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.

  

Old Things

I like old things, and things made like old things. And I guess that means old timers too. Back when I was a young pup, nothing suited me more than spending time listening to old hunters or woodsmen. They had seen so much and lived in exciting times. Now there aren’t many of them left.

A couple of Christmas’s ago I was given a L. L. Bean waxed cotton rucksack. It brings me great joy just to see it hanging on a hook in my office. It looks like it should have been made in 1912, not 2012. I know the same exact one, made out of modern synthetic materials, weighs half the amount, but it wouldn’t look or feel the same. I’ll carry the extra weight.

And I love an old Marble’s brass compass, even if I do have trouble reading it, pinned on my vest. It’s just too close there. It needs to be pinned on my wrist for me to focus on it, but we know how well that would work out.

I don’t own any plastic boats, but a couple of wood canoes, a wood duck boot, and a wood Rangeley guide boat. In my shop sits my grandfather’s canoe, with its canvas stripped off and waiting for restoration. That was built in 1906, when he was fifteen years old. Show me a fifteen year old that can do that today. I still have both of the paddles he made. It’s amazing how a hundred plus years of drying can lighten a spruce paddle.

Up at Camp Grouse, we have an old pack basket hanging on the wall. It’s great for hauling things on canoe trips, not that we take many, but it looks super hanging there. Once a year I turn it upside down to dump out the dead flies.

I do have an old cane fly rod, but seldom use it. It is in mint condition, but I’m spoiled by the quicker action of graphite rods. The traditional New England fly patterns, like the Parmachene Bell, Gray Ghost, and Edson tigers, fascinate me, and I use them periodically, but catch little. Another old New England fly, the Black Ghost, serves me well though.

Most of my guns were made a long time ago. The only new ones are both doubles, which is, of course, a long time proven type. There’s a couple of old pumps and even an early Model 1100, but, other than for deer hunting, none of them come out of the safe often.

The first gun I ever bought was an old Ithaca side by side, and the next gun an even older Parker. That Parker, born in 1902, still sits in my safe. Every once in a while I take it out and wonder at the stories it might tell. I know there’s a few that involve me.

The last firearm purchased was an old Savage Model 99, in 250 Savage, a time tested rifle that shoots an almost forgotten cartridge. It is a pleasure to just look at it and also enjoyable to fire, with very little recoil. I’m too old to get beat up by repeated punching in the shoulder.

I own Gor-tex lined clothing, but all of my favorite coats are waxed cotton or wool. Slipping on any one of them, I can feel the adventure starting. Filson waxed brush pants are the best in my book. But I will admit, Gor-tex lined leather boots are one of the greatest inventions of all time.

There’s only one old grouse hunter that I see with some regularity. He isn’t doing too well and his days in the woods are done. Usually I hear the same stories over again, but the details are jumbled and not always the same. I can see the twinkle in his eye though, as he remembers the good parts, and he’s always asking how the birds are. There is still lots to learn from his tales.

As we become the old timers, and there is more time spent tending our gear than actually using it, there had better be a whole repertoire of stories in our heads. Every year there seems to be a young hunter or two coming long, and they all expect to hear a few.

Never Promise

The young fellow showed up at grouse camp and right away said, “I might have made a big mistake. I promised my sister a grouse.” We’ll change his name to Red, to keep his identity a secret.

Breakfast sausage

Now, it was his first trip to our big woods. I know he’s shot grouse before, because there were pictures. Those can never be faked, right? He settled in and we looked at his guns and got reacquainted.

In the morning, while I cooked breakfast, my long time hunting buddy, Don Pouliot, showed up. The weather threatened rain, but the three of us rode to a favorite area about forty minutes away and far up in the woods. The birds were few, but I managed a grouse in my bag. With the weather turning wet, we spent time in a local sporting goods store.

Don Pouliot, out in the thick of things.

The next day we drove up into another big chunk of wilderness and found a ton of grouse. We even saw four sitting in the logging road in one spot, which we drove past to stop a quarter mile down the road and let the dogs out. The older wirehair locked up right at roadside, and on our approach three or four flushed into the woods. Not a feather was touched. A late launcher on the other side of the road made the fatal mistake of offering an easy straight-away shot for me.

In spite of our best efforts and giving Red unsurpassed opportunities, he never shot a grouse during the entire day.

Chara on point.

The third and last day of his stay, we hunted two more areas and found plentiful grouse, but again, none came home in his game bag. As the afternoon waned, the pressure was on.

I took him to the one spot I always could count on a pile of birds. It is tough gunning there, with thick softwoods in damp terrain, but the birds are always present. The dogs found birds and made some points. Just finding the dogs can be difficult in that spot.

A grouse leapt up into a softwood and watched us all approach. We discussed the direction it might fly, put Red in the optimum spot, and then Don and I tossed sticks at the bird. It flew. Red shot. Shot again. The bird flew safelyaway.

Red, sizing things up

The dogs, who had watched the whole event, went into overdrive, shaking their heads, but at least laughing silently. Immediately, it was their turn to screw up and they bumped a grouse that flew up into another softwood tree.

Colby giving Red the evil eye

Again, we played through the same scenario, discussing where it might fly, putting Red in the best possible shooting spot, then kicking the tree and tossing sticks until the bird flew.

And with the same results.

I did feel bad. Red would leave without a grouse for his sister, but we had a lot of fun and it will be a day I long remember. I think Red had fun too.

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.

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.

Grouse Camp

     We were lucky and spent the whole month of August up at our place in grouse country. We did a lot of hiking and found some new bird cover. You can never spend too much time in the woods.

     Now we’re back home and the days are getting noticeably shorter and the air has a little nip to it. Fall is knocking on our door.

Pointing a woodcock

     So I sit and look at the calendar, trying to figure out how to get the most hunting out of the pitifully short seasons we have. The biggest priority is days up grouse country. I’m trying to block out two weeks, but not sure if the bank account can stand it.

     I’d like to catch a little of the early duck season here at home, but that’s a low priority. Some years it is spectacular and other years…well forget about it.

     I’ll be up north for opening day, I know that, and within the next few days I’ll have to decide when I’ll go again, probably late October and maybe into November.

     This working for a living just gets in the way of fun!

Grouse Camp is Open

    Last Friday Sally and I made the trek up to our North Country camp to open the place for the summer. Back in March, we opened the place up for a weekend, but it was too early then to leave the water on.  Now the place is ready for use.

Bear damage to camp

    Since our last visit, a bear in a sour mood decided to take a swipe at our place, removing a couple of saucer sized chunks out of the siding on back of the place and then biting a hunk out of the corner boards.  He was a tall sucker, because the bite on the corner is well over the top of my head.

    Right off the dogs bumped a family of grouse at the edge of the back yard.  The young were about the size of adults and flew easily up into the trees. For a few minutes it seemed there were grouse everywhere, which is a very good thing!

    My daughter, Tami, was visiting with her boyfriend, Chris, so we did some hiking to get ourselves in shape, as well as the dogs.  The dogs have been around long enough to know hiking from hunting, so they mostly pay attention to us rather than search for birds, but they still found a few grouse along the trails.

At the falls

    One day we did a two mile hike to falls in the nearby river, where we ate lunch on the granite ledges, soaked up some sun, and I bothered a few fish. The terrain was rugged enough, both coming and going, to wear us all down a bit, including the dogs, who I’m sure went three times as far as the rest of us. Did I mention they found a few grouse along the way?

    Below our camp, on the last day of our stay, I fished the stream that forms the west boundary of our property.  A dry spring made for low water, and the winter runoff had moved the streams course, eliminating one of my favorite fishing spots, but creating a long run under a grassy bank.

    The brook trout were suckers for a green wooly bugger fished along that run and in the pockets behind some submerged logs, and one even fell for one of my red tag coachman dries. Two of the largest trout came home for breakfast.

    So after trout and eggs the next morning, we packed things up, I put Thompson’s Water-seal on the deck, and then we left. On the way, we stopped a few miles to the south to visit for a short while with a longtime bird hunter, whose days in the woods are unfortunately all behind him now. One of the first things he asked was if we had seen any young birds.   

Opening up Grouse Camp

    Every spring it is the same thing, I make plans to fish as the ice comes out of the lakes and the landlocked salmon come up the streams, chasing the smelt. Or maybe I’ll fish the ponds as the ice fades away and the brookies are on top. And every year it’s the same old thing, I’m too busy with work.

    We live in a tourist destination, Martha’s Vineyard, and when the days get nice down in the cities, the summer homeowners start to remember all the things they wanted to have done before the next vacation season.  So the phone starts to ring, of which I am usually quite glad after waddling through the winter, and I get very busy, too busy.

    But this coming weekend we are finally sneaking away to Grouse Camp to open it up for the summer.  My daughter is visiting with her boyfriend, so there will be a lot of catching up to do, and hiking and puzzles and watching the warblers (there will be tons of them) from the deck.

    And at some point, I’ll sneak down to the trout stream below our place and wade into the water. There will be fish, none of them very big, but all nice brookies, and maybe I’ll bump a woodcock along the banks. It has happened often.

     And I bet I hear grouse drumming more than once.

During the off season…

     I find myself daydreaming a lot this time of the year, counting the days until October.  Not too long ago I discovered a great app for my smart phone.  My phone is a Android, but I’m sure it’s available for iPhones too, and there’s probably other apps that do similar things.  It’s called BackCountry Navigator, and it basically turns your phone into a standalone GPS.  No phone coverage is needed, so it works out in the middle of nowhere, which is one of my favorite places to be.

My girls, showing off again.

     USGS type topographical maps are available from MyTopo.com, or, better yet, USGS Color Aerials are available too.  Downloading them on the phone is painless and takes almost no time.  Now, whenever I find myself waiting, whether it’s for an oil change or lunch at the diner, I go to my favorite coverts in the palm of my hand. Or better yet, I search the color aerial photos looking for likely new coverts. Technology, you have to love it.

     It’s not a free app and I don’t remember what I paid, but, being a New England Yankee, you can be sure it wasn’t too much.  Whatever it was, it certainly was worth every penny for all the hours it has entertained 

My older wirehair, when she was just a pup.

One More Weekend

      Tomorrow afternoon I head back up to Grouse Camp for one last weekend.  It’s a bonus weekend, something that only happens once in a while, certainly not every year.  There hasn’t been much snow and the temperatures have been mild, so I’m optimistic.  Some years there is just too much snow for dogs to work.

     So where will the grouse be hiding?  Much of that depends on the amount of snow and what the weather deals.  Time will tell.  I’ll be alone with my older wirehair, just the two of us, like we used to hunt most of the time.  She’ll revel in her task.  I plan to take loads of pictures to remember the weekend all through the winter, spring, and summer.

     I’m sure we’ll poke around the softwoods down where the stream runs below the house.  There’s shelter and abundant food for the grouse there.  That logged over lot just over the town line had tons of birds in late October, so I’ll have to see if there’s still a few hanging around.  And late one day we’ll have to check the clearcut by the apple trees and old field, that place from where a guy can walk for thirty miles to the east before he runs into another paved road.  I just like the thought of that. 

     The one thing that I am sure of is that time is going to pass way too fast. 

The Cathedral

The trees are enormous there, standing with limbs stretched upward and outward, like the arms on the capital letter Y, reaching up and out until they trees touch somewhere near the heavens, as if holding hands in celebration.  They are giant silver maples, their leaves always golden or gone when I have visited, standing on the shores of the winding river, where bronze or golden ferns and yellow grass create an intricate carpet over the ground.

It’s always been a tough place to find, with a long walk down the railroad tracks and then through an old leaning wire fence.  Down at the bottom of a steep bank, this plateau juts out into the course of the river, pushing the meandering water across the valley toward the highway to the south.  Alders cling to the edge of where the banking levels out, and a tire or barrel or somebody’s dock may be sitting almost anywhere, washed there by the previous spring’s runoff and floods.

Nearly two decades had passed since my last visit; a different white dog accompanied me then, but the same shotgun was in my hands and the place still looked much as it did.  The tannin stained water still crept along beneath the steep banks and the left the same sandbars sticking out on the inside of the river’s bends.  Directly under the tree’s spreading crowns knee-high grass covered the ground as it always had and golden ferns hid the lower spots.  Muskrat holes tunneled everywhere and washed up silvery logs lined the banks.

The young German wirehaired pointer, Chara, hunted as if she’d been there before, quartering to the river’s edge and then back toward the alders where the land climbed upward.  Dutifully I followed, my mind drifting between wonder and melancholy. Twice I called the wirehair by the name of my long dead Brittany spaniel Zach, but both times catching myself and then smiling.  The magic was still there, the bond with a hunting dog, the anticipation, the magic.

Each time caused me to laugh, and I explained to Chara that it was a compliment.  She appeared to not hear, or chose to ignore my remarks, there was just too much ground to hunt and she was all business.

The river turned us to left along its shore, through grass and weeds waist high, to where the giant silver maples gave way to less grand trees mixed with occasional fir.  We searched the low spots and then the higher ground, trying to cover it all, not wanting to miss a thing.  Finally the river backed further to our left, turning us into a stand of spruce and back toward the railroad tracks and the long trek back to the truck.

          I had been skunked there before, back during the days when Zac went everywhere with me, and I knew the woodcock would be back.  Chara and I would be back too.        

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.          

After the Nap

    More out of sense of duty than desire, I picked up my gun and headed for the door.  The two older dogs got up, but the young pup already stood at the door.  Leaving the wirehairs at home, I put Georgia in my truck.

    We drove to an alder patch, one that is near the house and I usually can walk to, but high water in a stream that must be crossed changed all that.  On the way down from an old gravel pit where I parked, Georgia poked through the woods on either side of the grassy tote road.  At the bottom of a slippery slope an old meadow borders the stream.  Deer and moose tracks cover the ground. 

    I lead her across the field and through a hole in a falling-down fence, where we enter the alders.  Almost immediately I notice a woodcock splash on the fallen leaves and look for Georgia.

    She’s locked up on point, crouches low and muscles taught, I’m sure the scent of woodcock filling her nostrils, her stature guided by knowledge that’s been passed in her genes.  A picture would have been priceless, but I’m not sure how long the bird or dog would hold.

    I stepped ahead of the dog and the bird twitters toward sky, curling back over the stream.  I pass on the shot, not wanting the bird to fall in the water or on the far side, unsure of what the dog would do.  The stream is several feet deep and running fast, more than a young dog needs to get into.

    A few minutes later Georgia found another woodcock, and just as she points the bird it climbs for the sky…another lesson for the young dog.

     We hunt through the rest of the patch and then head for home.  What a great first day for her.

Grouse Camp

The title grouse camp evokes certain images…old shotguns leaned against a wall, wet and worn boots lined up inside a door, orange hats hung from deer antlers on the wall, pickup trucks parked outside, and, most importantly, bird dogs curled up in contented slumber.

The camp might be anyplace in grouse country, but preferably where trout can be found in a nearby stream come spring.  That would mean woodcock could be handy too.  A remote or rustic location may be preferred, like someplace that a hunter could walk right out the door with a shotgun across his arm and an excited dog bounding ahead, but in truth, most of us drive between cover, so a grouse camp could be even in a rural town in northern Maine or upstate New York.

Inside, magazines like Field and Stream, or Gray’s Journal would litter the coffee and end tables.  A deer head or large brook trout might hang on the wall, but definitely the fanned tail of a ruffed grouse is mounted on a wall plaque somewhere.  Canvas jackets and wool shirts could be draped over the backs of chairs, and possibly LaCrosse boots are upside down over a boot-dryer.  On the bookshelves worn copies of New England Grouse Shooting, Drummer in the Woods, Big Woods, and other classics wait for rainy days.  A stray feather or two drifts around the floor.

Hopefully a fireplace or cast-iron stove heats the room.  A fair pile of wood should be stacked in a corner or outside the back door; it is very reassuring.  The senior dog will be curled up on a braided rug just beyond the hearth, its white muzzle twitching as it dreams about birds pointed long ago.

The only ‘must-have’ for the kitchen, beside a coffee pot, is a cast iron frying pan, preferably more than one, but a large one will do by itself.  The sweetest morning aroma is that of bacon frying, the sizzling the only alarm clock needed.  Mix in the smell of strong coffee and it’s heavenly. 

Bacon can bring out the cholesterol-be-damned attitude in almost anyone, so hearty breakfasts of pancakes and eggs are always served in grouse camps.  The birds aren’t out and about early, they are way too civilized for that, so the first meal of the day needn’t be a hurried affair.  Partridge are hunted by your feet, so the hunters need their coffee and fuel. 

Late in the day, when the shadows are long and aching legs have carried the weary hunters back inside, tired hands will prepare a simple dinner while stories are told of birds pointed and shots missed.  An open bottle of single malt scotch or fine bourbon sits on the kitchen counter, next to heavy tumblers so weary hunters can pour what they need.  Gun cleaning tools accumulate on the table, along with maps, broken dog biscuits, and stray shotgun shells

When the meal is done, heavy-eyed hunters will doze in their chairs and all will soon slip off to bed. 

The dogs never move, not until morning.