My Chukar Hunt Story

[Salmon Stryker]

Well I'm back at work after my first chukar hunt yesterday and as promised here is the account:

This was a semi-guided hunt out at the young life camp in Antelope. The camp sits on 101,000 acres that used to be the Rashneesh compound. Wow! Lots of history and pretty cool to see and hear about how the Bogwan and his people lived. There is awesome hunting on this land and the country is nothing short of amazing. Basalt cliffs, steep canyons, rock outcroppings, shale slides, juniper, John Day river valley etc. The young life camp has a full time guide and he runs private party hunts on the ranch for elk, deer, wild bore, chukar, quail and pheasant. These are bid type of hunts and are done as fundraisers to support young life. My brother-in-law bought this hunt at an auction and invited me to go along with him and 4 other guys.

We arrived Saturday night and slept in a big old ranch house surrounded by ponds. I woke up to the call of mallard hens sitting content on the ponds and the smeel of bacon being fried by our guide who snuck in before we woke to prepare a big farm breakfast for us.

He gave us some options for the day and we elected to start out the day quail hunting as kind of a warm up and chukar hunt in the afternoon. We walked along the banks of the John Day and shot at quail until our shoulders ached and our ears were ringing. We also bagged a couple of nice ringnecked roosters. One time the dog was way out in front us and his pointing collar started ringing so we ran up there. That crazy dog held his point for at least 5 minutes until we all made it up there. All at once about 50 quail (seriously) came out of the bush and the five of us somehow missed all of them I was just shooting at the mass of birds instead of just picking out one to shoot at and that was my problem. Plus they flushed so close that on our first shots there was no shot spread yet. Anyway we ended up getting several quail and two pheasants on the morning hunt.

Went back to the ranch for lunch and then headed to the hills for chukar. You guy's were not kidding me about how much work chukar hunting is. We climbed and climbed like we were billy goats. The action was a little slower as the chukars were flushing way out in front and the only way to hunt this area is from the bottom and hunt to the top, then back down. I only got 4 shots at chukar and got one (which was better than my batting average in college) so I was happy. Some other guys in the group got a lotmore shooting in than me but as a group we only ended up with 3 chukar. I'm pretty sore today but had a great time.

[img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

[Mojo]

My Dad knew the guy that sold that place to the "Bagwan". He spent a lot of time over there. It is awesome isn't it? Glad you had a good trip. Chuckars are something else. They mostly run to the op of the hill, laugh at you as you chase them up there, then fly down the other side before you can get a shot off. My lab hated them with a passion...

[BuKuBass]

I had access to the Muddy Creek Ranch in the early ninties. Yep...lots of quail some chukar and a few pheasant. There were also bass and crappie in the main pond on the Muddy that was drained in December of '91 for the FBI who were looking for Uzis.
Jim, the ranch ramrod, had yanked out the lake's headgate on the spillway then let me know. The next morning the FBI arrived with chest-high waders and I with a landing net. Watching the trainees post-holeing in DEEP and COLD mud was entertaining...the classic arm-waving, "I'm-stuck-and-falling; can't-do-****-about-it", face plant. After laughing at the fibbies for awhile, I walked down the crick collecting the bass and crappie that had been washed out of the pond the evening before. They were barely frozen and had clear eyes. I collected seventy-two bass, the biggest just over six pounds, and some large crappie.
And no, they didn't find any Uzis.

[billc_sbio]

A buddy of mine and I used to hunt Coyotes over on the "Big Muddy" in the early 80's BEFORE the Rashneeshees got hold of it... It's an awesome place! My friend and his dad used to deer hunt there...back in the 60's.

Later, after the Rashneeshees were gone, we stopped back and "visited" with the temp caretaker. It was amazing to see that large street with all those buildings in there, EMPTY! They had a chain link fence put up, right ACROSS that street and in the background there were Chukars running ALL OVER in between the buildings etc. The goofy caretaker kept commenting about the "Brown Pheasants"! :grin:

My buddy used to know the original caretaker who lived in the older white house next to the pond...there's a funny story about him. When the Rashneeshees bought the place, they needed someone who "knew the place" to SHOW them where everything was! So, they asked him to stay on. They wanted to know how much $$ he made so they could continue paying him what the former ranch owners had (a Texas syndicate). They had one of their Indian fellows there, taking notes. I guess he added one too many ZEROS onto the number! Anyway, this pard started getting monthy paychecks with that extra zero in there. It took 'em over 1 year to figure this out...I remember that from the T.V. news...don't think the Rashneeshees ever got their $$$ back! :grin: Though they tried!

BTW, HOW did you "arrange" your guided hunt? Who did you hunt with? Any numbers?

[ 12-16-2003, 08:11 PM: Message edited by: billc_sbio ]

[straightweave]

your's is not the first party to have a "swarm" of quail jump up at their feet and shoot a big zero. that has to be one of the best sights in all of hunting. the first time that happened to me, I didn't/couldn't even shoot. I just stood there and watched them fly. That all changed when we got to them the second time, of course...

[SlamminKokes]

Did you see any of the boars while you were over there hunting?

[MarlinMark]

How can you get ahold of this "guide" for a price list etc.?

Mark

[Salmon Stryker]

We didn't see any pigs or elk but we saw a lot of deer on the chukar hunt and some HUGE bucks. There was a ton of elk sign everywhere too but didn't see any. Craig, the guide said they still have a half dozen cow tags for this year and he said it was a sure thing getting a cow.

My brother-in-law set up the hunt by purchasing it at a fundraising auction for Young Life. I'll do a little research and see if I can get contact information.

Craig said he has also run trips for steelhead and bass on the John Day or cast and blast trips.