New Country

     

        It was a few years back, I had been thinking about it since the previous year, when I drove by the gate and noticed a partridge in the road about a hundred yards away.  We were miles from anywhere on logging roads that day, so I pulled over, let out the dogs, and grabbed my gun to see if the dogs might point that bird.  

        It had taken some doing to just find it, the little guy walked farther than I thought it might.  Chara, my older wirehair, pointed staunchly, I walked in, and then the bird burst into a thicket of softwood trees never to be seen again.

      That road went on around a long bend to the left, apparently following the edge of softwoods growing in a boggy area.  On the other side of the road was a cutting, probably ten years old, maybe younger, gently sloping uphill.  It was late in the day, the last day of our week-long hunting trip, so we didn’t go far, but I knew there was country to explore.

      Often during the next summer I studied the area on Google Earth, looking for softwoods, streams, and fitting the topography into the cuttings.  Frequently I would measure distances to get everything in prospective, trying to plan hunts that would explore the most productive looking country.  Finally, fall arrived.

      I parked in an abandoned logging yard not far up that road and let the two wirehairs and the young shorthair out.  Three dogs?  I love pandemonium.  Light rain fell and the temperature wasn’t much over freezing.  Wherever the ground appeared flat, water puddled from the almost steady rain of the previous week.  But it was the first day of my annual hunting week and life couldn’t have been better.

      We worked the edges of the softwoods and mixed cover, working the high side of the logging road and heading up further into the forest.  No birds.  A couple of miles or so from the truck, and starting to get quite wet, I convinced my girls to hunt the low side of the road back toward the truck.

Well down the slope and far from the road, Chara, the older wirehair, started to get birdy among a mixed stand of mature fir and red maples.  A woodcock bolted up the hill.

          We followed, hoping to find that woodcock again, and soon Chara’s tail started to blur as she sorted out the scents.  Colby, the younger wire, picked up the scent too, while Georgia, the young shorthair, dashed about further down the hill, unaware what the other two dogs were up to. 

Chara at her best. 

          Chara froze.  It didn’t look like partridge country, not on a rainy day anyway, with tall maples and yellow birch trees, so I thought she must be marking the woodcock we had flushed before.  I did my best to hurry over the squishy ground.  Colby noticed Chara and stopped in her tracks.  You got to love that dog.

          A partridge rocketed into the air and flew diagonally up the hill, gaining altitude all the way, launching far ahead of the dog and well out of range.

          By that time water had found its way into various inner parts of my clothing and my legs ached from trying to find footing on the lumpy water-logged ground.  We hunted back up toward the road, with its easier walking, and headed toward the truck. 

          It certainly was rugged country and we would be back.