Fly Fishing: Guide Wars Officially...

...kaput. I know, I know said that awhile ago but...A couple of days ago I did the last trips on the books and since it is already way beyond my usual Labor Day shut down...as someone once noted NO MAS!!! Or put another way I have netted my last trout for the season unless of course tis one of Gale's or mine...Nuff said on that, eh?

Summer also officially comes to a close on Friday and while I know won't last the past few days have really felt like fall. Fact is the past two mornings we had hard frosts, hard enough to effectively kill off most of Gale's vegetables and even most of her flowers. I hadn't planned on mowing the yard anymore this fall but thanks anyway. Tomorrow we are planning a short R&D camping trip into the Pioneers and if all goes well with Kate (she had trouble adjusting to camper life down on the Madison over Labor Day) we will head east to kick start the real bird hunting in a week or so. 

First stop will be somewhere in the Sweet Grass Hills where word on the streets indicate the prairie birds might have weathered last winter a bit better than further east..hopefully we shall soon see.

Wilson's phalarope, one of many shorebird species found in Montana

We also need to ramp up production efforts for our upcoming book "Birding Trails Montana" of which the first installment is due end of November...Yikes! Seeing as I've hardly made a dent so far now there is a really scary thought...But we should be able to knock out a bunch of included sites in between bird hunts so maybe just maybe will be able to get enough done to at least satisfy contractual obligations...sort of anyway.

Baneberry is just one of many, many fruits and wildflowers flourished from all that moisture this spring...should make for some fat, tasty bird dishes this fall, eh?

Travel: Arizona Marathon Quail Hunt Highlights Or...

...Lowlights Depending Of Course On Your Viewpoint...

Home at last. Poorer financially, thanks in large part to the folks at Ford Country, Las Vegas, NV; but richer by far for the experience. We left Dillon in mid-December and got back late last evening after a marathon drive from our last camp outside Ely, NV. In all we slept in the camper trailer over 50 nights; most pretty nifty, some not so hot.

I think the girls, Gale and the Pointer Sisters would agree the worst were in the canyon outside Caliente, NV, not knowing if a flash flood would wipe us out as we tossed and turned trying our damnednest to ignore the pounding rain pelting the trailer as if being blasted by a firehose; the three nights in Nipton, CA serenaded by one rumbling freight train after another--whistles blaring naturally--just a few steps from the trailer having been litterally drug there by the tow truck which we hoped would be repaired quickly but of course was not; the night at Alamo Lake, AZ wind roaring banshee-like, rain pounding down such you could barely hear yourself think, wondering again if a flash flood might kill us in the night; and last but not least the camp mentioned  above outside Ely...with the temp flirting zero, the batteries near dead, the heater barely working, water still in the pipes, at 3 a.m. the panic alarm sounded, we fired up the generator, heated water on the stove to thaw the drains and finally...finally the water began draining...(don't bother asking why I didn't drain the damn thing in the daylight cause I ain't talkin)...The best camp by far was the 3 weeks plus out in the desert somewhere east of Tucson (top secret of course)...thank god we missed the whacko shoot 'em up in Tucson... Although we were actually lost closeby the scene day before...enough on that.

As I say we are now home and for the next while I plan to post a few highlight pix and naturally a comment or two...

High Tech Shaving/ Desert Style...click to enlarge, that is if you dare...

Chef Chuck grilling up a feast of bar-b-que Gambel's quail & mourning dove breasts

with grilled red spuds...damn don't it make ya wonder what the rich folk are eatin...

At first glance you might think Annie's hoarding the Fish Eye wine box but actually she's just pretending to nap...upside down a course as is her favorite style.

Laundry day in the desert...rather ingenious set-up, eh?

Two monkeys and a Ford truck...what else can I say...

Naturally geezers can't hunt 50 some days straight so...This day we set off to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge hoping to photograph desert bighorns (didn't happen by the way)...to get there we had to pass thru Quartzsite, AZ billed as the world's biggest flea market (sorry but I got other ideas)...Anyway on the way back to camp Gale insisted we stop so she could shop the many jewlery stands (no surprise there)...Anyway whilst she poked around I couldn't help taking the camera for a hike (to me the place is more like a friggin freak show, sorry)...

On a serious note almost everyone we ran into on the trip had also visited and not surprising had a horror story to tell...stollen generator, bikes ripped off while the owners slept...and on and on...so I guess we got off easy, Gale didn't bite and nothing ripped off...lucky us, eh?

Stay tuned, there's more...much more to come...over and out...Chuck