Hunting Trip in the Fall of 1984
Small Munsterlander News, 6 October 1994
Monday: 6 a.m., and questions fill my mind. Will my 12-gauge side-by-side be all right? The gunsmith replaced the main spring only two days ago and I haven't had a chance to try it out. Will that gun and my 20-gauge travel well in the crush-proof case bought yesterday? Most of all will my Small Munsterlander, Peto's Alpha, take the trip to Idaho in stride and be ready to hunt when we get there?
My wife Vibeke and I reach Logan Airport at 8:16 A.M., exactly one hour before flight time. I am traveling with firearms, a dog, and valuable luggage. I am TWA's most challenging traveler that morning. I am also a brand-new agent's first traveler. He spends a lot of time reading the computer instructions on how to handle me. I spend a lot of time telling other passengers to go to another agent, because getting my seat assignment is going to take a lot of time. The agent is excited at the challenge. I'm glad for him, but not for me. After 35 minutes, I'm set, the dog is set, and I can say good-bye to my patient wife.
On the flight to St. Louis, I can almost feel Alpha's alarm as he huddles in the luggage compartment. To calm myself, I read "Gun Dog" and "Outdoor Life." I am calmer, but I am also the first passenger off the plane in St. Louis, watching the plane being unloaded. There's Alpha! He seems to be okay, but as I check in for the next leg, the flight to Salt Lake City, I want to be assured that Alpha has made the transfer. The agent is a nice woman. She goes to the apron and personally checks that the sky kennel is on board.
Salt Lake City: I hurry to the baggage area. Alpha has taken the flight well, but he is happy to see me - prancing around me and talking to me. Bystanders are amused. I am immensely relieved.
Off we go in a rented Olds Firence, north on I-15 under darkening skies and light drizzle. We pass the Great Salt Lake and there are a couple of surfboarders on it - in November! I'm surprised, as always, by the great expanses of flat land between the western mountains. My recollections from my early geography books are that the West is all mountains. I'm wrong.
Idaho - and the sun come out. On to Twin Falls, for a meeting with Dave Capps, a fellow NAVHDA member. He takes me to get my hunting license, to find a motel, to have supper. The conversation is heavy with dogs and hunting talk.
Tuesday: Our first day hunting in Idaho. I'm here because Idaho has, I understand, more public land than any other state, which makes it convenient for out-of-state hunters to gain access to hunting areas without having to ask permission repeatedly from landowners. Dave Capps, his son Jeff, and I start our hunting on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land near the town of Bliss. I take that as good omen - our oldest female Small Munsterlander, and the first of our dogs to pass a NAVHDA Natural Ability Test, is named Bliss.
Weather is good, though there are storms in the mountains around us. We hunt three areas, seeing pheasants, mountain quail, ravens, sparrow hawks, and the ever-present black-billed magpies.
Wednesday: Alpha and I start out alone, hunting on state land, a 300-acre ranch along the Snake River. The land is open, with Russian olive trees edging a creek that runs the full length of the property. I find a small covey of mountain quail and take a couple. Later I go to the BLM area I had hunted yesterday, looking for ducks. Find none, go on to another BLM area, and take a couple of pheasants and a couple of quail.
Thursday: Alpha and I go up to the mountains in the southern section of Shoeshone National Park. About an inch of snow on the ground, sun is out; temperature climbs to 45 degrees by lunchtime - great! Landscape is beautiful. I hunt several creek bottoms, but see no birds. Deer hunters I talk to haven't seen any either. After lunch, Alpha and I move onto the Idaho Fish and Game Management ranch in the Snake River canyon west of Twin Falls, where we had hunted the day before.
In the Russian olive area, I realize what I left in the car - my camera. I am standing still, listening to Alpha's bell as he moves through the brush when an owl swoops out of the brush and perches on a branch only 20 feet away. Alpha emerges from the brush and follows the path the owl had taken. I stop him with the whistle no more than 6 feet from the owl - and I don't have my camera.
On with the hunt. Alpha flushes a small covey of mountain quail. I try to push my way through the Russian Olives, bending branches out of my path. It's like bending steel. I hear wing beats, but never see a bird. We continue along the creek. Suddenly, I hear leaves rustling and wing beats. I'm ready for quail, but what a surprise - up come three wood ducks. I double on them. Alpha does two nice retrieves, including a beautiful track across the fast-moving stream. What a day! I've never had a double or a wood duck before - didn't even expect to run into wood ducks in this part of the country at all.
Alpha is limping. I lay down my gun to look at his paws - and a rooster takes off over the Russian Olives from only 10 feet away. I can't get my gun into position quickly enough for a shot. Remove thorn from Alpha's paw and return to the car, where I photographed him with the wood ducks.
Friday: Bag quail in some areas I had hunted before and a couple of pheasants on a ranch owned by Mr. Bastian. End the day on a steep embankment along the Snake River. Going really tough. Flush two roosters and a hen, but there isn't room to swing the gun and the birds fly over the river.
Saturday: Our last day of hunting. I hunt on a ranch owned by Dave's friend Mike Harrop, formerly an outdoor writer for The Edmonton Journal, Canada. Small world - last summer, we sold a puppy to Rod Ziegler, assistant city editor for the same paper. Mike says we can hunt chukars in the hills above his ranch. Dave and I discussed chukars, and he warned me: "Don't shoot at the first flushing birds, because they are generally too far out. Wait for the main part of the covey." I follow his advice, let the first six or seven birds go. Surprise. They were also the last six or seven birds. This scenario is repeated twice: I am always ready for the biggest part of the covey, but they never show up. Mike says there are 70 to 80 chukars in those hills. If he is right, they are still up there. It takes a hunter with better shotgun hitting ability than I can muster to get them.
A really nice experience, though. As I am coming around the side of the hill, three beautiful mule does leave their daybed in a brush-covered draw. What a sight to see those graceful animals make their way effortless up the draw. Alpha stands beside me just watching them disappear.
Alpha works hard and well that afternoon, but every time he had a point, a hen pheasant is flushed. No more birds.
Sunday: Uneventful flight home. Alpha has been splendid; guns worked fine, 15 birds and a jackrabbit are packed on ice in a bag at my feet. I mull over my impressions.
If Alpha is remembering anything, it's probably jackrabbits. They were everywhere, and any bird hunter in Idaho has to maintain good control over his dog, or the dog will go crazy chasing jackrabbits. In one 5-minute walk from my car to the creek, I had to stop Alpha six times from chasing jackrabbits. He would stop and look longingly at the tails weaving away into the distance.
Our only real problem was cockle burrs, which had an affinity for Alpha's soft coat, leg feathers, and long hair on his tail. After the first day, we developed a procedure. We hunted for an hour, then stopped so that I could use a steel comb to free the burrs from Alpha's coat. Interestingly - this time quickly became not a chore, but an interlude in which dog and master could be close and enjoy each other. It was, all in all, a great week in Idaho.