleton. The sys-
tem allows for expanded opportunity
and the ability to pursue gamebirds
through the end of March, far beyond
the end of the public-land season.
Into the rough
With seven birds in the bag, Larry
put Jake and Ashley away and let Stu
and Eli out of the box. I took advan-
tage of the moment to put my gun and
vest down.
Eli, the white-and-red setter, must
have heard about the long shot I
missed because he paused over my
pretty side-by-side and lifted his leg,
irrigating the fine Turkish walnut. I
Gary Lewis/Contributed Photo
A couple of rooster pheasants (one a melanistic color phase) skulk out of a road-
side ditch.
wiped it down, but when the next bird
rose, I missed with both barrels and
you can bet I used the excuse I was
holding my cheek off the wood.
Past a couple of reservoirs, the dogs
led us along a narrow trail through the
junipers, up into a box canyon with
boulders the size of wickiups.
Otherworldly in the diminished
light, the grasses glowed golden and
sage shimmered silver. Caves, like
hooded eyes in the lava, glowered
down from the rimrock. Water trick-
led out of lichen-encrusted stone to
gather in a pool bordered by willow
and bitterbrush, then burbled down to
a cattail marsh.
The dogs found the last one when
we thought we were finished. Two
hours before, there had been another
rooster here, a bird I already carried in
my vest. Larry looked over his shoul-
der and saw Eli locked up, Stu behind
him.
Scattering seed with his wings, the
rooster blasted straight away.
█
Gary Lewis is the author of “Fishing Central
Oregon,” “Oregon Lake Maps and Fishing
Guide” and other titles. To contact Gary,
visit www.garylewisoutdoors.com
Duck and goose hunting seasons continue
EO Media Group
LA GRANDE — Hunt-
ers harvested more than 350
ducks during the first three
weeks of the waterfowl season
at Ladd Marsh Wildlife Area.
The Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife tracks
hunting statistics, for water-
fowl and upland game birds,
in wildlife areas across the
state, including Ladd Marsh
near La Grande. Statistics are
available online at https://
myodfw.com/ladd-marsh-
wildlife-area-game-bird-har-
vest-statistics.
Numbers for the first three
weeks:
Oct. 8-12
A total of 238 hunters took
220 ducks (not including coot),
nine geese and 61 upland birds
(including pheasant, quail, par-
tridge, grouse and dove).
Oct. 15-19
A total of 123 hunters har-
vested 56 ducks, seven geese
and 18 upland birds.
Oct. 22-26
A total of 112 hunters took
87 ducks, nine geese and 17 up-
land birds.
Mallards were the most
common duck killed at Ladd
Marsh. Pheasants made up the
majority of the upland birds
taken.
Season dates, details
Ladd Marsh is in Zone 2
for duck, snipe and mourning
dove hunting, and part of the
High Desert/Blue Mountain
zone for goose hunting.
Both zones include Union,
Wallowa, Baker, Grant and
Malheur counties.
The current duck season
started Oct. 8 and continues
Nick Myatt/Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
A male gadwall duck in flight. Gadwalls are among the duck species
commonly found at Ladd Marsh Wildlife Area near La Grande.
through Nov. 27. The sec-
ond season runs from Dec. 1
through Jan. 22 (the second
season for scaup ends Jan. 4).
The current season for
Canada geese runs through
Nov. 27. The second season
runs from Dec. 13 through
Jan. 29.
For white and white-
fronted geese, the first season
ends Nov. 27, and the sec-
ond season runs from Jan. 16
through March 10, 2023.
Umatilla and Morrow
counties are in Zone 1 for
duck, snipe and mourning
doves, and in the Mid-Colum-
bia Zone for goose hunting.
The current duck sea-
son (including scaup) in the
Mid-Columbia Zone contin-
ues through Jan. 29.
The season for Canada
geese started Nov. 8 and con-
tinues through Jan. 29. The
Mid-Columbia Zone season
for white and white-fronted
geese continues through Jan.
29, with the late season run-
ning from Feb. 4 through
Feb. 25, 2023.