Mentoring

      The number of people hunting has been falling for years. Hunters spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on conservation and as their numbers slip so do the dollars. Fish and Game departments around the country have started to address the issue. The past fall my state started a mentoring program to introduce new hunters to bird hunting over dogs.

      I am not certain how I heard about it, but I signed up last spring to mentor a hunter this past fall. The mentors were required to attend a meeting to explain the goals, and the mentees were required to attend a meeting to be certain they understood safe gun handling and what they were getting into. Shortly after that I was assigned a mentee.

    I called him up and he was anxious to get the lay of the land and meet the dogs. I invited him up and a week or so later he arrived at our home. It was August by then and birds were through nesting, so I took him out with our dogs, hoping to find a grouse or two.  The cutting I hoped to walk through proved a tangled mess, so we detoured through a stand of damp hardwoods. I no sooner said it looked like woodcock country and instantly the dogs went on point. A minute or two later they pointed a second bird. 

      We agreed to hunt the middle of October when the leaves thinned a bit, but he turned up in our neck of the woods early in the month, so I invited him to accompany a friend and me on a hunt we had planned. A dozen birds were found over my two German wirehair pointers and my friend’s setter, which made for a pretty exciting day.

Maggie pointing a woodcock.

      When the time came for the actual “official” mentored hunt a death in the mentee’s family caused a delay. The day finally arrived and birds were pointed, a few shots were fired, and laughs were had, which is enough to make for a good day. Unfortunately, no birds were killed.

      I will do it again next fall if the state again runs the program. The whole process was fun and I met a new friend along the way. Hopefully he will continue to hunt birds.

      So consider mentoring next year, you won't regret it. 

Mentoring

     The state of New Hampshire started a mentoring program this year for people who want to learn to bird hunt. I love the sport and worry about the shrinking number of hunters all over the country. With diminishing political clout we will lose our open lands and hunting as we know it.

Choke cherries are everywhere.

     Yesterday I met my mentee for the first time. We chatted a bit and then headed into the woods. He’s about a decade younger than me and has hunted most of his life, but never over bird dogs or for ruffed grouse in New Hampshire. Trying to explain to somebody what makes good grouse or woodcock cover sounds easy, but often it is just a feeling or hunch as you drive by a certain piece of cover. Travelling on a logging road, I pointed out things grouse love to eat and tried to explain the need for shelter in the softwood trees.

     I let my dogs out in a place I had found grouse before, but we didn’t have a lot of time and this time of the year grouse are widely scattered. Berries and seeds are abundant and everywhere in the woods this year, so finding concentrated birds seemed unlikely. I tried to be optimistic.

Maggie on a woodcock.

     The weeds were impenetrable in a small clearcut I had hoped to work around. Instead, we trekked to the north and found moist young forest. I mentioned something about good cover to find woodcock and almost immediately my younger dog went on point. That certainly made me feel good.

     Stepping past the dog, the bird launched straight up over the trees and then flew away. A couple of minutes later my older girl went on point with Maggie backing her. Maggie lost control of her manners and bumped the bird, but it still was nice to find a second bird in the little bit of time we were in the woods.

     I’m looking forward to spending a day in October with my mentee. Let’s hope it’s a day filled with birds.

Do you see him?