Riley not missing a beat

Well, the chukar season has begun. I don't know about the rest of you, but this was and is still a long summer. I've been worried about Riley's return to the mountain but he has come back stronger than I expected. We have been out twice now and Riley has covered over 11 miles each day. I'm sure he could have gone farther but the vet says he has a couple of months left before I can expect 100%. There were plenty of birds out there and Riley had loads of points. His retrieving is as good as ever. The only thing he is lacking this year is honoring. Riley is going to be a loner on the hill this year so I'll be missing that pleasure. I've heard some grumblings of people not seeing many birds. Riley and I did not find that to be the case. We got up early and hunted the shaded sides of the draws. The sun finally hit us about 10 oclock and we headed towards the truck drinking what little water we had left on the way. One advantage of being on the hill early is an occasional bugle of a bull elk in the distance. Outside of the heat, there were only two negatives to being on the hill this week. Number one was the smoke. My lungs really burned and it was hard getting that second wind. Number two was the dust and pollen. Riley's nose was caked with a brownish green substance by the time we finished our hunt. That's got to be tough. Just one more testament to how hard our partners work for us. We'll just keep finding some shaded draws to hunt until we get some cool and moist weather. Hopefully that will be soon.