Jesse

Jesse pointing, but not holding, quail

Jesse is going on 9 months this March. He finally has his new kennel built in the back yard. It's 20 feet long, 6 feet wide, and its covered; I can comfortably walk under the roof. Since I posted the first video of him in September, he has grown a lot. He has also chewed up and destroyed lots of things he wasn't supposed to.

I don't know why he hates my BBQ so bad, but he has chewed all the electronic start wires off of it as well as the gas hose that runs the whole thing. He then ripped all the rubber edges off the handles for turning the burners off and on as well as chewed up the handle to my wire brush I use for scrubbing the grill clean. He has also chewed all the plug-ins off the cars block heaters and the wire to my pump outside, that I use to water my yard. He found out how to push through the back fence and escape into the neighbor's yard, and he can jump the 4 foot chain link fence around the rest of the yard, like it was nothing. I love the puppy stage!

He LOVES birds and he LOVES our kids. Cole and I took him on a walk a few days ago and he pointed lots of quail and pheasants as well as a golden eye on the Grande Ronde River. I'm hoping to train him as a versatile dog, hunting and retrieving waterfowl and upland game birds. So far he likes both and has retrieved both, at home, in the back yard. He is more excited about retrieving now and doesn't tire of the game as fast. Whoa has been hard for him; he cowers when I make him whoa, so I have laid off of it, going back to it occasionally to see how he reacts; he is getting better. He likes water, but hasn't done any water retrieves yet.

The above video was taken today. I took Kim, Jared, and Lyndie out to watch him work. We saw quite a few quail, a handful of pheasants, and some huns. It was a good walk with some good dog work. He really needs polishing, but he is young and right now we are just trying to be excited about things. I'll start more formal training this summer.

I did take him chuckar hunting in January and it was VERY frustrating, at first. The fog was really heavy and visibility was 25 yards at best. He was typically out of sight and I had a hard time keeping track of him. He always found us again, but I wanted to see how he was reacting to birds. I shot a chuckar over Jesse's 1/2 brother and then shot two more birds around Jesse. He was below both groups of birds (30 yards or more) and the birds got up above me, so I shot one bird out of each covey. He tracked one bird over 60 yards to retrieve it; it was really cool. The other glided over a mile. Gus, Jesse's 1/2 brother got it for me. But just after shooting the bird Jess made the 60 yard trail/retrieve on, he pointed and held a bird for me. I shot it twice (sometimes I'm not a dead eye) and he trailed it 40 yards, picked it up, dropped it and headed off. I got him back to the bird, he picked it up again and dropped it in my hand, but didn't carry it. I was happy though. He pointed and help birds, trailed dead/live ones, and made attempts at retrieving. It was a very satisfying end to a long, frustrating day. He has a lot of potential and I look forward to finding and perfecting that potential in him.

Christmas Geese

I was fortunate enough to have a couple 3 day weekends over Christmas and New Years, so we took advantage of the opportunity and went bird hunting a few of the days.

Dec 23rd was cold, overcast, and the roads were horrible; a perfect day to jumpshoot waterfowl. We took the boys over to a favorite family spot. It's easy hunting and fun. We spot the birds, drop off kids, then drive down below the birds, get out, walk up towards them and they fly right into the death trap! A good retriever is a must and Piper, uncle Seth's Lab, fits the bill perfectly.

We took uncle Adam and Grandpa Isaacson and a slug of boys, and headed out, early that morning. Right away Adam spotted a goose. We haven't ever shot a goose there, so we were really excited for the chance.

Tyler, Corey, Jantzen, Adam and I got out with Piper and Grandpa went to push birds. We set up in a great spot, right on the bank of the water, behind a big alder bush that completely concealed us. We waited a few minutes and I was wondering if it was going to work out when shots rang out to my left. Tyler's 12 gauge barrel was smoking and a goose was down; head shot. It didn't even fold up, just cartwheeled into the river. Piper dove in at the shot swimming the rapids to the goose. She made a fantastic retrieve! The goose didn't have time to get down river because she was so quick about it.

We drove further on finding quite a few ducks. The next set up was on a dozen mallards and they flew right over us. Corey shot a drake and Tyler a hen. We were a long way off the water this time and Piper had to chase Corey's drake, it was still alive, so when she got back to us Tyler's hen had drifted 400 yards downstream. I called Piper and took off at a run down river, trying to catch it. Adam was running behind with Lucy and we finally caught up with it a half mile below where it was shot. Adam wanted Lucy to get in on the action, so he bailed down the high bank with the dogs. He threw a few rocks to show the dogs where the duck was at. Piper went right out for the rocks, then either smelled or saw the duck and she had it, another great retrieve. Lucy didn't figure the game out, but she's never made water retrieves before, so it was all new to a young pup.

The rest of our set ups weren't as productive. Tyler and Corey couldn't, to quote uncle Dave Hasler, "slap their butt with both hands!". They missed cleanly and the ducks flew on to be hunted again another day.

Dec 24th was a nice, blue bird day, and we were chuckar hunting on the Snake River. I took Jesse along, hoping to get him on some birds. Shaye Perry, Adam's life long friend, and the owner of Jesse's mom, went along with Gus, Jesse's 1/2 brother. We got into birds immediately, but the snow was deep and the birds spooky. We wasted most of the day chasing birds across snow fields and only getting a few shots, none very good. We decided to climb above the birds and hunt down country towards the rig. We trudged through deep snow for a mile before finally topping out and hunting across the south facing slopes. We got good points on a big group of birds that had split up. Gus was on the bottom group and Jesse pointed the top ones for me--the only one without a gun. Adam and Shaye got birds out of the lower group and Tyler missed superbly the group Jesse pointed. I had the best shots but could just stand there and enjoy the show. Corey had fallen behind and didn't get any shots. He had shot a cottontail earlier, but wasn't having much luck getting into birds.

Around the next draw, Corey lost his boot in the snow, falling behind again. I waited for him, giving him 5 minutes to catch up. It was taking longer for him to catch up than I thought it should, so I headed back to look for him. We were separated by the ridge back is all, and he had a gun, so I wasn't worried. But he came over the ridge crying hard. While putting his boot back on a huge cougar came down the ridge back across the draw from him at around 60 yards. It didn't come at him, charge, scream, or even seem to notice him, but its presence scared Corey pretty bad.

We hunted down country getting into LOTS of birds. The boys had lots of difficult shots they easily missed. Adam and Shaye got a few more birds between them and Gus made a fantastic retrieve on a bird earlier hit by Shaye.

December 31st was 4 degrees below zero, the river was floating ice, and the birds were scarce. We were jumpshooting ducks again, the last day of the year. The boys' hunting licenses were expiring that day and we wanted one more shot at using them. Uncle Seth went this time, along with Lyndie, Jared, Cole, and Corey's friend Parker Berry.

We found a group of ducks and Seth knocked two down, the boys just had fun filling the air with T shot. One of the ducks made it up river a long ways, losing altitude the whole way, before dumping into the river in a fog bank. We headed up to see if the dog could find it. A big group of mallards spooked off the water, but the wounded duck wasn't there. Corey looked through the fog and thought he spotted some geese. They made their way to the next bend of the river, jumping the geese off the water. Corey knocked one down and Seth got another. Piper didn't want to get in the frigid water that bad, and who can blame her. She did a great job retrieving all the birds though. It was a great end to a good year.

Tyler shot this drake a few weeks before Christmas with uncle Seth, out on the marsh, pass shooting. Jared loved it! He is really excited to hunt. When Seth knocked the two ducks down on the 31st, Cole and Jared watched the first drake drop stone dead out of the air and Piper make a long distance retrieve on it, they were REALLY excited about it. They are both chomping at the bit to be able to hunt with us! Anyway, Jared had to have a picture with Tyler's duck, I'm not sure what is up with his smile, but he is obviously excited!

Tiger Wrestling

Tyler Jason Isaacson is the 3rd generation Tiger Wrestler. My dad wrestled for La Grande, graduating in 1969. His brother Sig also wrestled for La Grande and graduated (I think) in 1971. My brothers and I, and my cousin Tyko all wrestled for Verl Miller in La Grande. I graduated in 1990 winning the district championship that year, my brother Adam graduated in 1993, my cousin Tyko (Sig's son and a 3-time district champ, one time state champ) graduated in 1996, and my brother Seth graduated in 1998 (he also won the district championship that year). Tyler will graduate in the year 2014.

He is currently 103 pounds, on the money, before practice, and around 101 afterwards. Sleeping he looses 2.5 pounds a night, and after the 100 updowns they did in practice the other day, he lost almost 4. The fitness world doesn't make a "workout" that anyone would actually do, day in and day out, that compares to a wrestling practice. There are some that are similar in nature, but never as intense, as physically demanding, as brutal.

You're never pitted against another person of varying size, weight, or strength. You don't have to physically fight them off, lift them, throw them, restrain them, repeatedly break them down as they resist everything you attempt to accomplish. Mental and emotional exhaustion are rarely achieved while working out. Rarely are you beaten into submission by an opponent. Rarely do you question whether you want to continue on; or even if you can. Rarely are you brought to your breaking point where you must look inward and find the strength, the guts, the heart to get up one more time. In wrestling you must face your worst enemy, yourself, every minute of every practice, of every match, of every workout. You are your greatest weakness.

No one in there right mind would pay to have this done to them. There must be a payoff. The price paid must be justifiable, and the outcome must be worth the price paid. Rarely in wrestling is this ever true! There isn't fame, fortune, or popularity associated with the sport. The accomplishments are personal, private even. To be acknowledged by few. It's a badge of honor that no one sees, that no one understands, unless they too have paid the price.

Wrestling is a tradition passed from father to son. It's a right of passage, a brotherhood, a title that is earned, not given. Towns, states, even countries are "known" for their traditionally tough programs, and for the high quality athletes, and hopefully citizens, they produce. Amazingly ESPN and the millions who watch it couldn't tell you who they are. They are The Silent Gladiators that Nicholas A. Hopping explains so well (get the book, read it, think about it, then read it again!) and I am happy, even proud, to say that my sons will be part of the Tiger Tradition that my family has been a part of for the last 41 years.

As the year progresses I will continue to add, when possible, the matches we have that Tyler has wrestled. I'll try and include the scores and where he places in the tournaments.

Estacada Varsity Tournament Tyler was 1-1, placing 3rd overall

Match 1

TOO LONG TO UPLOAD. The kid is from Culver, OR, and was last years Oregon Jr. High State Champ. Tyler lost 2-6. I'll try facebook and see if I can upload it there.

Match 2, Round 1

Match 2, Round 2

Nyssa Oregon Varsity Dual Tyler won 9-2

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3-Watch Tyler rip the kid's head off at the 48th second! Nice pancake!

La Grande Tournament 10 Dec 2010

Quarterfinals Tyler pins in the 1st round

Round 1

Semifinals Tyler pins in the 2nd round

Round 1

Round 2

Finals

Faceoff

Round 1 Tyler is down 2-5

Round 2 Tyler is down 3-7

Round 3 Tyler loses 3-12

Award Stand

Best of the West

Match 2

Regional Wrestling, Ontario, OR

Cole's First Grouse

Notice the size of the 12 gauge compared to Cole in this picture!

Cole is suffering! He is 8 and just big enough to not be able to do anything his older brothers get to; specifically hunt. When we moved here to Oregon, he became eligible for the mentor program. This means with a hunter's safety he can shoot my deer, elk, turkey, bear, cougar, etc. It's a good program allowing kids to become more involved at an earlier age.

Unfortunately he is still too small to hold a gun by himself. He has shot the single shot 20 gauge quite a few times and is better, but it is still too long. He has wanted to shoot a grouse for a very long time and we just haven't been able to get him on one. He missed some ducks the other day, shooting over their heads as they sat on the water. He was really excited to try and I really wished he would have killed one, but that's hunting!

Last weekend grandpa Isaacson and uncle Seth took Tyler, Corey, and Cole down to Troy, Oregon, to fish for the fall run steelhead. Tyler finally hooked a 26 incher losing it right at the bank. On the way home some grouse were in the middle of the road, so they scared them up into the surrounding trees and grandpa held the gun and took the kick of Seth's BPS with goose loads. The ruffed grouse didn't stand a chance! Cole thought they'd missed because all he saw fall was the branch! Grandpa told him to go pick up his grouse and Cole couldn't believe it! Seth said he had the most pleased, satisfied-with-himself look of any little kid he as ever seen! Cole is an official hunter now and can't wait to be big enough to shoot properly! I think we might have another addict in the family!

Wyoming Deer Season 2010

This is Corey's first year of hunting, and with us moving to Oregon at the end of the summer, we had to travel back to Wyoming so he wouldn't miss his chance to hunt deer at the age of 12. For me, hunting season was the long awaited "coming of age" thing I waited for. Driving was exciting, being 21 really didn't hold anything special for me since I don't drink, and so my whole life has been focused on the number 12! Anyway, it wasn't an easy trip to plan, but with the help of Grandpa Isaacson, we made it work.

We left La Grande around 4 AM with a goal of making Kemmerer, Wyoming, before evening. Our plan was to hunt Tyler's antelope that afternoon, and then meet my brother Adam, who did all our scouting for us this year, as well as packed a ton of meat, let others shoot before him, and basically acted as guide to his older brother and nephews, this weekend.

Antelope doe tags haven't ever been too difficult to fill. But this year all the does were on the wrong side of the road, or all the antelope we saw were bucks! The country around Kemmerer rolls, it doesn't break. And the sage brush is tall, so it makes for difficult stalking and shooting, especially from the prone position. We had wind gusts of 40 miles an hour that day, with a constant wind speed of over 10 miles an hour. There were thunderstorms moving through and this made for difficult hunting.

Tyler's first attempt was spoiled by sagebrush deflecting his bullet. It was an easy 300 yard shot, but the bullet struck way low. We moved on and finally found this doe with a smallish buck and her fawn. Tyler hit sage brush again, but recovered with a good shot behind the shoulder when she stopped at 200 yards. We hunting until almost dark without getting another shot. We even hunted the private property Adam shot three antelope in 10 minutes on 4 years ago but only saw one buck.

We needed to be to our meeting spot before dark to find Adam, set up camp, and get ready for the deer opener the following day. So we drove off with one antelope tag unfilled.

We got up at 2:45 AM the next morning and drove to the trail head (we camped about 8 miles down the road in grandpa's 12 x 14 wall tent) and raced some other hunters on horses up the trail. We won the race, topping out before they did, and thankfully they headed off to other country. We climbed to the top of the 10,000 foot peak and waited for daylight. The wind was really cold and it seemed like the darkness would never give way to the morning...........but finally it was light enough to see. Adam spotted three bucks right away; one I could tell was a shooter. We worked our way quickly across the ridge back, covering the .5 mile in a short time. I spotted 5 more deer on a distant peak on our ridge, but we never did get a good enough look at them to see anything about them. Adam saw a group of 5 bucks a few weeks before in that area and we kind of figured it could have been them.

We peaked over the ridge top right above the three bucks. The front one was the biggest, but the back buck was good too, so we followed Adam advice and Tyler and Corey got set up to shoot one each. Corey shot first and hit low, Tyler shot his first shot, but a little far back, Corey shot again and hit his buck. WWIII, minus the nukes, opened up after that as we tried anchoring the wounded deer.
Tyler and Corey's bucks died within 150 yards of each other. Tyler had shot the bigger buck in the lead, and Corey's was a year younger, but almost the same size as Tyler's; he had shot the back buck.
We took pictures, gutted, skinned, caped, and packed Corey's buck back to the truck (a 3 mile one way pack). Grandpa was really excited to see us! We decided he would take Tyler, Corey, and Jantzen antelope hunting so Tyler could fill his last tag, while Adam and I went back to get Tyler's deer. We covered the 6 miles in under 2 hours.
I was pretty dead that night having only slept 12 hours in 3 days, and packed out the two deer with Adam. So I slept through the next morning hunt. We broke camp and met Adam at his house around supper time.

He and I got up at 2:45 AM again, Friday morning, and headed for one of my favorite places. Two hunters beat us up the trail, we were a half an hour behind them, and they ended up shooting a nice 4 point that morning. Adam spotted 3 bucks feeding a mile and a half across some huge country. We spent the rest of the day getting to the bucks, which were actually closer to the truck. At dusk we snuck across a huge open hillside across ravines, washes, and scree slopes, all the while staying quiet on the best game trail I've ever walked. We snuck right in on the bucks and jumped them.

When they came out at 200 yards I shot mine. He rolled back down the hill and out of sight. Adam decided to pass on the smaller buck. As I was shouldering my pack, Adam looked up to see a monster buck headed over the ridge top at 350 yards. Because he was holding both rifles he didn't get a shot. He did, however, climb the rest of the way up the basin and try to see if the buck had maybe slowed down on the other side, but it hadn't.

We took care of the buck, each took half, and I got the head, and we headed for the truck, 3 miles distant. The night was moonless, at least at that point, so we had a hard time cutting across country and finding the game trail we used to get in there. We were able to work together, remembering land marks, bushes, rocks/rims, to finally find it. Once on the trail we cruised on out of there. I lost the pack trail a few times on the way down, but we finally made the main trail around 10:30 pm. We were to the truck by 11:30 and home, to Adam's house just after midnight. We took care of the deer and made it to bed just after 1 AM.

It was a LONG day; in both miles and hours. We walked around 15 miles in rough, broken, rimmy country with heavy packs and sore feet. We had few trails to follow, cutting across country most of the day. Amazingly we made really good time coming out. It could have been the pain that drove us along, but I think it was more just good company! I love to hunt with my little brother! The GPS said we were moving at around 3 miles an hour on our way out, once we hit the main trail for the last 1.5 miles to the truck. The next day we cut a cord of wood for Adam and his family and enjoyed good food (Jared says aunt Emily is the best cook EVER), a movie, and had a nice visit with Adam's family. We got up fairly early the next day and made it home in time for me to make my graveyard shift.

Opening Day of Grouse Season 2010

Today was the long awaited day when the bird seasons of 2010 began. I got up at 4 PM yesterday, after my graveyard shift and didn't sleep until noon today. I had to pull over and sleep while the kids explored an old homestead and orchard with Jesse, our Shorthair pup. Since we moved back to Oregon we have been looking forward to hunting grouse, huns, quail, pheasants, chuckars, and the waterfowl.

Today we took our new pup, Jesse, a German Shorthair Pointer, out for his first taste of hunting. Since he doesn't even know his name yet, we just got him 5 days ago, this was just a "get your feet wet" type of a day.

We picked huckleberries on Monday night and I took the .22 and 20 gauge shotgun to see how he would do around gun shots. Needless to say he was in good shape.

The area we headed to is an old logging road in the bottom of a very thick, brushy draw, with a stream in the middle of it all. Lots of grouse like to live and die there . Unfortunately someone was hunting it when we got there, so we headed high, looking for Blues. Instead we found some Ruffed Grouse.

It rained all day and so it was pretty wet out there. All the boys wanted to go, so we headed out this morning with a gun for everyone but me--I was supervisor/safety dude. We hiked a mile or two and had just looked over a small part of the earth that didn't fall when Adam partook of the fruit, and were headed back. We'd eaten fresh huckleberries and enjoyed the walk through the trees and meadows, but hadn't seen any grouse yet. Just off the summit of the ridge, I spotted an adult grouse walk across the trail in front of Corey and Jesse. Corey and Tyler put shells in and snuck up to where the grouse had disappeared into the thick trees. Corey spotted his immediately and shot through an alder branch to get his. Tyler crawled back into the thick trees and brush and spotted the other, taking off its head with my old 870 Wingmaster with the 30", full choked barrel. Unfortunately we didn't see anymore, but Cole and Jared and I are headed out again soon so they can get some too.

I'll post this now, but I'll edit it after getting some sleep. I'm going on 31 hours right now without sleep, so I'm a little off on my thought processes.

Salmon Fishing the Imnaha River

Seth's 34 inch, 15-20 pound, chinook, hen salmon

Seth got home from work around midnight. I was up waiting for him. We got our gear together and left town by 2 a.m. We got to the river around 4:30, fishing below the town of Imnaha for starters. We caught NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH, ZERO, well that isn't completely true. Seth landed a 10 inch smolt. So, around noon we headed up river, looking for good spots above town. We finally found some good water that was free and started fishing. I took off up river, exploring, leaving Seth to fish the whole he had spotted a salmon in. About an hour later he came to find me, packing a 34 inch hen. She was HUGE. Her own body weight pulled her gills away from her body, detaching her lower jaw from her body.

We headed back down to the gravel bar he had caught her on and I hooked up after 10 minutes of fishing. It was a good fish, not huge, but strong. I got it to the bank, almost to where we could get to it when two of my hooks straightened; I lost it!

Next cast I hooked a really big fish. I fought it hard below me, but wasn't gaining much. The hook pulled free as it tore line downriver. It had straightened all three of my hooks! Seth hooked one more before we left. It was a beautiful day! Lots of fun, with 4 fish hooked, one landed. I would have liked to have landed at least one of mine, but I guess I will just have to live with the rejection!

Losing my first salmon!

Losing my Second Salmon