Steptoe Butte

Here is Steptoe Butte a few days later covered with snow

During the mid morning hours the weather was various proportions of rain,mist and wind. Around 10:00 AM it stopped raining just long enough for me to imagine that I might be able to get out. I drove to a likely spot, parked the pickup and started out. About five minutes later it started raining again. I was back at the pickup a half hour later wet and cold as were the dogs. I decided to drive on to town and get my young dog her last booster. By the time I had gotten a little lunch at the local taco drive through It had really stopped raining. So I headed for a place that I hadn't hunted for three years. I always intended on going back because it's such a unique setting.

The Palouse country is generally rolling hills dissected by drain ditches, creeks and rivers. One obvious exception is Steptoe Butte. It is a very symmetrical cone that rises 1200 foot above the surrounding hills and hollows. I parked near a farmer friends house walked 75 feet up a dirt road that was now waring a slick sheet of mud. Before I stepped into the nearest CRP four pheasant flew out several hundred feet ahead of us and silently disappeared over the distant hill. The wind was at our backs . When the dogs reached the launch sight they got excited but no stragglers had stayed behind.

The road that ran the length of the draw was too muddy to drive on or else I would have just driven down the road away from the house and started hunting up wind, but to get to where I wanted to go we had to travel on foot down wind. We worked our way up and down three hills then moved toward a corner that had thicker cover than the rest of the area. The dogs were hunting hard and started to show signs of good scent moving slower with more purpose, nose closer to the ground. Juneau stopped on point Lilly moved in closer then also stopped. I moved in at the ready, then both dogs cautiously moved on another 30 feet, then stopped on solid point. I moved forward. The rooster flushed. I shot, it fell 30 yards out in the seeded field. Lilly was quickly on it, and made the retrieve.This was the end of this field. There was good cover along the road headed back down wind toward the pickup, but we weren't ready to start back yet.

We hiked 1/4 mile down the dirt road that had no real cover on either side. Then swung into a stretch of CRP that ran up a long slope to the fence that marked the end of farm ground and the broad shoulder of the butte.

Not far from the old rusted barbed wire fence the dogs, very near each other started to slow on a hedge of grass next to the seeded field. Before they could set themselves a rooster flew just out of range. I was angry at myself for letting the dogs get too far out, angry at the bird for not waiting to be shot at, and angry at the dogs for not being more cautious. I got over it pretty quickly, but I'm still wondering what I can do to cut down the number of times this happens.

Starting at the fence line and wrapping around the butte there are hundreds of acres of wild rose. The stems are dry brown with savage thorns. On the ends are mothball sized cranberry colored rose hips. I wound around through this stuff for about an hour. It's a confused maze that forces you higher up the butte in order to get anywhere. The dogs never lost interest, but only paused for closer inspection at two locations. When I turned into the wind for the return trip I was perhaps a quarter mile above the nearest field walking into a brisk cold wind. I had to force myself to take advantage of intangible reward this hunt offered. Before me lay a vast panoramic view of the Palouse country. It's a random pattern of winter browned grass, darker seeded winter wheat fields, rough chisel plowed stubble fields, or untouched stubble. At a far distance the more defined draws are grown up in low brush. These eventually give way to canyons of pines and willows. My viewing didn't last long. It was too cold for much sight seeing. The forty five minute hike back was just the reverse of the trip up. No scent until we got back to the lower CRP. Good point from both dogs on a hen. Then only a hundred yards from the pickup the dogs flushed a rooster. It was at the farthest edge of my comfortable range, and having not been warned by a point it was gone unhindered. This was it for the day.