Chukar

I wish that my motivations were completely selfless, but I'll be honest, I needed hours for the dedicated hunter program. This will be my third and final year in the program until I apply again, so I really needed to finish up my service hours. I've really enjoyed being able to hunt the archery, muzzleloader and rifle seasons and only getting two tags for the three year span of the program hasn't seemed like that big of a drawback to me. A perk to the program is that if you get a cow elk permit for the same area you can than hunt elk during your deer seasons.

So I needed 12 more hours to complete the 32 required for the program. The chukar guzzler project seemed to fit the bill pretty well and came before we start building our new house, which I'm expecting will take up all of my time & energy. So I woke up early on Saturday to make the drive over the mountains. I enjoyed the views, and seeing some buck deer, but didn't have to stop.

Building the guzzler wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't so far off the road. We started by digging a 4'x4' hole 3' deep. Then I spent most of the day hauling parts while others put it together. Everyone has a role, mine was mule. Pretty interesting to see how these are put together and despite the heat and hard work (or maybe because of it) I thought it was pretty fun. It was also an insight to how hard our Division of Wildlife Resources works for us here in Utah. One more project and I'll have my hours done, then I'll be ready for the hunts to start come August.

Hope you're as lucky,

Kidder