Something to be Thankful For
Sometimes after a bad day of hunting, you need to be reminded of just how good you’ve got it. Field Staff Writer Trey Johnson explores the concept in this essay.
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Author: Trey Johnson
On the Hunt for Chukar in Wyoming
Field Staff Writer Trey Johnson had heard chukar hunting was supposed to be hard, but his success on his first day out seemed to say otherwise. Was it just beginner’s luck?
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One Last Riff
After hunting “textbook” ruffed grouse cover to no avail, Trey was about to give up when he flushed three birds in quick succession. You can never be too sure how a day in the grouse woods will unfold.
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A Couple Kings
Trey and his dogs take us from dry, rocky slopes to boggy mountain streams in search of chukar and grouse, the upland kings.
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Restitution: Overcoming the Loss of a Hunting Companion
A good hunting companion is hard to overcome, be it a person or a hound. Trey shares with us how he overcame the tragic loss of his dog Cash and found more significant meaning in his own hunting.
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Our First Western Tour: Preparations
As a carefree, young, healthy college student, the first round of stay-at-home orders issued during the COVID-19 pandemic meant fewer responsibilities and less work. No longer shackled to the office cubicles where we normally carried out the duties of wildlife research assistants, my roommates and I rejoiced in the freedom, its unexpected rush into our little world. A leisurely “15 days to flatten the curve” sounded ideal. The added flexibility in our schedules meant plenty of time to catch up on sleep and binge-watch the latest Netflix series.
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The Planning Season
A few years back, a friend jokingly prodded me about the obsessive nature of my love for upland bird hunting. Because “hunting season only lasts 6 months” he said I would “be deprived of happiness during the off-season”, half of my life. It is true that nothing brings greater joy to my life than watching my dogs do what they were born and bred to do. A motionless point, contrasting our fast-paced world, immersed within the beauty of some forgotten western landscape, like a piece of framed artwork, is an irrefutable breathtaking scene. In my opinion, the experiences collected during the hunting season are worth a few months of insipid living.
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Scratching the California Quail Itch
This past winter I had the opportunity to travel to coastal Oregon where I stayed with a good friend and
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Opening Day on the Prairie
After a fairly productive morning of hunting northern bobwhites somewhere in central Kansas, the dogs and I returned to my pickup truck to rest for a while. It was still early in the day and I could already tell it was going to be an unseasonably warm day for November. I stripped off a few layers and put away my shotgun as the dogs enjoyed a well-deserved dip in a water trough. All three dogs, Ranger, Ruby, and Pearl had exceeded my expectations on their first hunt together. Each one did their fair share of pointing, backing, and retrieving. I wish I could say this quality had persisted for the duration of the season.
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One at a Time
Every year, I do my best to take an extended bird hunting road trip through a few western states. I enjoy exploring new places and hunting the birds that inhabit them. Besides, as the English poet William Cowper said, “(v)ariety’s the very spice of life”. And, in my opinion, being exposed to a broad array of conditions make the dogs and me better hunters. This December the first leg of the trip took us to the southwestern corner of Oregon in search of mountain quail (Oreortyx pictus), the largest species of quail in the United States and the only one I had not had the opportunity to hunt.
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