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 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.

The Season is Here!

October arrived dripping wet, with lush foliage still clinging to the trees, the fall colors not quite to peak, and a forecast of more of the same weather.  Out of sense of duty more than desire, I grabbed by gun and, accompanied by the two eager German wirehairs, headed out into the woods to climb the hill above our north-country home.

The ground climbs steeply there, lung busting steep, up a slippery old skid trail clogged with weeds.  I pushed through soaked raspberry vines and waist-high grass, my feet almost making waves among the puddles where the ground was near level.  By the time we reach the old logging road that is cut into the hill, my heart was pounding.  The dogs hunted with passion all the way up and seemed oblivious to the topography as well as the weather.  Why can’t I be like them?

I always find it amazing how quickly Mother Nature reclaims the land in northern New England.  More trees had fallen into that old tote road and foliage crowded in along the sides.  If I were suddenly dropped there I might not even recognize the spot, even though I’ve been there dozens of times before.  Moose had trampled a path in the past, but they seemed absent this year.

Chara, the older dog, hunted off to the right on the uphill side of the road.  Colby, the two-year-old pup, is off to the left beneath tall spruce and fir on a shoulder of the rise.  My mind started wandering, wondering just how far past its prime grouse-producing years the woods had become.

Snapping back to the moment I realized Colby was on point about fifty feet ahead of me.  It wasn’t the rock solid point we all want to see, but she was definitely pointing, yet looking a little unsure of herself.  In clothes heavy with water, I hurried into the spruce and fir thicket, my eyes searching the ground ahead of her.

About forty feet ahead of Colby a grouse head comes up from behind a log; the bird was at the edge of a precipice, where the earth falls abruptly away over a ledge.  As I stepped past Colby the bird jumped off the edge like an Army Ranger stepping out of the back of a transport plane.  The bird may have been gone, but the memory is with me forever.

Continuing to follow that old road upward we found a few more birds, all of which flushed wild, except one that Chara did manage to point high up on the hill.  At an old logging yard, which looked like a marshy lake that day, we turned around and hunted homeward, only finding one grouse that flushed fifty yards ahead of us.

I never brought my gun to my shoulder that entire hunt, with thick soaking leaves cloaking everything, the puddles covering the ground between patches of slippery mud, and the rain seeming relentless.  Yet I had a ball.