Ruffed Grouse or Partridge?

      It is a ruffed grouse, Bonasa umbellus, but up in the neck of the woods where we now live the old timers refer to them as partridge. So is it ruffed grouse or partridge? It depends on who you are talking to.

     A couple of years ago I called up a friend who was laid up during bird season. I asked him if he wanted a ruffed grouse. He said, “A what?” I said ruffed grouse, and he said again, “A what?” I thought there must be a lousy phone connection. I said, “I just shot a ruffed grouse and I’ll bring it over for you. It’s cleaned and everything.” Again he said, “A what?” Then I remembered this gentleman always referred to Bonasa umbellus as partridge.

      It seems everyone under fifty years old calls them ruffed grouse or just grouse, but everyone over eighty calls them partridge. It’s that age group in the middle that makes for confusion.

      Up here, if you are going bird hunting, bird means ruffed grouse. If you want to hunt woodcock or ducks or pheasants you had better be specific.

Maggie says there's a ruffed grouse there.

One of the Last

This is about a time when I was much younger, and it was printed in the May issue of Northern Logger magazine…         

It was late September of 1974, up on a ridge south of Clear Stream and west of Errol, New Hampshire, that I first saw Joe Chasse (pronounced chassey).  The foremen, a man from Rangeley named Eddy Chivers, had driven me up the mountain in an old green school bus owned by the Brown Company to transport loggers.  Other than Eddy, I was the only one in that cold dreary bus.

Outside the windows, cuttings stretched off in every direction, and an inch of new snow frosted the ground up there high in those hills.  Most of the trees had been cut and only clusters of small unmarketable ones remained.  Skinny birch trees and young poplars glowed with still clinging leaves of gold. 

Parked in front of the bus sat an old pale-green Chevy pickup with a plywood camper on its back that had been painted to match.  Eddy babbled on in an accent grown between Maine and French Canada about this guy called Batman that I was about to meet.  All of it overwhelmed a young pup like myself who had grown up the suburbs of Boston, but I did my best to take it in.  I do remember Eddy saying that this guy was called Batman because he drove his skidder like the Batmobile.

The door of that faded Chevy opened and a stout man climbed out to stretch.  He didn’t stand very tall, but I remember him as being about as wide as he was high, with broad shoulders and enormous hands.  A prominent chin with thick lips protruded from his large head, and big bulging insect-like eyes looked back at us.  A tattered beige knit hat was pulled down over his ears.

With a stride that rocked him side to side and those round eyes darting about, he sauntered to the back of his truck and opened the camper’s door.  After pulling out a pair of heavy gray wool pants, he tugged them on over the thick wool pants that he already wore.  It made him look even wider.

I don’t recall much about the actual face-to-face meeting or who explained what I was supposed to do.  It was the last day to work that cutting though, and all that remained to be done there was cut down some small softwood trees and turn them into four-foot pulp.  As I made the back-cut on a lone fir and tried to push it over, Joe dropped down off of his big yellow skidder and came over to help.  Together we pushed and made the tree to fall in the right direction.  I’ll always remember what he said, “Aye, sometimes two mens are more den twice as better than one.” 

Our next yard was on the side of Cambridge Black Mountain, many miles up in the woods, in the unincorporated township of Cambridge.  The “chance”, as Joe called it, was a piece that had only been cut once before and then for only the spruce.  On the steep slope above our yard grew monstrous old rock maples, yellow and white birches, beech trees, hemlocks, white pines, spruces and firs.  With eyes swelling from excitement, Joe told me that in all the years that he worked for the company that was the best “chance” he ever had. Some of the hardwoods were so large two big men together could not wrap their arms around them.

My job was to cut up the wood after Joe twitched the limbed trees into our yard.  The company scalers wrote out for me a list of what the mills wanted for logs.  A French Canadian named Proteau was our chopper, who would cut down the trees up on the mountain, limb them, and have them ready for Joe to skid down.  Every morning when we started he would walk up into the woods without saying a word to me, or sometimes ride up on the blade of Joe’s skidder, which was dangerous and definitely against Company rules.

Because we were paid piece rate and logs were worth more than pulp, Joe was quite excited that I had this list of what the mills wanted.  He took the three sheets of white-lined paper and drove his skidder around the yard waving the instructions in his hand, yelling that now we would make some “real money”.  And because I could read and write, something that many of his co-workers could not do, Joe had me keep a log of where our wood went and mark when we were paid for it, so “the company can not steal from us”.  Company was pronounced “compan-yee”, with an accent on the end.

Almost everyday we ate lunch in that camper on the back of Joe’s truck.  He had a small propane heater and cook stove in there, and he would make himself meat, potatoes, and vegetables daily, usually accompanied with bread and something for dessert.  On cold or rainy days Proteau would come down the mountain to eat with us, seldom saying much and then only in French to Joe.

After the meal and before we went back to work, we often had a smoke.  On cold damp days, when the camper was closed up tight, it was difficult to a light match.  It would flare and then die.  Apparently the stove and heater had used up most of the oxygen.

At the end of the day, when the shadows grew long, Proteau would wander out of the woods and, with a scowl on his face, look at the woodpile to judge what I had done.  What he wanted to see was if I had caught up on the bucking of the trees that he had cut, so could I drop and limb additional trees around the yard.  As I fell into the routine, that became easier and easier to do.  But still without speaking to me, he would climb into his truck and leave.

Joe told me that Proteau had a farm up in Canada and would cut wood with us Monday through Friday, and then work the farm back home on the weekends.  He had a pile of kids there and the youngest one had a disability that brought huge medical bills, which is why money was always a serious issue.  And that worry was why Proteau drank so much.  In an attempt to apologize for Proteau’s not speaking to me, Joe told me that the man spoke no English.

Every week our pile of wood grew to enormous and the paychecks reflected it.  The company’s checks had printed on them “Not Valid over $400”, and most weeks we earned more than that, sometimes way more, so we usually received two checks.  Some of the men bragged of only giving one check to their wives and hiding the other.  One crew working near us even had three paychecks one week, something that was unheard of.

After a month or so of working together, and before he left at the end of one day, Proteau looked over the woodpile, stared me in the eye, and nodded approval.  I felt like I had made it.

On one spectacular warm fall day, we ate lunch sitting on our woodpile.  The crackle of ravens overhead echoed off the hills and a pileated woodpecker rapped on a dead yellow birch near our yard.  The few remaining leaves glowed in the warm autumn sun and overhead a lone jet left a contrail on the empty blue sky.  Joe wondered out loud where it might be going.

And then Joe said something I will never forget, “You know, some people for the city dere would pay seventy-five dollar to eat lunch like dis.”

That was so true.

One Monday, at the end of the day, Joe told me that on the previous Friday he picked up a hitchhiker on his way home after work.  While they were driving along he noticed in the right hand rear view mirror that the door of his camper swung open.  He stopped and walked back to close it, and then he noticed in the truck’s mirror the hitchhiker looking through his glove compartment.

Joe assumed the rider was looking for things to steal, so he took an axe, which he pronounced hax, from the back of the truck and walked up along the passenger side of the truck.  He said he swung the door open and held the axe over his head and shouted, “Get out of my truck or I will kill you!”

Imagining the whole event and the look on the hitchhiker’s face had me laughing hysterically.

Over time I learned that Joe grew up on a farm in Fort Kent, Maine and went to work in the woods when he was thirteen years old.  He was the seventh son of a seventh son, and supposedly had all the mystical powers that went with that, like healing people and being psychic.  There were eighteen kids in his family and when his oldest brother got married Joe said twenty-one sat down for dinner at night.

Joe had never been hurt working in the woods.  Nobody else that I knew could say that.  I’d only been there a couple of months and already had the chainsaw cut that almost seemed obligatory.  When we were working on our tools and a screw couldn’t be loosened, we’d get Joe and he would turn the screw.  If something heavy needed to me moved, we’d get Joe.  Nobody was stronger.  Once, on a dare, he picked up an empty fifty-five gallon drum with his teeth. 

           Joe confided in me that he was sixty-five years old, but that the company thought he was sixty-four, which was good because they had a forced retirement age of sixty-five.  He had no plans to stop work.  One time he told me he wanted to work for ten more years and then drive around the world.  I wondered at the time if he knew that was impossible.
          He had all his teeth, which was rare up there for someone his age, and thick silvery hair.  During the week he alone lived in a trailer next to a trucking company’s garage in town, rather than in camp where most stayed.  Story had it he fought a bit when he got to drinking, which is why he wasn’t welcome in camp.  On Fridays after work he left for home in Auburn, Maine.

Sometimes at the end of the week Joe would produce a case of beer from his camper at quitting time.  I don’t remember the brand, but it was always cans and tasted heavenly.  Proteau would take a six-pack and sit on a log and polish it off while I had one or two.  During the early weeks there was usually two conversations going on, one between Joe and Proteau and one between Joe and I, but as the weeks went by the conversations melted into one with Joe translating.

 For reasons I don’t remember I had to drive Proteau to town one day after he’d consumed a fair amount of beer.  With alcohol drowning any self-conscious inhibitions, he started to speak English.  It was the only time I ever heard him speak it and he did very well.

  Autumn slipped closer to the edge of winter and snow blanketed the ground.  Thanksgiving Day we all planned to work and then take the following three days for a long weekend, the holiday being nothing special for the Canadians.  On the way to the job as I came around the corner on the snow-covered logging road I saw five ruffed grouse in the road.  Hitting the brakes I put my Ford Bronco into a spin and slid into a snow bank, causing the vehicle to flop over on its side.

  The two chainsaws, a five-gallon gas can, two toolboxes, an axe, a pulp hook, a length of chain, and other assorted clutter made a horrible racket falling to the low side.  I stayed in the driver’s seat, even though it was on the high side and I wore no seatbelt, and looked around, holding onto the wheel tightly.  Miraculously none of the windows had broken.  Thinking that it would really be stupid to break a window at that point, I managed to carefully open the driver’s window and climb out.

   On the way in that morning I had passed a bunch of guys working on a stubborn skidder that refused to start.  I walked back down the road to where I’d seen them and they all came back to help me roll my rig onto its feet, using only muscle power.  With it sitting upright, I waited until we thought the engine oil settled back to where it belonged, and then I went off to work.

  When I arrived at the yard I told Joe why I was late.  He told me that he knew something must have happened because I had always been there.  And then we went to work like any other day.

  That yard in Cambridge was on a good gravel road, so for the winter the Company moved us to a winter road, one that is made of shaped mud and then frozen. Of course, it can only be worked in cold weather then.  It wasn’t far away, but just over the state line in the town of Upton, Maine.  Before we started cutting at that yard though we had to spend a few weeks cutting a right-of-way where another road would be shaped and frozen for the winter. 

  The spruce and fir trees in that right-of-way were tiny, not as big around as my thigh and only two or three sticks of pulpwood long.  Working long days we cut and skidded as fast as we could, but our meager pile of wood grew slowly.  The paychecks arrived on Thursdays, and first one from there was well under a hundred dollars.  Joe went on a bender and showed up at work the next day hung-over and mad. 

   Driving the skidder like a Batmobile, he drove up and down the right-of-way, breaking all the little trees up into tiny pieces.  Shouting that he didn’t care if the “Compan-yee” fired him, he wanted to be done with that chance.  I had no idea what would happen.  Proteau just shook his head and left, going back to Canada for the weekend.

  The next week the company moved us to our winter yard.

  We settled into a routine, cutting fairly sizeable amounts of wood and making decent money.  During a weekend trip back to Massachusetts to visit family, I bought a Brittany spaniel, my first bird dog. On Monday I went back to work and there wasn’t one single person that I could tell about that dog. How can you share with someone who isn’t a bird hunter the excitement of a new bird dog, particularly with the language barrier?

And then the Company offered me a better job, a chance to move into a mechanized logging operation.  It would be the way of the future they said.  Part of me wanted to stay with Joe, I knew he was the last of an era and almost every day seemed to be another story to tell.

But Joe would be forced to retire from the company, so I moved on.  A year or two after that I recognized Joe’s truck on the side of the road in Berlin, New Hampshire, across from the Northland Dairy Bar.  I pulled up behind him as he climbed out of the cab.  Recognizing me, he yelled out my name and placed a hand on each of my shoulders to toss me up in the air like a child.  We exchanged pleasantries and then parted.  That was the last time I ever saw him.

             Eventually I went on to run that mechanized tree harvesting operation for Brown Company. Someone told me once that Joe had gone to work for a jobber somewhere.  I also heard he had his first accident, a chainsaw kickback to the face.  Maybe that wasn’t true, I like to think not. 

He would be well over a hundred years old now, and I imagine he climbs on and off that skidder just a little bit slower now. In my mind, he’s just too tough to die.

           

           

             

Picking a Shotgun

Some decisions are agonized over....

    Picking a shotgun is perhaps a more difficult decision than choosing a spouse.  It is best to try several different types before settling down with any one in particular.  Do you prefer a wide shooting plane, or perhaps a slender one?  Do you shoot better with a little weight forward, or maybe butt heavy suits you better?  Most seem to enjoy a balance somewhere in between.

    For many, the first experience is with a pump action, but later they discover the beauty and smooth handling of doubles.  Some enjoying side by side, while others like one on top of the other.

    A stock of high figure often brings a higher cost, but many find the expense worthwhile.  High-priced guns often have lots of glitter and even gold trimmings, and, although pleasing to the eye, don’t necessarily perform any better than unadorned ones. 

Older ones may be missing a screw.

    Older ones are often appealing, particularly if they have not been abused.  Nothing detracts from their appearance more than dings and bulges, and nothing is worse than one that just sat somewhere and became rusty.  Many enjoy wondering about the storied history of the older ones while using them.  You must remember though that the dimensions preferred years ago are quite different than those of today, and some may feel awkward when mounted.

A wide plane catches the eye. 

    Older models in pristine condition are often expensive, and you may not even want to use them.  They are sometimes referred to as “safe queens”, but I’m not sure what they are safe from.  It is best to admire them with as little handling as possible, to wipe off with a soft cloth any fingerprints that you may have left behind, and then to leave them where you found them.

    Perhaps you have friends with different types, and you could ask them how they like them.  Maybe they will even let you try theirs, but that is not common.  Some may not want you to take theirs out into the woods, but most will at least let you look at them.  Be sure to ask their opinions, whether they prefer side by side or over and under, ejectors, wide or narrow fore end, and straight grip.

    Large bores are becoming less popular in the upland woods, with the slender twenties becoming quite common.  As many men get older, they look for a twenty-eight with a properly proportioned frame, which they feel makes for a more appealing look. 

   Their light weight feels nimble in the hands and is a delight to experience, but a proper mount must be practiced, or the motion is too jerky and may cause a miss.  Practice mounting is the key, and can even be done in almost any room at home.

    Remember, practice safe shooting.    

A favorite, leaning against a tree.

  

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.

Tween Seasons

It is between seasons, bird seasons that is. At some point, during every single day, thoughts of bird hunting slip through my head. They have to, living with bird dogs in the house and surrounded by books and photos on the subject.

Daily I walk, always with the dogs, to keep in shape. Nothing is more necessary to an upland bird hunter than a good pair of walking legs, and come October the dogs will ready to run too.

Colby and Chara, my two German wirehair pointers

In the mornings, before my workday starts, we trek through the fields and woods out behind the house. They love it almost as much as hunting and I do too. We have no upland game birds here on our island, except possibly a few woodcock that stay to nest somewhere. During the spring and fall those vagabonds migrate through and on more than one occasion my girls have pointed them, but finding a woodcock in the summer is rare. Quail, once abundant, are rare.

There are rabbits galore, and some days the dogs will point one or two and possibly give chase on my command, yet other days they show no interest in them at all. It’s the same with turkeys, who’s numbers are expanding and soon they will become a pest, just like our deer.

Morning sun on the field out back

From the grasses of the field out back we sometimes roust a deer. Two nights ago three decent-sized bucks, with their antlers in velvet, stood like statues in the tall grass at twilight, watching my dogs and I walk along the edge of the field. The dogs never pay much attention to the deer, there are so many of them that I think the dogs get bored with their scent. Oh, if they bump one out of its bed they may give chase for a hundred yards or so, but the dogs always come right back.

Under the oaks of the woods blueberries and huckleberries grow waist high, and, if they are not wet with dew, I’ll often push through them just to work my muscles harder. The dogs bound through them, leaping to see with every stride, their ears flapping like insufficient wings.

Some mornings I seek the sunny sides of the fields for warmth, others the shelter of the trees to break the winds. Lately the crickets have been murmuring in the mornings, but not as loud as later in the day. Turkeys gargle noisily. Crows seem to be everywhere and sometimes I swing my hand like a shotgun, pretending to fire when the lead feels right.

For a week or two a young skunk would turn up along our walk. The dogs would wind it and give it a wide berth, but the little bugger actually would actually charge at a human. I’m sure it made him feel powerful to watch the tall creature flee. With his absence the last couple of mornings I have been wondering if an owl might have had him for dinner.

Soon it will be July, and then comes August, when we can say “Bird season is the month after next….”

Another rabbit.

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.

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.