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| Photo by Dennis Swett |
It’s raining up north. I watch the weather forecasts for up
there as closely as where we live, maybe more so. At least the young grouse and
woodcock of the year should be big enough to generate their own body heat and have
honest-to-goodness feathers, rather than just down. Hopefully, almost all of
them will survive.
Often, I find myself looking at USGS Aerial images on my Android
phone, and none of them are of where we live, but rather the country I’ll hunt
come fall. I’d love to be up there right now trout fishing, so I could listen
for the drumming birds, but my work has me trapped down here in the flat
lands. Life could be much worse though,
there are two bird dogs sleeping in the den with me, both dreaming with their
legs twitching. I wish they could tell me about their dreams later.
Periodically, I open the gun safe and take out my favorite
double, shoulder it a few times, remind myself to go shooting more often, and
then put it away. I dig out the list of things to bring hunting, just to double
check it, maybe add or subtract something, and then put it away. The new little
trout and bird knife that I got for Christmas will get a few strokes on an
Arkansas stone. It’s always good to be ready ahead of time.
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| Drumming grouse, photo by Dennis Swett |
Daily I walk the dogs. I find it easier to stay in shape than
to get in shape. The dogs enjoy it as much as I do, and I love to watch them
work the fields and woods. Every once in a while they point a turkey, which always
creates a good story and usually a laugh. Maybe once or twice a year they’ll find a
woodcock out back, but sadly there are no ruffed grouse here.
How many days did you say it was until bird season?
Do you know where in the bird population cycle you will be this fall? Last season were very long walks per bird in the Upper Midwest.
ReplyDeleteI am not certain. Last year we had the most birds that I had seen in years, maybe ever, but other locations only ten or twenty mile away were average. Our location had the right combination of weather in the spring, so few of the young were lost to weather. It is interesting, because during the spring I heard few grouse drumming and was actually concerned that it might be a lousy fall. The opposite was true. The mountains in our area make the weather conditions more localized I think than in other places, hence different survival rates of young birds a relatively short distance apart.
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