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A Quickie

    We’d had a full day and our tired legs enjoyed the ride back to Camp Grouse. Never quite sure how much guests can endure, I halfheartedly suggested one last a quick hunt in small covert that we would pass on the way home.

    Jim was game, but Peter’s ankles protested so he offered to wait for us. Old football injuries still plagued him.

    We parked at the beginning of a logging road near a stream, let out Colby, my younger German wirehair, and readied our guns. After walking across a logging bridge, we slipped into the alders.

Jim Kline in the alders.

Colby on a woodcock.

    Almost immediately Colby became birdy and then locked up solid beside the brook. But we couldn’t find a bird. We coaxed her on, only to have her stop a short distance away on the far side of fat old fir tree. Through the tangle of trees a woodcock spun upward only to fall to Jim’s gun.

    Only a few feet away Colby pointed again and that time a woodcock climbed spiraled like skyward like a rock only to tumble from my gun and fall within a few feet of Jim.

During the next few minutes we moved five woodcock, of which three came home with us. That covert is perfect, between a clear cut and alders along a stream, with scattered gnarly fir trees poking up over the cover.

A woodcock under Jesse's nose.

    Jim looked mighty happy as we climbed back up to the road, having rounded out his limit of woodcock. Peter smiled when he saw us, I’m sure happy for Jim and anxious to get home. With tired feet and hungry bellies we traveled on.

Tired girls at the end of the day.