By Allan Bowden Chelsea, Alabama and
Jonathan Niednagel Canyon Country, California

I had been looking forward to my trip to Idaho all fall, and finally it came. My best friend Jon and I planned to meet each other at our friend's home on Rooster Drive in Eagle, Idaho...which is kind of a nice place to stay if you're on a quest for cock pheasants. My friend Jon flew into Boise from Los Angeles Thursday night about 7:30 pm. Mark, our longtime hunting buddy who served as our host and guide, picked him up at the airport. They went to Intermountain Outdoor Sports to get ammo and licenses. The next morning they got up at 4:00 am and drove three hours north to Riggins, ID to try for some steelhead in the Salmon River.
After a couple of hours of catching rainbows but no steelhead, they went to try for some grouse and drove to the top of the peaks surrounding the Salmon River Gorge, overlooking the "Seven Devils" in the Rugged Hells Canyon Wilderness Area.

Once they got to the top, they set out with Mark's dog, Jenny, into a thicket that Mark had seen grouse in before. They split up only about 70 yards apart but neither one of them could see 50 yards through the thicket let alone 70. As they were walking through, a huge Blue Grouse took off in front of Jon and started to fly up towards one of the many pine trees in the area. He shot with his 28ga and dumped him at about 20 yards. The bird went straight down. Jon and Mark kicked around for a few more minutes but didn't see any more birds.

On their way back down to the river bottom the terrain changed to open steep grassy hills with lava rock - perfect chukar territory. Sure enough, on their way down a half a dozen or so birds ran across the road in front of them. They hopped out and grabbed their guns. As they peeked over the ledge, all the chukar took off flying downhill. Jon shot twice and Mark shot four times. They dropped four birds out of this group and let the rest go down the hill.

As Jon and Mark got back down and started to head south towards McCall, ID they passed through some big pastureland. They'd seen elk, coyotes and foxes on their way up. Sure enough, they spotted another coyote only about 100 yards off the side of the road. Mark swung the Bronco around for Jon to take a shot but the coyote was wise to them and took off at a run. Then they noticed a second coyote out about 400 yards sitting on a dirt berm. Mark told Jon to take a shot. Although Jon told him it was way too far for his .17 Mach IV he did it anyway.

After the shot the coyote seemed to jump over the back side of the berm and he thought that he had hit him. I know better about Jon's marksmanship...and it didn't surprise me to find out later that he made good on his shot. Mark ran out into the field, disappeared over the berm and popped back up a few minutes later with a coyote in his hands. He'd hit him right through the heart at 440 yards (pure luck, according to Jon). So far it was noon on the first day of the trip to ID and Mark and Jon had caught rainbows, shot grouse and chukar and coyotes...all of this before I had even arrived from Birmingham, Alabama.

On their way back through McCall they took a dirt road toward Yellow Pine where they had another grouse run across the road in front of their truck. This time it was a Ruffed Grouse. Both Jon and Mark hopped out and Jon grabbed the 28ga. It was even thicker this time than before. He could hear the grouse in the leaves under this tree but couldn't see him. All of a sudden, the bird jumped and started flying through the tangle of trees, brambles and bushes. Jon had about a half second to shoot at about 10 yards and let one fly. He had been pretty lucky so far on his trip to Idaho and it continued as this grouse folded on the first shot.

After such an action-packed day of hunting, Jon and Mark drove straight from the field to pick me up at the airport that night at 11:00 pm. We got licenses the next morning and went out to the Montour Wildlife Management Area. I was well prepared for the early morning frost since I had recently been to Mark's Outdoors in Birmingham, Alabama to get some gear and supplies for my trip. We got into a great covey of valley quail and ended up with 14-15 birds thanks to Jenny, Mark's Setter, digging them out of the swamp. We all watched one pheasant go flying by about 20 yards from the truck that some nearby hunters with the three German Shorthairs jumped up.

I say "watched" because all three of us had our guns unloaded. Mark thought he had a shell in his over-under only to hear an awful "click" sound as he drew a bead on the beautiful rooster. We also had a rooster at our feet in some thick brush in a ditch. Jon tried to call us over to where the bird was so that Jenny could flush it out, but we arrived too late and the bird had stealthily slipped away from us. Lots of excitement and plenty of quail so far, but no pheasants yet...I could only wish that I had arrived one day earlier in order to get in on some of that great hunting action.

We drove out to an unnamed area about an hour from Eagle where we did some chukar and Hungarian partridge hunting. Got into a couple of decent coveys and Jon ended up with three birds and I think that Mark had three too.

Jon did shoot one chukar out there that sailed way down a hill. He went down with Jenny to try and find it. He was down in the area where it landed but couldn't see anything. Mark was up on top of the hill and kept yelling for him to "look at the dog!" He couldn't figure out what the big deal was since Jenny was about 5 yards to my left. Then he realized that she was on point. He walked to where she was looking and the chukar busted out. Jenny caught it along the ground before he even got a shot off. I have no idea how a dog can tell the difference between a dead and live bird. If it's dead, they just run in and pick it up. If it's live then they hold short and point. How did Jenny know that this bird was still alive? Beats me but it's pretty cool...We heard some pheasants cackling below us and saw many mule deer on our way in/out of the area. For me, however, the thrill of the trip was still yet to come.

On the way out we had the "infamous pheasant shoot," as we like to call it. Mark was driving while I was in the passenger seat. Jon was keeping an eye out for pheasants from the back seat. As we drove around a corner, Mark said that he had seen a rooster down an embankment about 20 yards away. He told me to get out and start walking toward the field. As I approached the field, I saw nothing. Then, as if all on one cue, there was a flurry of wings beating and roosters cackling as more than a dozen pheasants got up in front of me. I picked out one bird, raised to shoot, and felt a wave of emotions as I saw the big bird fall to the ground on my second shot at about 35 yards.

My trip to Idaho was complete! As I rushed over to pick up the beautiful bird, I couldn't help but thank the Lord for teaching me patience in my hunt. The wait was well worth it. Jon even managed to pick another bird that I had flushed. And, believe it or not, his pheasant was banded by the "Idaho Game and Fish Department." Wow! What a day! The drive home was one of the greatest times of my hunting life as we swapped stories of our hunt. When we arrived back at Mark's, we had a super duper Chinese dinner that night and got up in the morning for a shoot behind Mark's house. He was privileged to have some great local public land that was full of various kinds of upland game birds. We saw a few pheasants, and I busted one solid off of Jenny's point. She pointed again at something right back at the truck but we never found out what it was.

On the following day, we did a long drive to Yellow Pine, Idaho. Not too much to say about that other than it was some awesome scenery. Up the next morning for our attempt to call in some coyotes or see some Hungarian partridge, but nothing doing on that morning. We stopped at a local store called Fireworks & Fur, picked up an awesome red fox fur and otter fur and headed home so I could make it to the airport.

By my count, our total of critters was rainbows (bunch), grouse (2), chukar (at least 10), coyotes (1), quail (14-15), pheasants (3). Didn't get any huns this year but that's about the only thing we missed out on. All in all, it was one of the best hunting trips I've ever had-especially because I was able to bag an Idaho pheasant, which I now have proudly displayed in my home as a trophy of a hunt to remember.