Fillmore Fun

Last weekend Travis had a long 4day Jewish Holiday weekend. So we took full advantage and headed out of town for some chukar & blue grouse hunting, ATVing, and clay pigeon shooting. We weren't able to do my cow elk hunt in September because of how busy Travis has been at school, and we weren't able to go on Travis' Dad cow elk hunt because of how busy Travis' Dad has been. So bird hunting it was.

Trav and I left Thursday morning and headed for Minersville to do some chukar hunting in the area. We arrived mid day and hiked and rode the ATV all afternoon with no luck. So as the sun was setting we headed into Beaver for the night. We stayed at a small, run-down type hotel for the night. And of course we had Mexican for dinner, Travis' favorite cuisine selection. It was actually a really good sit down restaurant. Definitely would recommend it especially for a small town. The next morning we headed north to Fillmore to do some blue grouse hunting in the surrounding mountains for the day and meet up with our good friends Mindy & Nick and their family in the evening and for the rest of the weekend. The ATV ride that day was full of all sorts of terrain-crossing streams, dodging cows, snow, mud, and gorgeous aspen stands. We stopped a few times to hunt, but never came across any grouse. Bummer.

That night we met Nick's family and heard the local tales of the Moroni hieroglyphics up the canyon. His grandma is the specialist in town and knows all about them and continued to tell us about them all weekend. Supposedly the hieroglyphics do not match any kind of native american writings or anything else, so some people think it was Moroni passing through as he was fleeing the Lamanities on his way to Cumorah.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to go chukar hunting. We went with some long-distant relatives of Nick up into the hills South of Fillmore. Parts of the landscape looked great for chukar hunting, but we ended up hiking all morning through a lot of the not so good parts. We had 3 german short hairs with us, but they really weren't trained very well and never found us any birds. So as we were headed back to the road that would lead us to meet up with the trucks, Travis jump a huge covey of chukar. Half the covey took off to the west and north and the other half, about 15, came up the ridge towards me and over my head heading north as well. Since the birds were directly over my head and one of the guys we were hunting with was directly in front of me, I didn't get a shot off, but it was nice to finally see something, and I knew Travis had at least one down. We didn't have time to follow the birds since we were heading south towards the trucks. So we got back to the trucks and Travis decided he needed to pop-a-squat. As he was pulling his pants down he jumped a chukar. A couple guys had their guns on them and took a shot, but nothing. A minute later another one flew out. So I grabbed Travis' gun for him and ran it over to him so he could chase the birds down. The guys took off while I stayed back and watched. Travis ended up with a total of 3 birds and everyone else zero. I was so proud. :)
That afternoon Travis, Nick, Mindy, Nick's Dad & I went on a nice ATV ride to the top of one of the surrounding peaks. It was gorgeous out and we got to see lots of deer. On our way back, Nick comes to a halting screech because he spotted a blue grouse right on the side of the road! So Travis jumps off the 4wheeler, approaches the bird to get it to fly and took 2 shots and it got away! It flew right in front of a bush so he couldn't even see it on the second shot! But it was still exciting to finally find one.

The evening was filled with a delicious dinner by Nick's mom, a warm fire, and chit chatting. The next day we watched a little of general conference and again had a great brunch. We decided to get in some shooting and went clay pigeon shooting. Can I just say I really like shooting!.. It's just so fun and a great challenge.
The end of the trip was our guided tour of the hieroglyphics. They were pretty interesting, and that's about it. :) We had to go see them though since we were staying with the expert. We finished the trip with a delicious supper compliments of Nick's mom. It was so nice doing all sorts of outdoorsy events and staying at an old house in a small Utah town. I felt like I was so far from reality. It was a perfect break and just what both Travis and I needed.