Award

Thanks to Chas over at Southern Rockies Nature Blog for nominating SFA for a "Superior Scribbler Award", which is one of those meme-ish sorts of things where one names five other blogs you think worthy. While I'm confident there are more than five other worthy blogs, this meme has been over at the Atomic Nerds, who tagged the Querencia crew, who named Chas and other good bloggers. So, I'm not going to tag anyone. I will say, check the blog roll over there on the right side. If I'm going on-line, I'll check SRNB and Querencia first thing, cruising their blog rolls for amusement. I really admire Fat of the Land, Hunter Angler Gardner Cook, and Trout Caviar for their commitment to using natural ingredients that they've hunted up themselves in creative and respectful ways and writing about it in a compelling fashion, in addition to their posting of good recipes. For that matter, I like dog blogs and it's pretty hard to beat the red dog adventures over at Regal Visla or the falcon and Brittany duck hunts at Operation Desert Dove. If I were going to nominate folks, those would be the ones and they're welcome to consider themselves nominated if they choose.

In which I am a bad hunting partner

So, a Friday or so ago I was sitting at my desk at work when I got a call from a buddy in Denver. "Hey", he says, "Chris is on the mountain and he can't find you guys." I respond "Well, that's because the season doesn't start until next week." After a little discussion, I checked the proclamation to discover, to my dismay, that our elk season started in about sixteen hours rather than in a week. I'm not certain how or when I mis-calendared the hunt, but it was months ago and I was caught a bit flat-footed. I've never done anything like that before and hope never to make such a mistake again. As soon as I got home I threw things together in preparation for the hunt.

Booker makes his bid to pack his toy and have the dog go, too:


Despite staking out the duffel with the hunting clothes and staying right with it, he was unsuccessful in that request. Early the next morning, I headed north and west.
Driving up:



and over the mountains:



I got to Grand Junction, where my father flew in. Unfortunately, his duffel (with boots, sleeping bag, and other necessities) didn't make the flight and he had to make the four hour trip to retrieve it the next day. In the meantime, racing fading daylight, we headed up into the hunt area.

Up the canyon, where we saw bighorn sheep:



We haven't seen the sheep in there before. I'm not sure if they're recently transplanted or we just got lucky. I'll have to see if the DOW has anything on its web site. We also saw a covey of chukar down in the private lands in the canyon, but they were a bit too fast to get any photos of them. Such pretty birds, and large, too.
In any event, we got on up into hunting country:



and met up with our hunting companion and got set up. The next morning, we headed out into bluebird weather to hunt. It's big country up there, miles of oakbrush, aspen, pinyon and even spruce:



Even with lots of hunters, they kind of disappear into the space. Look in the center for the little orange dot:


Here's a little spring that was dug out probably forty years ago. The track leading up to it had trees five inches thick growing in it:



The water lies right up behind where we camp and the draw next to it nearly always has bear scat and turkey sign in it. That was true this year, which appears to be a very good one for acorns and pinyon nuts, which ought to help all the wildlife carry through the winter well.

I say a small bunch of cow elk at a bit over 500 yards, but they headed another direction and I wasn't able to get closer to them. Apart from close encounters with a couple of mule deer bucks, that was about it for game for me. My father picked up some grouse and our buddy had one great evening where he saw several elk including a couple of nice bulls. No elk were harmed on this hunt, though. The grouse had crops full of acorns and rose hips, which ought to make for some very tasty birds.

Glad I have a back-up elk hunt in NM next month. Now I just need to check the dates on that again.

An exercise in exercise

This past weekend Booker and I headed up to the very northern part of the state to take a last crack at grouse. We got an early start, finding a warm, breezy, and humid morning as we loaded into the truck. As we went north the clouds lowered and gathered; hardly prospective for bird hunting. By the time we got to where I intended to hunt, we couldn't see the top of the ridge for the dark clouds scudding through the sky and rain showers were marching up from the south and west. Weather up there nearly always comes out of the west and if the trend is from the southwest, it is nearly always wet. After three hours on the road, we were faced with the decision whether to head up into likely rain and poor hunting or to turn around and go home without putting boots on the ground. We chose to go up and, before we'd made it across the mile and a half to the foot of the ridge, I had to pull on rain gear in the face of a chilly, sideways drizzle.

In a lifetime of hunting and fishing less than optimum conditions are bound to come up. You drive out to the water only to be confronted with chocolate-colored waves that are too rough to fish well and too off-color to hold many fish, or you get to the river to find that a sudden warm spell has dumped a bunch of cold, muddy snowmelt into it, turning off the fish and stopping any hatches, or get to the lake to be confronted by a forty-mile-an-hour wind that renders fly-casting problematic and dangerous, that same wind can blow for an entire weekend if you're turkey hunting and silence the birds while killing your chances of calling one in, or you go out for grouse and find yourself in wet weather that puts the birds up cozy in nice thick spruce trees, rather than down on the ground where the dog can find them. In most instances I end up going ahead and trying anyway. After all, you're there and you've set the time aside; you might see something or have some success despite the poor conditions. Every so often, it works out. Most the time, you do about as well as one would expect given the look of things.

In any event, as Booker and I started up a finger ridge we got out of the wind and the rain (mixed with pea-sized hail now) let off. I was able to pull of the rain jacket and entertain the optimistic thought that the dampness would improve scenting conditions for the dog. This particular spot requires a good hard hour's worth of walking to get to the top where we generally find the birds. Nearly there, we spooked a small bull elk lying on a point in some aspens. I didn't get a good look, mostly a big tan body, blonde butt, and flash of antlers through the trees. As we topped out, I slowed down and immediately got cold and had to pull clothes back on as the mist and clouds began to precipitate a fine penetrating drizzle. Booker flushed a grouse off the ground some twenty yards out and the uncooperative bird lofted high and off the edge of the ridge, disappearing into the mist. No chance of following him up, but at least we are able to say we found game. We hunted around that area carefully, checking all the spruce nearby for birds huddling in their shelter and walking around the little openings but finding nothing, apparently he was a single.

As we pushed along the edges of the trees and through the little meadows it would rain more and then let off, not great weather but huntable. Then it began to darken precipitously and the rain set in much harder as the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. Despite pulling on a pair of light gloves, I was starting to lose feeling in the tips of my fingers and my cheeks were numb. The dog found it invigorating, much more to his liking than the warm sunny weather I had been hoping for. Nonetheless, I decided that we weren't going to do any good and headed down the mountain. Just as we started down a ridge leading toward the truck, thunder started rumbling and we began to see flashes of lightning. Up high you can really feel that stuff and some of the strikes were too close for comfort, causing even Booker to tuck his tail and glance over his shoulder, so we started seriously bailing down the hill, moving as quickly as loose rock and frequent blowdowns would permit. We made it back to the truck dripping wet after three and a half hours of walking for an hour's worth of hunting. At least we got out there, though. Heck, we even saw something.




p.s.- Can't recommend these Rocky waterproof birdshooters. Only four years old, they have leaked like sieves the last two seasons and I blew that top seam the other day. Comfortable and light, but not durable at all.

Passing by

The first fall season, that for doves, closed on September 30. Booker and I stole a bit of time on recent Sunday afternoon and got the heck out of town on a last minute hunt. It was really more of a scout than a hunt, as we went out to check a little corner of public land which looked like it might work for doves on paper, but which I'd never visited. Getting a late start, we left the house at four and were out of the truck a bit after five, ready for the evening shoot.

There was water, some trees for roosting, and about a hundred acres of pigweed, sunflowers, and other assorted dove foods in the area. Most of the sunflowers and such were chest high, though, which isn't a favorite for doves. After a bit, I saw a dove wing along next to a tall cottonwood, soon to be followed by five more in a loose bunch. We made our way down there and, sure enough, it turned out to be something of a flyway. There weren't very many birds and we were late, but we managed to scratch out a couple. We spent some time walking out in the sunflowers to see if we'd put any up and came across a big covey of blue quail. I'm not sure the dog had ever seen a quail flush before, as when they started buzzing up in his face he stopped, looking around in apparent surprise that birds would act that way and could be so loud. At least, that's what I projected from his behavior and my own recollection of my response to my first covey rise. Nonetheless, Booker's reaction resulted in a perfect reaction to a flush and I praised him heavily, hoping to encourage more such behavior.



Walking back to the truck we encountered another covey of blues. I saw them cross the road so, when we got to the right spot I sent the dog in and he flushed again in good form. I broke open my gun, not having seen a dove in a while, and thereby managed to miss the dusk flight of a couple of dozen birds. It's been a long time since I went out for doves and I had forgotten a few things.

Overall, it was about a perfect last minute try at a new place. Next year I'll probably head over there again- there weren't many people, birds should be around, and it's close enough to home to make a quick afternoon hunt viable.



Grouse season still has a couple of weeks to go and soon it will be time for big game and ducks. Looking around, it's pretty clear that fall is getting into full swing.

Pig Roast

Once again, we roasted a whole pig and had a few friends by. This last Saturday featured cool, cloudy weather and, later on, the first rain we've had in nearly a month. Plan a party....

In addition to the usual cast of friends and family, this year also featured a significant number of in-the-flesh appearances by a number of NM bloggers of things outdoor and ecclectic. It was awfully nice of all those folks to travel up and down state to socialize a bit. Though more-or-less local, Querencia country and the city of the Atomic Nerds are a good bit over a hundred miles away. No big deal on your way to a party, much less fun on the way home.

Here are directions for the method. This is the roaster, constructed out of stacked-up cinder blocks lined with foil for the first two courses. A sheet of metal, also covered with foil, goes in the bottom and you build a fire in each end, then rake the coals into the corners. Every forty minutes or so, you add more charcoal by removing a cinder block and dropping or tossing the charcoal onto the fire. Here's the roaster set up with the fire getting started:



My rack is built out of non-galvanized hog-wire, fenceposts, and lengths of rebar all wired together. Here's the pig after 24 hours in marinade, laid out and about to be wired into the rack:


Once the pig was securely fastened to the rack, we put it on the roaster and covered the whole thing with foil to keep the heat in. Booker kept watch over the pig:


Once the pig was off the fire, Booker also spent a fair amount of time under the carving station. At the end of the evening, I went to scratch his ears and noticed something stiff in his normally soft hair. It was fat that had run off the pig while we were carving and landed on his head as he scouted under the table for lost bits. While it didn't burn him, it was pretty disgusting and made him smell like barbecue instead of dog. The large-dog method of bathing was in order fairly promptly the next morning.

As it cooked, we occasionally wiped down the pig with a mojo of sour orange, garlic, black pepper, salt, and oregano:



Flipping the pig. The smallest pig I could get this year was 100 pounds which made this a bit of a chore and lengthened the cooking time quite a bit:






Testing- looks about done:



Cutting crispy skin for those who'd like a bite:




Getting into the meat of things:



Next year, a smaller pig and another hour or two on the fire. I want that meat falling off the bone. In the meantime, I have about twenty pounds of boneless roasted pork in the freezer. Now that the weather has turned cool, perhaps some red chile is in order.

The day after

No post today. Cleaning up and hanging over. See you all on Monday.

Smaller things

I've long aspired to be a "naturalist hunter" who knows more than just how to identify the prey he seeks. I prefer to be passing familiar with and able to name the various forbs, grasses, trees, bushes, birds and non-game species and would like to know something about their lives and interactions as well. Of course, part of this is in service to becoming a more effective hunter, as knowledge of habitat is closely linked to knowledge of game, but there is more to it than that. Being familiar with the countryside and knowing about it strikes me as both more respectful of game and as adding a substantially to the interest in a day afield. After reading Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac" back in my teens I formalized this aspiration, though the general interest in things natural has been inherent for as long as I can recall. Consequently, I carry field guides around a lot, although I don't use them as often as I should and I have a hard time remembering the names of flowers even after I've keyed them out. I also count myself lucky if I can name a quarter of the plants or birds encountered in a day.

I realize that no one can know everything, or even most things, about a given habitat. People who spend their entire lives outdoors in formal or informal study still get surprised or mystified, which is kind of the point to the whole thing. Nonetheless I get a fair bit of satisfaction from adding a new bit of knowledge about natural things.

The last few trips out have involved a lot of looking at and trying to identify mushrooms. I've been interested in edible wild mushrooms for a while, but dire warnings and complete unfamiliarity with the fungi kept me from exploring it much. Classes and field events by the local mycological society consistently fell at the wrong time, too. However, after an introduction to the subject by those in the know and some time with the books, I've started looking more closely. A recent trip hunting for grouse (unsuccessful, I'm not sure that this is a very good grouse year) provided a chance to put names to things I've seen before, wondered at, but never identified. For that matter, it also provided a whole other layer of things to notice. Mushrooms (not just animal tracks) underfoot, grouse to look out low down and in the middle distance, and larger fauna out at the limit of sight.

Fall is creeping up- the aspens hadn't gone yellow, but the ferns that grow in this wet corner of the mountain range are crispy and brown and the plants in the draws are getting a little color. The morning started out auspiciously, on the drive up a nice six-by bull elk loped out of a draw and paused on a small ridge a short hundred yards away, posing against the skyline. The weather was almost cool, enough so for easy walking, but Booker still got dry and was grateful for the few springs running now that the afternoon rains have tapered off:




As to fungi, first, a red belted polypore- common and inedible, but interesting, especially if you take the time to look:



Check out the lovely white underside:



Next, a dye polypore:







Also inedible but funky and cool. An earthstar, ditto:




Lots of unidentified fungi, too. Apart from those, a few shaggymanes and puffballs provided a bit of flavor the our grouse-less dinner once home.

Predator encounter

While up in Alaska I was fortunate enough to get a pretty good look at one of the local predators- a short-tailed weasel. I was even able to get video. If you watch, ignore the silly squeaky lip noises and clicking. I saw the little dude zipping around in the brush and, after he darted right up to me once, I was trying to lure him into camera range. Since it worked, the silly noises qualify as "woodcraft" rather than "embarrassing".



Blogger's video quality isn't great, but I'm not YouTube savvy so there it is.

Fishing trip

Well, back from another week on the Copper River Delta fishing for silver salmon. As always, it was a very good time. The fish were in and running large for the most part. They were also picky and a few days were slow as a consequence. The moody nature of salmon seems to make up a bit for their abundance, in terms of fishing difficulty. Frequently, they're also fairly challenging to land and my strike-to-landed fish ratio was not great.

A couple of young bull moose:


The closest we came to a bear- these tracks were about four hours old, as the tide had this area covered with water until that time:



It doesn't look like a huge bear, but he's got a decent sized track:



A 14 1/2 lb coho, my largest to date and the first fish of the trip for me:



Sunrise at the Cordova Rose Lodge, where we've stayed these last half-dozen trips:


The Rose is very fisherman-friendly and a comfortable place to stay.

The trail into one of the fishing spots:


Now its time to think about birds and big game.

Out of Town

This blog is temporarily interrupted in order for me to go fishing. Happy Opening Day & beginning of Fall to all of you!

Bird season

In many parts of the country, hunting seasons for some birds open on September first. Not so celebrated as the Glorious Twelfth and driven in part by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the first of September marks the beginning of dove season for a lot of hunters. For many of us in the West, it also marks the beginning of squirrel season and grouse season. The season for Band-tailed pigeons also opens in some areas. In other words, September first is opening day. Except for perhaps one or two short periods, some kind of small game will be in season from now until early February.

As I've mentioned, I grew up with dove hunting and was spoiled by plentiful birds and nearby hunting locations. Stories from California hunters of driving for hours through the dark to catch a sunrise flight of birds in the desert struck me as really strange. Dove hunting was something that happened after school and after work, minutes from the house and always in the afternoon. Currently, I live in too large a city with too little nearby agriculture to have a lot of doves, despite all those mourners and whitewings crowded on my feeder:



In the last couple of decades, I've only shot doves once that I can recall. On the other hand, I've spent a lot of time, miles, gas and boot leather looking for grouse. In the Southwest we have blue grouse. In southern and western Colorado I've seen them in oak brush and pinyon margins near higher elevations. Further south, they appear almost exclusively on high ridges, usually around open meadows and in areas with mixed aspen and spruce occur. Generally, if you find grouse in an area one year, you'll probably find them there again. This is mitigated by the fact that populations are cyclical, the birds move around a good bit, and the birds are pretty easy to just walk past and you can't count on them flushing when you do. The Colorado Dept. of Wildlife estimates you walk by 5-10 birds for each one you see. (They also offer advice on finding the birds). In my experience hunting for grouse generally involves a lot of walking in high country while looking around, something worthwhile in its own right. Not a classic bird hunting experience for me, I generally carry a .22 rifle, sometimes a .22 pistol. On the one occasion I used a shotgun, I went three birds for three shots- since then I've avoided another go with the scattergun in the sure knowledge that I have many misses stored up for myself. For that matter, I've seen the birds launch themselves off tree limbs and out over canyons at truly impressive speeds, making me glad I wasn't carrying a shotgun with which to embarrass myself.

So, this post was designed to be about anticipating opening day and the start of fall. The kicker is that, in an unusual display of care and thoroughness, I decided I'd check over my state game proclamation (pdf at this link) before hitting "publish". A couple of years ago, New Mexico extended the blue grouse season to mid-October from the previous Sept. 1-30 limitation. The extra couple of weekends were nice. Now, checking the regs, I see that after thirty years during which there has been exactly one change in the regulations with respect to blue grouse, this year there's a permit requirement as well as opening the season on August 23 for one section of grouse range centered around the southern Sangre de Cristo mountains and the Pecos Wilderness. Folks hunting up there can start early. Head that way and, what do you know, today is opening day!

CBR R&R

Right at one year ago I got my Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Booker. I chose to get a rescue dog for various reasons and utilized the help and good offices of the Chesapeake Bay Retriever Relief and Rescue organization. So far, things are working out pretty well for the dog and I both and we're looking forward to the start of the hunting seasons here in a few weeks.

Each year, CBR R&R raises funds by selling a calendar. Cleverly, they raise more funds by having folks pay to vote for their favorite photos as well as by selling the calendar. Go check out the Chessie photos. The money goes to a good cause and while you're there, you could always vote and support the organization's good works. Heck, you could even vote for this guy:

The cool kids

are still talking about mushrooms. It is clearly that time of year. On our recent trip to the mountains, A, Booker and I found plenty, though not much we could identify as positively edible. Wildflowers, too:



We found Aspen boletes, which don't appear to be universally edible:





We also found this lovely fellow, at best guess, Russula emetica:





other various handsome fungi:















Here you see two puffballs, one having matured and the remains of the cap filled with water, one just appearing and still firm:



We had a few of the firm puffballs with our eggs for breakfast. I was wary of the Leccinum boletes, however. Though others eat them with enjoyment, the possibility of severe gastric distress was something I hadn't set a couple of days aside for. Perhaps a giant puffball or nice patch of king boletes remains in the future. Paying attention to mushrooms certainly opens up a whole other level of complexity in the woods- at your feet, mushrooms; fifty feet out, grouse, squirrels, other small critters; at the limit of sight, deer, coyotes, elk, and other wary species- you have to move slow or you'll miss everything!