Rediscovering my inner grouse hunter

January 2 grouse hunt in yellow

Hi everyone,
after a rough couple of weeks in the emotions department, I decided to get back to basics and spend a couple of days getting back in touch with my inner grouse hunter. With Katie gone, it was also time to reacquaint myself with my seven month old setter puppy, who if memory serves me is still named Phoebe.

I've also had a good time playing around with the new GPS unit my wife got me for Christmas, mostly making 'track logs' of the paths of each hunt.

Although it is not what I would consider to be a "good" grouse year in the Hector Land Use Area, we have put up enough birds to keep things interesting.

Above is a jpg from yesterday's hunt--we put up three birds in the locations noted (PETE!). The fourth bird was flushed a day earlier. I will also provide the GPS coordinates in case any of you Pennsylvania partridge pounders want to come hammer them later this month:

grouse flush 1: N42 28.973 W76 46.756
grouse flush 2: N42 28.958 W76 46.850
grouse flush 3: N42 29.121 W76 46.893
grouse flush 4: N42 29.667 W76 47.026 (Jan 1, snow roosted)

Don't say I don't love you guys.

Today was cold, 26 deg. F, with a fairly stiff wind out of the West, and snow falling. Blaze orange knit cap, worn-out wool sweater, waxed cotton coat, gore-tex camo wind pants, insulated LaCrosse boots. We hit the trail at 9:30 or so. Three hours and three miles of slogging through foot-deep snow later, we had no flushes to show for it. Ugh.

But at least I am hunting some areas I have not hunted for years. One good thing about the puppy--she goes where I steer her. So far anyway. With Katie it was always a bit of an adventure to follow where her nose told her to go, and so over time I found myself consciously steering her away from certain areas. I'm sure Phoebe will get that way soon enough. Grouse flushes numbers 2 and 3 yesterday were her doing. She moves nicely in the woods, her range is picking up, and today I even used a bell on her for the first time.

January 3 grouse hunt: nada! nothing, zilch. No birds.