Mark Midtlyng comes close to perfecting chukar hunting
Mark Midtlyng began hunting with his father and brother 39 years ago when he was a 12-year-old at Northwood Middle School in Spokane. Back then, he hunted mostly ducks, and he now admits he would have had trouble then hitting a barn with a shotgun even if he was standing inside it.
Over the years, Midtlyng’s shooting improved dramatically, and when he was in college at WSU, he began hunting the red-legged chukar partridge, a 1-pound import from Asia and southern Europe. The strikingly beautiful bird had established a population in steep, rocky canyons and cheatgrass-slickened hills along the Snake River, not too far from Pullman. Midtlyng teamed up with fellow Cougar, Brian Quinnett of Cheney, who went on to play professional basketball. The two frequented the chukar slopes every chance they got. They still do, forming an alliance in college based upon their mutual love of everything chukar.
When chukars flush, they like to fly downhill. This presents a difficult shot as they dive over the canyon rim. If they don’t flush, they run uphill, luring the exhausted hunter ever higher. One cannot truly appreciate the pursuit of chukars until he has experienced the blisters, the leg cramps, the dehydration and the immense frustration that comes in its pursuit. A lot of men have hunted chukars… . once. On my wall at home, I have a photograph of an exhausted springer spaniel with sad, droopy eyes at the top of Wawawai Canyon in the Snake River breaks. Her expression seems to say, “You said we were going hunting … . not chukar hunting!
All of which should make it difficult to explain Midtlyng’s passion that borders on obsession for the red-legged partridge. He “hunts” them year-round, wandering the desert country in eastern Oregon, southern Idaho and Washington, looking for birds even in the off season.
Although Midtlyng now lives in Idaho, by September, he’ll know if the birds anywhere in three states had a good hatch and even the size of an average brood. He knows the location of waterholes and springs that attract birds, where the grass is beginning to green up after a dry summer and which ridges offer the easiest access.
“You can’t get into chukar shape by going to the gym,” Midtlyng says. “You get in chukar shape by hiking the country they live in.”
Proof his “chukar workouts” are effective is in his stamina and enthusiasm once the hunting season begins. While other hunters are looking for the easiest route back to their vehicle, Midtlyng and his Chesapeake retriever, Bear, are looking for another canyon, another boulder-strewn ridgeline, another flock.
For me, chukars have always been difficult to hit. Midtlyng, though, will often take an 8-bird Oregon limit with fewer than a dozen shots. On a recent trip with him and Quinnett to eastern Oregon, he came back to the truck on the second day one bird shy of a limit.
“He had a flock of 40 practically knock him over and he didn’t shoot,” Quinnett said.
“I was busy eating my trail mix,” Midtlyng said, “and enjoying the scenery. Look at this country – how rugged it is, how vast it is, how …”
“How unpopulated?” Quinnett interrupted. “We’re the only idiots up here.”
“But that’s a big part of the mystique,” Midtlyng said as he downed another bottle of water. “I don’t need to shoot a limit every time. Just being here and doing what a lot of folks can’t is the greatest reward. Yeah, I like to eat chukars, but I love the country they live in even more. I like the way they make me feel.”