And that's why they call it huntin' . . .

Regular readers of this blog will recall that Mr. Mike put out the call last week for a Friday grouse hunt today, but as of 10:30 pm last night, the plan for a joint expedition to Hector was postponed due to weather--mainly because the weather forecast for Saturday was poor. Mr. Mike emailed me:

I saw that weather, too, and wasn't as pleased as I could have been about the ride home Sat., let alone the hunt Sat. a.m. So Let's bag it for this weekend. Seeing youse all - ie, incl. the Dickster - tempts me mo' better for next weekend.

As you now already know, Mike did a solo today at Hanging Bog and flushed a couple of birds with lil' Gordie.

I on the other hand wasted the better part of the day waiting for our appliance repairman to show up and fix our dishwasher--which he did at 2:00 pm. Then it was off to Wegman's to pick up medicine for my child (long story, don't ask). BY THREE O'CLOCK, however, I was ready to rock and roll. The weather was overcast and threatening rain, it was 54 degrees, and the weather web sites said there was a 10 mph wind out of the south, but if there was such a wind, I certainly didn't feel it.

We were in the woods by 3:35. For the Cabin Boys among you, I wore jeans, Lacrosse boots, shirtsleeves, and my ripped game vest. And oh, of course, my Filson blaze orange cap. I'm shooting the 12 gauge Parker VH and following my trusty wispy haired pokey dotte dogge, Katie. Pretty much like the picture to the right. (photo credit: Vicar of State College, ca. 1998)

We started south along the woods road that leads ultimately to the spot I've just this season named, "The Hot Corner."

Digression #1: So sue me--I'm sure after he gets done reading this Pete will accuse me of hammering this one area. But when I've previously put up eight birds in a little more than an hour, and only killed two in the bunch, then I guess I can still press the attack a bit. And every hunt is different . . . even hunting the same location over and over.

At first Katie showed little or no interest in getting off the trail into what is a wide expanse of hawthorn and dogwood. Which is fine with me, because I have certainly followed her into the gnarlies plenty of times, and if she doesn't want to do the gnarlies right off the bat, well then, like I said, that's fine with me.

We got almost to the end of the trail before she really started working the cover. At one point she left the trail to my left and east, then crossed back over the trail and headed uphill westward. She came to a stop about fifty yards uphill, locked up tight under a pine and pointing back downhill into some dogwood.

I approached the point cautiously, and Katie's not budging--and I mean she is absolutely as staunch as can be. She's been holding the point for at least a minute while I've been making my way towards her. With the recent warmth, and given the sheer open "dogwoodyness" of what she was pointing into, I almost figured it to be another woodcock, like last week. So I walked on in, and WRRRRRRRRR, a grouse gets up and away, but slowly, as if it were struggling to get out of the brambles. I finally see the bird above the dogwood going low and straightaway downhill. BANG! I miss the first shot with the right barrel at probably a good forty yards.

Digression #2: You may find this hard to believe, but in the split second that ensued between pulling the front trigger and then pulling the rear trigger, my mind flashes to Milt Smelt's lesson on "shooting the ass-end of a pheasant heading into a nor'easter." Or something like that. I don't remember the details . . . all I can remember are . . . those damn stick figure drawings.

Back to reality. BANG! I miss with the second barrel as the bird continues to sail low and away from us, and back up the woodroad we've just walked in on.

Digression #3: If the truth be known, I missed that second shot because at the moment of truth--meaning when I pulled the trigger for the second time--at the moment of reckoning--I was actually and inwardly laughing my ass off at . . . all I can think of are . . . those damn stick figure drawings.

So Katie and I followed up on the bird, because I had marked it well, and because I'm still using the Winchester SuperX 6s out of the 12 gauge, and because, well, you know . . . because hope springs eternal. We gave the area where I'd marked the bird a good going over for five or ten minutes, but finally turned back and continued the hunt.

My mind, however, had duly noted and carefully registered the location of that bird, and as Katie began to work the woodcock cover uphill and to our west, I let her have at it--whereas my original game plan had been to "skip the woodcocky crap and hustle on down to the hot corner." As I am fond of reminding Mr. Mike in precisely these situations: forget geometry, and forget the game plan.

And boy, was this ever a hunt where "forget geometry" was the ultimate game plan. There was no real breeze to speak of, but Katie was registering grouse scent just about everywhere. Within five or so minutes, she pointed another bird that flushed at my approach and didn't offer a shot--but again, from within the wide open expanses of chest high dogwood.

Scenting conditions must have been perfect, what with the mild temperature and with all the rain we've had lately--plus all the grasses and goldenrods have finally been smushed down by the repeated snowfalls and thaws we've had (mini-digression 3.b: yes, "smushed" is indeed an official bird hunting term.)

Anyway. Five minutes later, another point--under a couple of big pine trees, and this time the bird flushed closer to my approach, but again . . . no shot. But I'm elated: that's three birds in fifteen minutes, they're spread out evenly throughout the covert, we're nowhere's even close to The Hot Corner, and they're holding like . . . well, they're holding like frickkin' woodcock, as Safari Jim might put it. All of a sudden I realize I'm having a great hunt.

Not five minutes later again, you guessed it, Katie goes on point. We're in the middle of a piney dogwoody hawthorny patch, but I'm able to approach through a pretty good opening. Again, she is just about as staunch as a dogge can be. WRRRRRRRR. A grouse gets up between Katie and me and flies almost straight up in the air. I take the first shot with the right barrel--BANG! and I can see the bird stutter a bit at the shot, but it continues on its course, flying strong, straight up, as if it wants to clear the pines in order to beeline it to the safety of God knows where.

BANG! with the second trigger, just as the bird hits the apex of its flight at the top of the pines some forty yards up. This time I can tell the shot hits home, because the bird lost momentum and actually hit the crown branches of the tree before falling to the ground just beyond. I've marked it well some thirty yards away, and when Katie gets to the other side at the base of the tree, the wing-broken grouse tries to get away on foot, but Katie easily caught it. A beautiful grey phase male, judging by the tail feathers.

Digression #4: I have to admit, at this point in time I'm pretty damn pumped up. That second shot at the top of the trees was (I calculate later, using the Pythagorean theorem heh heh heh, numbers are TOO my metier!) a good fifty yarder with the full choke left barrel, and I'm really mentally patting myself on the back for having switched to the larger shot. With 7.5s I'm sure that bird would have just kept soaring; but the heavier shot is a wing-breaker.

Back to reality. Suddenly I realize that Katie is already hunting again, so instead of suffocating the bird I have to smack the bird's head against a tree to dispatch it--not something I ordinarily like to do. But it certainly knocked the bird out quickly, and I placed it carefully into the back of my vest. As I reoriented myself to Katie's location, I had the eerie experience just moments later of feeling the bird's death throes through the back of my vest. It felt as if the bird was drumming in my vest. It only lasted five or ten seconds, and then it stopped. I also checked my watch at this point--it was 4:15, lots of time left.

Katie was back to working downhill and south of me, and just as I made my way out of the pines we had been in, another grouse flushed wild, wrrrrrrrrr. This one hadn't been detected by the dog, and I hadn't had any real opportunity to shoot at it. It was the fifth grouse flushed, and I called Katie over, but after combing the area for awhile and not relocating it, we turned to the south and kept heading roughly toward the Hot Corner.

It would be difficult to impress on all of you how little wind there was, and how much of locating the birds initially was due to picking up (I believe) ground scent where the birds had been feeding. It's also hard to convey just how evenly spread out these birds were in the covert--I've never seen this. It truly felt like hunting woodcock when a flight was in.

Downhill once more, Katie shortly made game again, and came to a complete halt at another tangle of dogwood. This time my approach was not as clean as previously, but again the bird held tight until I was right there. Wrrrrrrrr, another grouse like clockwork took off and headed uphill to the safety of the pines we had just left. We turned and went back uphill briefly to follow it up but did not locate it again.

Slowly, inevitably, methodically we made our way southward toward the Hot Corner. Near the bottom of the hill where the main drainage of the covert opens up into a wide expanse of cattails, Katie once again went on point. I elected to approach from the edge of the cattails rather than attempt to bull my way through the hawthorn she was in. Wrrrrrrrrrrrr once again a grouse flew out ahead of me, and this time out over the cattails and in the great wide open! This bird was motoring to get to a safety haven it had left earlier. (I remember thinking that it seemed to me nearly all of the birds this afternoon were far from their normal roosts, judging by how they flew and how far they flew.) But alas, this bird crossing the cattails left to right was a good fifty yards away, which I judged to be too far for taking a shot. I marked the general line of the bird as it crossed the distant woodroad to our south, and I made a mental note of the line in case we found our way in that area later.

Katie was still hot where this bird had just flushed, so I let her work it for a while longer before we crossed the woodroad into the micro-covert that is . . . The Hot Corner. She worked the whole area over pretty good for a while, and . . . nothing. From the woodroad I cut across the gnarlies, heading downhill toward a footpath that fringes the cover, while Katie all the while worked the interior of the patch. Hitting the trail, I turned south and paralled Katie's path as she progressed through the brush.

I got all the way downhill and nary a bird. No scent, no false points, no nothing. This from the area that held half a dozen birds for sure these past few weeks. Undaunted, I give Katie a bit more time to work the area, which is low and swampy and drains into a hemlock-rimmed gorge. Lots of nooks and crannies. Lots of places for birds to hide.

Katie is working the covert a second time, and then suddenly . . . beep . . . beep . . . beep . . . . The beeper collar is sounding the point signal, and there, under a bunch of thick stuff, stands Katie once again, steady as a rock.

I move toward her, and then . . . I see the bird on the ground in front of her! under a pine, moving away from her. Quickly I start to move to cut the bird off. Actually, it was almost like a half-jog. I've lost sight of the bird, when suddenly WRRRRRRRRRRR it takes off from under the pine and sails out in front of me, left to right, in a glorious flight out in the open, not twenty yards away.

I can't believe my eyes. This is too good to be true. The bird is flying across the meadow, out in the open. I'm in great position. I've got all the time in the world. It's like time has stopped, it's almost slow motion.

I bring the gun to my cheek, and . . . get this, I actually remember to lead the bird! like, when has THAT ever happened when I was grouse hunting. So I pull the muzzle just a tad in front of the bird's head, and . . . BANG! with the right barrel, down she goes.

I'm pretty pumped, but before I get all self-congratulatory and high-fivey on this one (Rich!), I see the bird almost instantly take to its feet and start running. I fumble reloading the right barrel but run ahead to cut the bird off before it makes it into the hardwoods, and I call Katie to come find the bird.

We can't find the bird. I'm nearly positive I intercepted the bird and that it has not crossed the foot trail and gone into the hardwoods. Katie definitely picked up the scent where the bird fell. She's racing around, frantically looking for this bird, and I'm starting to get a little worried. Like I'm beginning to feel a bit . . . crestfallen (now there's a word for you).

I stay in the area where I saw the bird fall as Katie makes progressively larger casts around me looking for this bird. And then all of a sudden . . . I hear a flutter of wings on the ground, and just barely catch a glimpse of movement at the base of the big pine tree where I had marked the bird. It's 4:45 in the afternoon, it's overcast and getting darker, and I'm peering under that pine tree just hoping to see a crippled bird (and I do mean "peering," I'm squinting my eyes and scrunching my face). (Mini-digression: yes, "scrunching" is an official bird hunting term.)

I make my way to the base of the tree . . . and what do you know. A now stone-dead red phase female lying belly up, and almost completely camoflaged against the pine needles. Air-washed. That must have been why Katie didn't scent it as she ran by the tree two or three times. If it hadn't been for that single last death flutter, it occurs to me we might not have found it.

So there you have it. Eight grouse flushed in just over an hour, seven pointed as staunchly as if they had been woodcock, and two birds killed. I cannot for the life of me remember the last time I shot two grouse in one hunt--it had to have been Michigan or Wisconsin, and it had to have been three or more years ago. Once again I am experiencing grouse bliss.

We continued working the covert a bit more until 5:00 or so.

Digression #5: This morning I finally got around to checking the sunrise/sunset tables for January--seems I had previously been on the December duck hunt sunset mode of 4:36 being sunset. So I hunted legally and in good conscience all the way until 5:00. At which time Katie pointed a bunny, which is another story.

We made our way back to the truck, sweaty, tired, but thrilled with what can only be described as one of the best grouse hunts we've had in Hector in the last eight or nine years. And as I told Mike in an email earlier tonight, I think the secret lately has been our hunting them in the late pm, early evening--something I used to do regularly but that I've gotten away from doing these past few years when grouse numbers have been low. So Mr. Mike, if we hunt them next week, let's try again to hunt them last thing in the afternoon if at all possible.

Now of course you watch, with Mike and possibly Richie both coming to town next week, there won't be a grouse anywhere within a hundred miles.

But of course, that's why they call it, huntin'.

My dogge Kate (ca. 1998)