Hunts x Years = Memories

     I hunted a place today that I used to hunt every year, but it has been three or more years since my last visit.  Some of the trees are noticeably bigger and areas of underbrush have disappeared from the lack of sunlight. Someone has kept the old two-track tote road open and the streams still cross in the same locations. Every mud hole or puddle in the road looked exactly like I remember it.
    For ten years or more I hunted that covert once or twice each year. A lone post used to stand in a soggy meadow where old logging roads converged. That post disappeared a half dozen or so years ago. Red twig dogwood once grew along the side of that meadow, but recent logging erased that. It’s embarrassing to think about how often I flushed grouse from that dogwood only to see them disappear into spruce across the gully before my gun even fired.
    One year I hunted up to where the forest ended to the east at a clear cut and started walking back the road I had hunted up. After passing a maple the diameter of a basketball a grouse rocketed back away from me at an angle that kept that maple between him and me. Ten minutes before I’d walked by that same tree, where did he come from?
    I used to walk up the hill from Camp Grouse to get there. It was a long trek, but usually ruffed grouse could be found along the way, sometimes several and a woodcock or two among young hardwoods. Those hardwoods are much bigger now and the woodcock have been absent for years.
    Back when my old girl Chara was still learning her ropes, we had almost reached that meadow and she locked up on point beneath a low-limbed spruce. Scurrying up I literally could see a grouse running away from her. The young dog couldn’t take the insult and bolted after the bird, no shot was offered. In years to come she would learn about relocating and become an expert at it.
    On opening day about eleven or so years ago I hunted up the hill with Chara and a pup named Colby. Chara pointed right next to that meadow with Colby backing. I walked in, flushed the bird, shot as it disappeared into the colorful fall foliage, and had no idea if I had hit it. About two minutes later the dogs came back each carrying a wing. Walking toward where they had come from I found the breast of a ruffed grouse. Fortunately, retrieves since then have been less contentious.
    Today we didn’t find a single bird, but around every bend I recalled a memory. That little piece of the planet will always be special.