Wet

     Like it often is late in October, the weather became wet, snow covers the ground in high places, and the sun has remained hidden for days. The only sensible thing to be doing outdoors is hunting, but even that brings into question one’s sanity at a certain point.

     The grouse don’t want to move far from the shelter of softwood trees, but they have to eat. The cold weather requires more calories for them to stay warm. Following the edges of clearcuts we have found a few birds. Too often the birds are a whir of wings with a flash of feathers and gone. The shots are tough, with the softwoods swallowing up the birds in a blink. After almost a month of hunters in the woods, the grouse have seen it all and become skittish.

Maggie is learning every day.

     The dogs still manage to point a few. Maggie, our youngster, is learning stealth, something that is hard to teach and best learned on her own with exposure to wild birds. She does her best after she runs enough to burn off some energy and slow down a bit.

     Today a friend’s setter, Russ, was a delight to watch today as he winded a bird and tiptoed along with his head high. Maggie eventually caught the wafting scent too, but we never found a bird. Was it in a tree laughing at us? Probably, and maybe far ahead across the cutting.

     Up behind a cutting, Russ pointed next to a blowdown. Dave, the dog’s owner, walked in and one bird rocketed low out the far side, offering no shot. Another shot back over his shoulder, but avoided two ounces of ounces of shot he tossed its way.

     Some days are tough, but if it were easy we would soon be bored.

   

 

Cuttings and softwood.

From my log…

Maggie on point.

     October 27, Saturday.  Today was one of those days every bird dog owner waits for. I took the girls to woodcock country, hoping to get my youngster onto birds that wanted to hold for a point. Right off the bat Maggie locked up like a statue and when I walked in a woodcock flew up. I nailed it and she returned it, things couldn’t have been better.

     Of course I thought the whole morning would go like that, but we couldn’t find another woodcock anywhere.

     Hunting our way back, Maggie pointed again, I walked in, she relocated, and when I walked ahead of her a grouse flew. The shot was muffed, my fault totally, but I was very proud of her. Maybe five minutes later she points again, quite a long way ahead of me. I got to her and walked past. A grouse burst skyward and ducked behind a large cherry tree that absorbed a load of number eight shot. Two perfect points! If only I could have killed those birds.

     Entering some softwoods, another grouse flew out of a fir tree directly over my head. There was no chance for a point on that bird.

    An excellent two hour morning, with Maggie was a rock star. There weren't a lot of birds, but three solid points and no bumped birds. She is learning everyday.

Maggie with a woodcock.

Shot Size

           If you want an endless discussion, maybe even an argument, bring up the subject of shot size at grouse camp. Should the conversation start to slow, ask what everyone recommends for choke constriction.

As a young hunter, I was impressed by horsepower, and that meant high brass loads with number six shot for grouse. My first shotgun, an old Ithaca side-by-side was choked modified and full. Luckily for the grouse, I seldom hit them, but if I did there wasn’t a lot left. One of the first ones I ever shot was also shot by my brother at the exact same instant. We picked up the pieces without either of us realizing the other had shot too. Cleaning what remained of the bird later, there was both my number six and his seven and a half shot in the shredded carcass.

Number six shot is overkill for grouse, even late in the season when their feathers have toughened up. Number eights are my choice through the first two months of the season, and maybe I’ll switch to seven and a halfs later when the birds toughen up in December.

There’s a lot more pellets in a load of number eights than seven and a halfs, about 17% more, and grouse are not difficult to kill. With more pellets a few are bound to find their way through those early season leaves. And if a woodcock is put up you want a lot of pellets in the air or the bird may escape through a hole in the pattern. Some early season hunters like number 9 shot for woodcock, which has about 40% more pellets than a same weight load of number eights.

It is always a good idea to pattern your shotgun to see what different loads do. The first few weeks of the season, when the leaves are still thick and the shots close, spreader loads like Double-Wide by Polywad and Spreader-Lite by RST may increase your bag. On opening day, I like a Double-Wide in the right barrel and a regular seven-eighths ounce load in the left of my twenty gauge, both in number eight shot.

All through the season I shoot open chokes, preferably cylinder in one barrel and improved cylinder or skeet in the other. Most grouse shooting is a close in game. At the tail end of the season, when the leaves are off and the birds are wily, I may put a modified choke tube in my second barrel. It may be time to switch to number seven and a half shot too, because they seem to sustain their energy a little further in the cold denser air.

So I’m willing to listen to your opinions, as we sit by the fire and sip a single malt. The dogs snooze at our feet and there will be more laughter than arguing. If the answers were absolute, it wouldn’t be as much fun.

The fireplace at Camp Grouse.

It’s Showtime

The clearcut

     The season opened on a Monday with light rain, so I spent the morning working indoors. The precipitation stopped early and by mid day things had dried out some. 

     After lunch I took Maggie and Colby up a local bumpy road to take a right next to an old log cabin. We hunted the clearcut on the low side of the road where we had found birds a week before, but found nothing. We did find a moose scrape with a huge track in it. Above the road Maggie pointed one woodcock in a tangle as thick as a steel wool. It escaped unscathed.

The fall colors.

      From there we drove over across the valley to hunt the top of another clearcut. It's an interesting one, at the edge of old farm country, so there are a few apple trees remaining. Maggie pointed a couple of grouse in a thicket that I could not get into before they flew. Colby was on the scent of another, when it burst from a tree over my right shoulder. I killed it with a long shot, using a Polywad Double-Wide load of number eights. 

     Maggie was the one to find the bird. She is very proud of herself.

The first bird of the season. Its crop was filled with apple.