A Tough Year

Taking a break on a hot day.

    This year has been warmer than normal and extremely dry, and where are the grouse?  

    So far the bird season has been frustrating. Early on a few grouse were found around apple trees, perhaps for the moisture in the fruit, but many of the usual coverts are empty or nearly so. Our daily average has been the lowest in years.

    A great number of the little streams that usually wind down the hillsides dried up. In the past woodcock could often be found in the moist ground along them. Alder flats that are usually wet and muddy became easy walking. In spite of the lack of rain the apple trees had a bumper crop of fruit, and blueberries, raspberries, highbush cranberries did the same. Did the abundant fruit cause the birds to scatter?

    The spring weather wasn’t unusually wet or cold, so I expected good brood numbers. Wet cold weather right after hatching can wipe out much of a year’s young grouse. The entire year has been unusually dry, and since the spring particularly so.

The usual wet lowlands were just low.

    But the weather has turned now and the migrating woodcock have showed up. The grouse are still sketchy and hard to find, yet we keep trying. Almost all of the leaves have dropped and it is a great time to be in the woods. When a bird goes up at least we can see it.

   We’ll keep trying and perhaps figure out these grouse yet.

The Back of the Mountain

Big country.

It is way back in the woods, almost twenty miles from the nearest pavement. About twelve miles in, all of it on logging roads, a gate blocks a side road. That gate has been left open on occasion and if you pass through it the road starts to climb.

Every serious grouse hunter is always looking for new cover, and most of us are looking for that out of the way spot that others might have overlooked. Arial images of that country showed a winding gravel road that climbed up over the shoulder of the mountain, then dropped down into a tight little valley to cross a stream, and then abruptly climbed back up another ridge. Up on the high ground, cuttings abut softwood stands, making for decent looking grouse cover, at least in the pictures shot from space. Only boots on the ground could confirm it.

My first attempt to drive in there stopped after crossing a height of land and then dropping down into the little valley, which is almost a gulley really. The wood bridge over the stream didn’t look too rugged, and, far in the woods alone, I chickened out.

Prospecting for grouse.

This past fall I drove in there with a friend. That rickety bridge had been replaced, so we traveled on. The road climbed up out of the valley, eventually leveling out next to a softwood edged cutting. Alders lined the road’s edges and young poplars sprouted everywhere. Enough grass grew in the road gravel to let us know that very few people traveled there. We found a place to pull off, let out the dogs, and dug out our guns.

The day was bitterly cold, but we found a few grouse. The shooting was tough, as it often is in cuttings. It looked like excellent woodcock country, but we found none. I’d bet a week’s wages that they nest in there though. When the sun poked out between the clouds and the gusts of wind dropped in a lull, the day actually felt nice, but most of the time I wished for one more layer of clothing.

After chasing a couple of grouse in circles and my friend killing one, we drove up the road further, crossed over another ridge, and then dropped down into another valley that seemed to stretch out forever. The road eventually deteriorated into two slippery clay-filled ruts that followed a stream on our left. When the road became just awful, we turned around. 

Don with a grouse.

About halfway back up the backside of that mountain we stopped at a four way intersection to eat lunch. A logging road to the north more or less followed a contour line along the edge of a cutting, so after eating we hunted it.

Saplings the size of my wrist filled the cutting above the road, but most were no taller than I. Moose had browsed the area heavily, stunting the young trees and holding back the regeneration. It was pretty country though, with a series of ridges to east that ran off into the neighboring state. We found no grouse, even though the hillside held promise. The rocky rough ground and left-behind slash made for touch walking, for both us and the dogs. Rugged men must have logged that country.

Exploring new country.

Back at the truck we swapped the two older wirehairs for the younger shorthair, Georgia. The road to the south passed through mature hardwoods with a stream grumbling in a valley to the left. Around a bend an old cutting held young maple, poplar, and softwoods. We hunted up through the cutting, moving one bird. Dropping back down and intersecting the road again, Georgia went on point. The grouse leapt off a precipitous drop-off, much like a paratrooper leaves an airplane, and disappeared down toward softwoods surrounding a stream below. My buddy’s pellets shredded the bark on a half dozen saplings, but not a feather drifted in the air. Georgia went down the nearly vertical embankment, like only an athletic dog can, to search the ravine but found nothing

We hunted more of that cutting and moved one more bird. It is good looking

Georgia.

country and I bet it seldom visited. It’s worth another look someday when that gate is open again. If it’s open at the end of the next summer, it will be a great place to train our pup on woodcock.

Now I have this phobia about getting stuck back in the woods somewhere. In my younger days, when I worked logging, three foresters parked their truck in the woods about thirty-five miles from the pavement, did their day’s work, and then came back to a truck that would not start because the headlights had been left on. I often think of that out in the middle of nowhere.

My truck started fine and our trip out of that wild piece of country was uneventful, which is just the way I like it.  

High Bush Cranberry

Here’s a project to create better grouse covert....

Starting high bush cranberry plants.

Daydreaming

    My mind keeps wandering to next bird season and the places that I want to hunt. There’s one spot, where the logging road has gone to hell, that I‘m betting few people will walk in to. Along the washed out road it’s pretty good bird country, and then a loop can be made up an old tote road through open hardwoods to long abandoned fields.

     A hunt through those fields and then to the east will lead into a cutting that, if hunted through, will lead back to the truck. It will make one of those all day hunts where you tuck a sandwich in your pocket, a bottle of water in the game pouch, and a snack for the dog. There’s always little trickles for the dog to drink out of up in that country.

     Right now, outside the window the snow is swirling and the forecast is bleak. Those chilly mornings of last fall, when the cold bit into our fingers, are nothing compared to what’s going on now. Up in grouse country the nights have been dropping far below zero, and even the days are far too cold for the gloves I like to shoot in. Hopefully the grouse have insulating snow to burrow into and enough food to supply the calories they need.

     From that same washed-out logging road it’s possible to hunt downhill around a big cutting, then follow a stream back up the valley. It would make another one of those all day hunts and cover a big chunk of wild wilderness.

    Some of my daydreams get stuck in the coverts that produced so well. This past fall the bird numbers had plummeted, but a couple of places shined. One that is out in the middle of nowhere keeps drawing me back. From the pavement it’s well over a half hour drive, maybe more than that next year the way the road has been deteriorating.

   It is thick cover on a steep slope, with a huge clearcut further up. I can hear the bells, even see the dogs. My pulse picks up when my mind's eye spots the dog on point. The smells, they are there too. And then the bird flushes….  

The Hidden Homestead

I’m certain others know it is there. The apple trees give it away. My dogs and I visited the spot for the first time this year, walking down from the field on the hill above and then following a snowmobile trail into the woods. Where the land flattens out I spotted several apple trees off to the south.

It was classic New England bird country, with poplars as big as my thigh and alders coming up in clusters. Spots of grass told of old fields, and spruce, fir, and maples and birch crowded in from beyond.

We hunted in a circle, following the edge where the apples met the young forest. The dogs bumped a grouse. It looked like woodcock country too, and I looked for splash, but never saw any.

An ancient stone wall.

And then I spotted the wall. It was less than three feet tall and probably slightly wider. Moss almost hid it. Nearby a pile of stones, waist high and about the area of a swimming pool, told of frustration from farming that land. It took some poking around, but I found the stone foundation. They hadn’t dug a cellar, but built over a shallow crawl space. The rock pile was larger.

I set down my gun and sat on a rock, trying to imagine what the settlers had seen that attracted them to that spot. The dogs never stopped hunting, living in the moment as they always do, unaware of the past.

A rock pile left behind by a determined settler.

The hill above faced to the east, and the spot where I had stopped still sloped, but very gently. The land sat high enough that early frosts would settle into the valley below, and the morning sun would warm the land. North winds would break up against the side of the hill, particularly if the homesteader left a few trees to that side. I could see how an optimistic person might fall in love with the spot.

But snow on the ground for five months of the year must have made for tough farming. And the bony wet ground would have made rough work. Cutting away the trees and encouraging grasses must have dried things out a bit, but rain is frequent in that part of New England and the weather can be vicious. I’ve hunted there when it’s rained for most of a week, cold rain. And an early or late frost would have been devastating.

My girls pointing in the thick of it.

I realized the dog’s bells had silenced, so grabbed my gun and took off to find them. In the southeast corner they both stood near a fir tree, pointing toward a decrepit busted-up apple tree. Before I got there the partridge flushed, not offering a shot.

The bells started ringing as the dogs hunted again, living in the moment.

Grouse

It’s a new season, and with still so many questions to answer. The spring and summer have been wet, not with an abundance of rain but frequent. How did the broods survive?

Young of the year and still rather dumb.

We went up to grouse country the beginning of September, having missed our usual summer visits. The dogs found a grouse here and there, and then the last day before we left they hit pay dirt, busting a covey of maybe a dozen.  That wasn’t enough evidence though to form a solid opinion.

On October first, a rather warm opening day, we found a scattering of grouse, maybe eight or ten, all skittish as the devil, each of them disappearing into the bright autumn foliage in the blink of an eye. One lone woodcock offered the only shot fired, and that was a miss that I still can’t believe. Yet I still didn’t dare announce an opinion on how the season would be.

Last season seemed to be the best of my lifetime, yet come wintertime, when I tallied up all the numbers and compared them to previous years, it wasn’t all that different. If you added in woodcock the numbers were impressive, but grouse alone was only slightly better than average.

The reports from upcountry are good, not spectacular, but good. We’ll have to wait and see. By the time we get back up there the leaves will be off and the dogs are ready.

So I may be able to invite friends over for a grouse dinner, but I’m not sure yet just how many.

Grouse country

The Hill

     The hill has an odd name. It is named after the same man as the town it is in, but that is all I’m going to tell you. Years ago it was out in the middle of nowhere and I hunted deer there and birds too. A memory sticks of walking out of the woods, after shooting time had passed, and seeing a monster buck ghost across the woods road ahead of me.

     What made the hill special were the old farms. Up on the top there were two, both long abandoned, but marked with sagging homes settling into old stone foundations. In the fields game had trampled paths between the scraggly apple trees and the cedar swamp down below. Old tote roads crisscrossed the upper wooded slopes, and every single one of them seemed to lead exactly where you wanted to go. It was that kind of magical place. In a field halfway down the eastern side stood a box-like camp where an old woman lived by herself during the summers. I wish I could remember her name.

     Somehow, two decades slipped by without visiting that hill, but finally I went back with my young German wirehaired pointer named Chara and my Parker shotgun that had turned a hundred years old that year.

     Unbeknownst to me a horrific ice storm had flattened the trees a few years earlier, obliterating most of the landmarks. Up on the top of the hill two homes had been built near the ancient fallen ones and the old fields there were posted. Travel through what had once been woods was impossible, with trees broken and lying in a tangled mess. The claws of chest high raspberries flourished in the new sunlight.

     We found that little camp in the field halfway down the hill. Someone had been there recently and it looked much like I remembered it. Above the house a pool had been re-dug next to a spring and firewood was stacked on the far side of the porch.

     Where an old footpath came down the hill into the field, I tried to pick my way between the raspberries’ thorns. A fallen maple trunk blocked the way, and then another. And then Chara flushed a grouse.

     She went into overdrive, pushing under or jumping over obstacles and oblivious to the vicious briars. Several more grouse exploded into the sky. I sat on a log and watched, knowing she would be back eventually and was learning a lesson along the way---dogs can’t catch grouse.

     Her tongue looked a foot long when she came back panting. We found that spring fed pool and she stretched right out in the icy water to drink her fill. Sauntering out the old tote road toward the truck, I carried my old Parker shotgun broken open and draped over my shoulder. It had been quite a day.

     And of course a lone grouse dropped out of a busted-off old spruce and flew straight away down the road, offering one of the easiest shots a man could ever hope to see.

Snow in April

          Up north there is a winter storm warning in place, with three to six inches of wet frozen slop predicted. I worry about the woodcock. Many must have arrived up there by now and probably many are sitting on nests. Let’s hope they survive the snow.

          The ruffed grouse, being larger birds and maybe nesting a tad later, usually aren’t bothered by a late snow. But an April snow can raise havoc with the local woodcock population. The last time one blanketed the land it took two or three years for the woodcock population to recover.

          So I worry.

Grouse Country, March

     We drove up to grouse camp last week, arriving along with a foot of fluffy new snow. It didn’t look like much snow had been in the woods before that last foot fell, and the new stuff was almost a pleasure to shovel, it was so light.

    Our usual routine is to hike with the dogs, so that is what we did, finding places that were plowed or packed. In some places the snow in the woods was deep enough that the dogs only made short forays into the pucker brush, but in others they hunted as if it were for real. Twice while we were out we spied grouse sitting in poplar trees to feed.

     Back at the house the books called to me. There are still several by George Bird Evans that remain unread. Last fall I lucked into a half dozen of his books from an old friend, so I savored two of them along with a daub or two of single malt. Then I re-read Guy De LA Valdene’s Making Game: An Essay on Woodcock. What a fascinating character he is. Old Shooting Sportsman and Gray’s Sporting Journal magazines are piled all over the place, so they constantly distracted me. One afternoon Nick Karas book Brook Trout held my attention for hours, so it isn’t always about bird hunting. I even thought about tying trout flies at one point, but thinking about it was as far as I got.
     The last afternoon I snuck out with the dogs to walk down to the stream below the house. It’s decent grouse country, and deer sometimes yard in the softwoods along the stream if the snow is deep. The snow wasn’t deep though and the dogs thought it was a treat to hunt. Stream banks softened with bright-white rounded snow banks are always beautiful and the water sounded the same as in the summertime. On the way back we worked closer to the hill and the hardwoods, and the younger wirehair worked herself into a frenzy over scent. And then a grouse exploded out of the upper limbs of a craggy old white cedar. Both dogs stopped to watch her leave, and then went back to hunting with their hind ends in overdrive.

     All too soon it was time to head back home to where life’s mundane tasks waited. Driving down through the mountains and trying to do the math in my head, I came up with 191 days until grouse season.

 
 

The Country Road

     You know those places, spots that are so familiar that you hardly notice them. I had driven by that logging road a hundred times.  It goes down to somebody’s camp, maybe a mile or so down, and then dead ends against a stand of softwoods. Somewhere beyond, in the thick dark stuff, a good sized trout stream tumbles to the north. The country is pretty wild there and you’re about ten miles from the nearest asphalt.

     In a Google Earth image I had noticed that a large clearcut bordered the uphill side of the road and that softwoods remained throughout it in scattered clusters. The place had all the makings for good grouse country and easy walking to boot, if I stayed along the road. I’d been looking for some easy terrain to hunt for when a few of my older friends visited.

     So I drove down to that road to investigate, and before I’d driven a hundred yards a grouse jumped off an old bulldozed-up hump and flew across the road into the clearcut on the high side. In the first flat spot that looked hard and dry, I pulled the truck over and parked.

     All three dogs had seen the bird, so it was pointless to suggest one or two stay behind. Besides, I love the pandemonium of hunting over multiple dogs. So I let them all out and then gathered my gun and gear while the dogs searched the road’s edges with their tails all a blur.

     Less than a hundred yards from the truck, the young German shorthair, Georgia, bumped two birds that had been sitting on a mound next to the low side. They sailed down through tall hardwoods with the pup in hot pursuit, disappearing toward a distant softwood edge. We could hunt that line on the way back later and maybe find them. I waited for the young dog to return.

     Further down the road, Chara, the older German wirehair, started to get very birdy up on the banking of the road’s high side. Colby, the three-year-old wirehair disappeared up into the woods behind her. A mixture of hardwoods with young softwoods created great cover for birds, but if any flew in there just seeing them would be almost impossible.

     I pushed in, trying to follow Chara who had her nose to the ground, obviously tracking foot scent. She looked convinced that the bird had walked ahead of us along the banking as we came down the road. Shooting at anything looked to be tough though.

     Chara pointed, relocated, pointed again, then trotted ahead into a dense stand of wrist-sized fir trees. I detoured around. Her bell fell silent, so I hurried. Colby’s bell rang further ahead. George still worked the low side of the road.

      With a whir the bird came back at me.

      Reflexes caused me to duck as it passed low overhead and I shot as it went away, missing as it ducked to the right to sail out over the road and vanish on the low side.

Back out on the road, where a man could walk in a proper fashion without ducking or stepping over or around something with every third step, we continued on. Both of the wirehairs were tightly wound by then and hunted hard.

      Chara pointed from the road and Colby honored about thirty feet further away. Georgia stopped behind Colby. Boy do I love that. The three of them indicated that the bird hid somewhere among little firs on the high side of the road. Before I even stepped off the road the bird flushed out of sight. Georgia took off after it as if she’d been shot in the backside with a missile.

     I continued on down the road.

     Nobody was at the camp, but we made a wide detour around it and into the cutting behind it. Someone had tagged a path with ribbons, probably a deer hunter marking the way to a stand. Following a softwood edge, we circled uphill and around, heading back into the direction we had come. Twice grouse flushed wild ahead of the dogs, both times out of sight, but the thunder of their wings let us know they were there.

     The sound of birds really put Georgia into overdrive and she rocketed through the woods, way too excited and almost in a frenzy. I knew the chances of her stopping to point were small, but you have to give credit for enthusiasm. On a year when the grouse numbers were low it might have been extremely annoying, but with the abundant birds of the past fall I knew we would find more. Patiently, I let her blow off steam, hoping that she learned something with every bird she bumped.

     In a stand of softwoods the size of fence posts Georgia rocketed through and bumped three or more grouse, while the wirehairs methodically searched the cutting beyond.

Colby pointed a grouse and I hurried ahead, but it flushed wild before I could get close enough for a shot. Ignoring Georgia, I hunted behind the wirehairs, finding one more bird.

      By the time we reached the logging road again, my legs were protesting and all three dogs looked tired. Well, maybe not the young rocket-dog Georgia, who still wanted to hunt. The exact number of birds moved in that cutting remains something of a blur, but I was smiling.

      Down through the hardwoods on the low side of the road the softwood edge beckoned, but my legs said no, so we trekked back up to my truck, calling it a day. We would definitely be back though.

Prospecting

     The gang had left and I was out prospecting for grouse. Every year I do a lot of that, usually after my friends have left. There is no use dragging them all around the wilds to places that may or may not hold birds. Sometimes the going gets mighty rough. Grouse cover goes from prime to thin-pickens in about ten years, so it always pays to be on the lookout for new country.

     I had spotted this cleat cut on Google Earth and it was back up in a section of country that’s been full of grouse the last few years. The cut covered probably two hundred acres, but hid behind a stand of softwood trees so it wasn’t readably visible from the logging road. The location is back in about fourteen miles from the nearest asphalt in some mighty rugged terrain.

     A skid trail turned snowmobile road led the dogs and I up into the cutting. It seemed to run on forever up the slope, finally stopping up high at mature hardwoods.  The view back across the valley was worth the trek.

     The cutting probably was two years old with relatively easy walking. When the loggers cut it, they took away all of the tree tops, leaving the ground fairly clean. Wet spots were covered with grass and moose tracks. Sprouts shot up from the stumps, but most weren’t shoulder height. Wild raspberries were everywhere.

     We hunted along the top of the cutting and then down the west side.  It didn’t look too encouraging, with no softwoods to offer shelter for the birds, but ahead and about halfway down the slope I could see softwood trees left behind by the logging operation.

     As we approached them I noticed a small knoll covered with softwoods. I love knolls, because grouse love knolls. What better place to sit and collect morning sunshine and survey the surroundings. No matter which way danger approached, the grouse had a downhill escape route that leaves them out of sight on the far side of the mound.

     About then I wished my friends hadn’t all left for those flat lands to the south. Approaching the hump the dogs got birdy and their bells were ringing, and then I could hear the birds accelerating off the far side. There were at least four. If only someone could have been standing on the far side, it would have been like one of those European driven hunts.

     On the other side of the little hill the cutting opened up, with scattered softwood clumps left behind by the loggers. Stopping for a moment, I tried to guess where I would go if I were a grouse, and picked an open alley that led downhill into a softwood swamp.

    Going into the spruce and fir thicket, Chara, my oldest German wirehair, locked up on point, almost completely hidden by bushy little fir trees not quite waist high. A bird busted out wild and I shot, missing, and as I opened the gun to reload, a second bird followed the first.

     I encouraged the dogs on and Colby, my youngest wirehair, pointed one sitting up in a leaning yellow birch about twelve feet off the ground.  It flew as I approached and I missed again. Those birds coming out of trees are always devilishly hard to hit.

    The woods got thicker, with blown down fir trees and clusters of young ones. The going got real tough. All three dogs were birdy, dashing about, pushing under the stuff I was climbing over, each trying to be the first to find the birds.

     I couldn’t locate Georgia, the young German shorthair, but then spotted her frozen about eight feet in front of Colby, who was honoring. Both of them were almost buried in the green fir boughs. Before I could get within twenty yards of the dogs the grouse rumbled upward and a reflex made me fire. It was a prayer shot, but then I thought a bird’s wing fluttered, possibly the dead bird caught up in a fir branch. Then a dog’s tail wagged and I guessed that was what I’d seen.

     And then Colby came pushing through the brush with the bird in her mouth. What a great sight.

    We hunted down the hill, moving three more grouse, but killing none. Coming out of the swamp into the more open clearcut, Chara pointed and a woodcock flew up, twisting among the branches of two fir trees, and quickly escaped.

    We’ll go back there again next year, me and my friends. I wish all my prospecting trips turned out that successful.

The Nostalgia Run

Every year I do it, make the big circle from our grouse house, traveling back through time and country into memories.  The trip is always made alone with just the dogs to accompany me, often the day after hunting buddies have left for the year.  It somehow seems right then.

     About an hour south is the alder patch by the river.  It used to be behind an old dump, but the dump has long since been capped, and where there used to be a field to cross it is now a stand of softwood trees so thick that to walk under it is like stepping into night.

     There may not be any woodcock out on that peninsula in the river, and if there are it’s usually only one or two, but the majestic silver maples still stand with limbs joyously reaching up to the heavens.  Longer ago than seems possible, my first bird dog hunted there and I can still see him beneath those trees, poking through ferns and under the alders.  His first water retrieve came from that river.  We made quite a team.

     Not twenty minutes away by truck, I’ll walk in an old tote road to a three acre field with a small weathered camp in it.  Almost four decades ago, when I worked as a logger in that country, I met a spry wisp of a woman who lived in that camp without electricity for four months of every year.  At seventy-three years of age, she seemed to be in perpetual motion and went hiking in the White Mountains two or three times a week.  Her daughter and son-in-law now use the place, but are always gone by the time bird season comes around. 

     I have their permission to hunt the old apple trees in the pasture.  Except for that field, much of that country has changed since I first hunted it, both by loggers and a major ice storm, but usually we’ll find grouse or maybe even a woodcock if the weather is warm.

     From there we’ll drive up along the river, which is the route I used to commute to the logging camp, and that brings in another set of memories.  If the weather is nice I’ll probably eat my lunch somewhere along the way, letting the dogs sleep under the truck or swim.  Another twenty or so minutes north we’ll park beside what used to be the biggest alder patch I’d even seen.  Poplars are poking above the alders now, and someday the alders will give way to the taller trees.

     There are always woodcock there, both resident and transient, until the snow drives them south.  On a bad day we’ll find six, on a good day many times that.  Around the edges will be grouse, sometimes one or two, sometimes a half dozen.  We can hunt an hour or an afternoon there.   

     On the way home I’ll stop at the local sporting goods store, not because I need anything, but because I like poking around among guns, fly rods, wool clothing, and a cliental that I can relate to.

      Back at our camp, I’ll clean the birds, then the gun, feed my girls, and then pour a little golden liquid into a tumbler.  With my boots off and feet up, I’ll re-live the day, as I will again the next year.

Big Rock

We walked in about a mile along an old logging road, poking through some likely looking cover on the low side.  That country always holds some grouse, woodcock too, but we hadn’t seen much more than a couple of sparrows.  The dogs kept bounding along with enthusiasm, hunting with heart, never discouraged.  We should strive to emulate them. 

     The weather didn’t feel right, too warm or something.  Some days feel birdy and that one hadn’t up to that point.  We stopped to admire the view from an enormous abandoned logging yard.  To the north a green valley, complete with old farms, a distant one-room schoolhouse shining white in the morning sun, and a winding stream, disappeared into the hills of the northern forest.  Far down below us, the highway’s winding asphalt snaked up a different valley, following the river. 

     From the highest point in the yard we could look over most of the tree tops on the low side.  Chara, my German wirehaired pointer, poked around a thicket on the opposite side of the clearing.  My friend made some comment about the boulder at the edge of the forest, almost round and completely on top of the soil, and about as tall as a bus.  That’s when I noticed the ruffed grouse strutting nervously along our side of the rock.

“Bird,” I said, taking a step that direction. 

     My friend followed and about two steps later the grouse took off low.  I fired my two shots and so did he, but the bird never flinched.  Neither did the second one that followed the first when, but of course our guns were empty then.

     We followed them down the hill, into a thicket of pin cherry trees not as big as my wrist.  Some greater power had mixed in a healthy dose of raspberries, just to make it really memorable.  In no time we both perspired profusely.  Chara, sometimes as close as twenty feet, remained invisible, but we could hear her bell.  One bird burst away unseen, then another.  We cursed and swore a bit.  A little further a third took off.

     When the land started to level out a bit, spruce and fir trees provided a break from the brambles and pin cherry.  Among the softwoods two grouse played cat and mouse with us, only letting us catch quick glimpses before disappearing into the green boughs. 

Walking into the softwood stand and then out the other side was like walking in the front door of a house and then out the back, about that far.  On the other side we found another logging road and stopped to cool off for a bit.  The dog found a stream, and stretched out in the cool water for a minute before resuming the hunt. 

     We followed, staying mostly in the gravel road, enjoying the easier walking.  Through the softwood trees on our right we could see the river close enough to throw a stone in, and on our left clusters of young spruce and fir broke up the small hardwood trees crowding together.  The dog worked through all the birdy looking cover, but kept coming up empty. 

     Finally, among mixed softwood and poplars on the river side, Chara went on point.  As we approached, the bird flushed wild, offering only a lousy shot.

     Where the road started to climb away from the river we pushed through raspberries to hunt a mixed stand of poplars and alders, with enough young spruce and fir added in to provide dense cover for our quarry.  It looked like perfect grouse cover, but we only found a few woodcock and finally scratched one down.  They certainly don’t add much heft to a game bag, but it felt better than nothing.

     Further up the logging road, well after it had turned and headed us back toward the truck, Chara went on point beneath tall leggy spruce.  We walked in, but found nothing.  After coaxing her on, she pointed again, then hunted ahead to the right, locked up about solid, but then went to relocate about the time the bird flushed a couple of hundred feet ahead of her.

The road is a steady uphill climb and we trudged on.  No matter what you wear upland hunting on a day like that it feels too warm.  And then again the dog started to get birdy next to the road.  A bird flushed far up the hill.

     We walked on, but then I stopped and said, “See what’s in the road ahead?”

     “A bird?”

     “Looks like two partridge to me,” I said.

     We walked on slowly, the dog at heel.  The birds seemed oblivious.  About fifty yards from the birds I stopped and stayed with Chara, while my friend continued on.  When he was about thirty yards from the birds their heads went up and they started walking toward the side of the road.  With weapon at arms and walking briskly, he approached.  As the birds took to flight, raised the gun and fired twice.

     I think it is impossible to kill a bird that way.  The next time we’ll let them walk into the woods and have the dog point them.  This was suggested by my dog, who watched the whole event.

     The remaining trudge up the hill to the truck was only memorable for the effort involved.  I keep reminding myself that if any of this was easy we would all get bored.
 

    

Big Valley

For months I searched Google Earth, looking for that elusive grouse cover that nobody else had ever found.  Clearcuts always show up nicely, as well as logging roads and major streams, but where was that hidden cover tucked in some out-of-the-way corner?  In New England there’s more country to explore than any man would ever have time for, so it is best to whittle down the possibilities.

            A big patch of forest caught my eye, appearing as a green quilt, with logging roads and clearcuts dicing it up.  A fairly large stream ran through the country, almost dividing it in two.  Bordering on one side, an entire township was private and behind locked gates, but entry on foot was still allowed.  In the other direction the logging roads ran until they petered out in the ends of the valleys.  The country definitely deserved a look.

            I found the logging road that left the pavement and then climbed and climbed into that country, passing some great looking cover along the way, and then about five miles from the pavement it crested the height of land.  Driving down into the valley I couldn’t believe my eyes. 

            Mountainous country ran off to the horizon, with clear cuts or forest on all the slopes.  Not a manmade structure could be seen, but I knew scattered camps had to be there somewhere.  The gravel road dog-legged down into the valley and then crossed a wooden bridge over a tumbling stream.  Ahead alders mixed with young poplars, looking like perfect woodcock or partridge habitat.

            Parking next to the bridge I let the dogs out, then dug lunch out of a cooler.  I listened to the stream grumble while I ate and the dogs waited patiently for their share of the sandwiches, but then the rumble of an approaching logging truck drowned out every other sound.  As it passed the driver waved and I returned the gesture.

            I’m not naïve enough to think that no one else ever hunts in that valley, but it certainly is a piece of paradise.  You can bet I’ll be spending some time there for years to come.          

Bird Season Arrives, 2011

Our first day dawned gray and cool, but the older dogs knew the purpose and anxiously waited near the door.  Up there in the big woods every day starts with one of my lumberjack breakfasts, so they were forced to wait.  Methodically, things were gathered and piled near the door to later put in the truck.  It seems something is always forgotten.

     Two dogs rode on the backseat, my younger GWP, Colby, and Georgia, a friend’s five-month-old GSP that came along for the week.  Chara, my oldest GWP, rides on the passenger side next to me.  She, better than the rest, knew the routine.

     Yellow leaves still lingered on some of the poplars, and green leaves defiantly clung to roadside apples, but most of the trees were bare.  Heavily loaded logging trucks passed us on the highway, a good sign in difficult economic times.  And timber harvesting provides great cover for ruffed grouse and woodcock.

     About four miles up a logging road I parked in an old logging yard, one that provided great hunting the previous fall.  The views from there are spectacular, with rolling hills to the eastern horizon, and make the stop worthwhile if for nothing else.  To the west, north, and east of the yard the trees are about twenty feet tall,  maybe logged over about fifteen or twenty years earlier, but to the south the timber is older, perhaps cut sixty or more years ago.

     I let the three dogs out, corralling each to put on an orange collar with a bell.  With three dogs there definitely would be pandemonium and bumped birds, but I knew they all needed to blow off steam.  Following an old tumbling stream, we hunted up the hill.

     Chara covered the ground like the old pro she is, working the cover and tasting the air.  Colby hunted hard too, but at only two hasn’t figured out all of the tricks.  Little Georgia sometimes followed Chara, sometimes Colby, but often followed her own instincts.  A bit of independence is a good thing. 

     Everything in the woods dripped from the previous night’s rain, but the dogs never seemed to notice.  We worked the edge of the cutting, and then out into the cut toward a cluster of softwood trees, which might provide shelter for grouse.  Nothing.  Working back toward the older growth, we hunted the edge of a softwood stand and then around back toward the truck.  Still nothing.  Soaked to my hide, I was ready for the truck’s heater, yet the dogs’ enthusiasm never wavered.

     About a mile down the road, and surrounded by an old clearcut, a dense stand of spruce and fir spelled shelter for partridge on a stormy night.  I parked and let out the girls.  They plunged into the mesh of branches and I tried to follow. 

     A bird thundered away unseen ahead of us, and then I heard Chara’s bell stop.  Colby and Georgia were working off to my right and out of sight.  Wet, cold, branches clawed at my clothes as I hurried toward Chara.  About the time I could glimpse a piece of the white dog through the green needles I heard the bird leave.

     Coffee for me and fuel for all of us back at the truck!

     The logging road took us up over a hill and along a ridge, into miles from anywhere.  I found a side road that led into country that looked very good on Google Earth, parked, and started hunting up the road with all three dogs.  The country looked perfect, and probably deserves another look sometime, but we only found one partridge that flushed ahead of us and one woodcock that Chara pointed with Colby honoring.

     Everywhere I stepped seemed to be spongy, saturated to the point of soupy from the previous rain, and then rain started to fall again.  With tired aching legs I drove out of the woods, the dogs all curled up on their seats.  A few flakes of snow mixed with the rain at higher elevations, making it easier to call it quits for a while.

     It was time to go back to the house and take a nap.    

            

  

Recycling

About two years ago I hunted up a hill toward a covert that I’d discovered only two or three years before.  Mixed softwoods and young hardwoods cloaked the lower slope of the hill, but then the forest turned to hardwoods, primarily sugar maples with a few young beech mixed in, with almost no understory, creating what almost felt like a park.  To the east the land sloped down into softwoods and eventually a stream, but up ahead I knew a small knoll, covered with pole-size spruce and fir, always contained grouse.

      That small bump in the topography was always something of a puzzle.  Beyond it a few young softwoods mixed with a smattering of young hardwoods, but nothing that I would have ever considered a food source for ruffed grouse.  Yet for several years this spot always produced birds and an abundance of memories.

      On the last hunt there the previous fall, a friend and I saw that a porcupine had chewed on dozens of trees.  Up the hill to the west a small sugar shack sat waiting for spring, and when you stood next to it there wasn’t an un-chewed tree to be seen.

      But on that hunt two years ago, I noticed something didn’t look quite right when I looked through the maples on the hill.  The sky was different or something.  And then I realized the forest ended about where that small knoll rose, and beyond a large clearcut opened up exposing the sky.

      My first reaction was disappointment.  Walking out into the cutting I could look to the west and see the ridgeline.  It looked like the opening in the forest might be as large as a hundred acres.  Almost no slash was left behind, which made for easy walking, but already root sprouts were knee-high and young raspberries poked through the ground.

      I realized that soon the new growth would be taller than I and providing cover for grouse and woodcock.  The covert that I remembered was past its time and soon would have faded away, but the new cutting meant rejuvenation.

      Later that fall I hunted the far side of that cutting, working to the west and up to the ridge.  Near the height of the land and among some spruce the dogs found partridge and I killed one.  The cycle had already started.