Chukars on the heels of heroes

There are many reasons to miss a flying chukar with a swinging shotgun, and I find hunters are too hard on themselves.

“Just a bad shot,” one contended recently, after spending a day unable to knock down the few birds that squirted downhill into the Snake River Canyon on whirly wings in front of his dog.

“If I were better shot we could have had some chukars,” the other pined as he considered his flushing dog, made dreary from charging up and down hills resembling the steeply-carved ridges of corduroy pants.

The Lab was worn out from climbing up and down, and up and over, and then back down again after birds that blasted from lava-rock crags toward the river and scrambled back up the steep slopes on thin red legs like a minute herd of myna birds.

We didn’t hear their calls. Not very often, anyhow, and if we did, it was usually too late. Chukar are known for their social calling, back and forth to nearby kin neighboring in the hills.

No one knows what they are telling each other with the lamentful chuk-ah, chuk-ah, but it’s a fair guess they aren’t talking about the weather.

Which was windy that day last week on the Snake River breaks not far from Lewiston, and across the river from Asotin, Wash.

Asotin, by the way, is a tiny town known for its old courthouse and because it is home to Jesse Davis, a University of Idaho gridiron hero who landed a spot on the Dolphins O-line after playing for a spell for the Seahawks.

It is also where Coeur d’Alene police hero and former police sergeant Greg Moore, a biology major who loved to hunt and fish, got his start as a deputy.

Asotin is the self-proclaimed steelhead and chukar capital of Asotin County and it’s as far as you can get from Seattle without leaving the state.

Here’s a secret: People formerly of Seattle live there.

Big, wild sheep roam nearby, along with large-antlered mule deer, and the creek that runs through town was once a place where last century, Nez Perce people harvested, for the delicate meat, the lampreys that S-curved up the free-flowing river and into the small stream to spawn.

Mark Allen, a tribal member who had his hair cut once each week at the local barbershop in Lewiston until his death at 84, remembered the lampreys from his childhood and kept them with the hunting, fishing and berry picking tales of his boyhood.

He hunted chukar too, and smiled when he thought about it.

Last week, though it was windy and relatively cold in the banana belt of the Snake country. No one thought about berries, or lampreys as our small hunting party picked its way across loose rock and the tussles of thin grass where chukars like to keep a sentry before sometimes calling, running away or whirring up and then wheeling downhill, as they catch wind, like small TERCON missiles, following contour.

I took a shot as well, and the first one was just to loosen up the bottom barrel of my over-under 12 gauge, and to test my footing, which wasn’t very good, but the second shot had a chance.

The gun went boom ... boom in pretty quick succession because chukars, Asian imports that came to town a half century ago from the rocky canyons of places like Turkey, expect it.

They expect you to shoot at them. That is why, when you miss, they run back uphill to be shot at again.

I am unsure if their small, finch-like beaks can crack a smile, but I believe they are giddy at the prospect of being gunned, and they may have a death wish, which keeps things exciting given their bland surroundings.

“You would too, if you had to live here,” a friend with a Lab said.

Oh oh, I thought.

“What do you mean?” The guy with the pointer said. “Lookit this view!”

And then waved his free arm to keep his balance and catch his footing.

The blast from my second shot — the one I thought had a chance (but didn’t drop a bird) pushed me back against the hillside and I felt like I was lying down, but I was more or less standing up because of the steepness.

I got grass on the back of my jacket.

Hunting for Idaho chukars doesn‘t end for another week.

I may head down to Riggins. It’s steep country there, too, with lots of birds, I’m told. That small town is a whitewater rafting capital and known for a guy named Leighton Vander Esch. Just a kid who likes to hunt and fish and chase quarterbacks. You know who I mean.

He’s probably missed a few birds too. It’s part of the game.