Where’s the Woodcock?

The sun warmed the south facing slopes.

      It is that time of the year when bird hunters in our neighborhood start asking, “Where’s the woodcock?”

      It is nice to see the little russet birds arrive, because then you know spring has arrived. Usually the robins show up about the same time. Geese will be flying overhead or collecting in the fields. In the river, ducks will be paddling about in the backwaters. But woodcock? If you are lucky you might see one flying about dusk, but usually you have to go looking for them.

Maggie running ahead on a logger's skid trail.

      South facing slopes have bared up around here and near hillside seeps are a good place to look. I strapped on snowshoes and took Maggie, our younger German wirehair, out for a trek a couple of days ago. 

      On the flat of the valley floor a foot of hard snow made for easy snowshoeing and formed bridges over the numerous small brooks that appear every spring. The ground on the hillside that created the north side of the valley was almost completely free of snow. I hiked and Maggie hunted hard, until the valley dropped over a ledge into another valley thirty feet below. No way could a man get down that ledge except on his backside.

      We swung around to hunt the other edge of the valley, but no woodcock or grouse. I thought we might even find a shed antler, but no luck.

      It was one of those days. We will try again another day.

Water could be heard gurgling everywhere.

44 Degrees

     Two weeks ago we had four consecutive days where the temperature climbed well into the forties. That is rather unusual for February at this latitude. Of course it got everyone pumped up imagining spring right around the corner. Then we had about fourteen inches of medium density snow and temperatures below zero. So much for winter being over.

Snow fleas.

     Now we are into March and the weather is fickle as ever. Today the high was in the upper fifties and the roads looked like mud season was here. Maybe it is. Mud season is a mixed blessing and a sloppy harbinger of spring. On south facing slopes patches of bare ground indicate warmth. Looking at snow closely you might find snow fleas (yes, they really exist, google them). A robin showed up over a week ago and two mourning doves were pecking at sand in the road in town. Everything points to the arrival of spring weather, which is more than two weeks early.

     So where are the woodcock? That’s what every bird dog owner wants to know. For a week or two after their arrival it is great fun to hunt them with the dogs. Of course there is no shooting involved, but it is fun to see the dogs work after the long winter. Their excitement it infectious.

     Recent research indicates that the woodcock nest fairly soon after arriving and that a woodcock scared off her nest will re-nest, but she will have less than the usual four eggs to hatch. So this spring hunt of woodcock is a very short affair, and then the dogs must wait until both the woodcock and grouse young are hatched and grown before the dogs can hunt them again.

     Do you know if the woodcock are here?

April

Snow is  still  on the banks.

     Snow still makes blotches the hills and the streams rumble. Water is everywhere. The roads are muddy. Everywhere is muddy. Outside it is barely over forty degrees. This is April in the North Country.

Catkins on alders.

     During the day the grouse drum, a sound more felt than heard. Today rain spit from the sky as water rushed downhill. Grass is still brown, but the poplars and elms are in bloom. A fire in the woodstove makes our house a cozy home.

     The night is still. There is no madness, like on the evening news. Rushing water is the only sound. Twilight lasts long as the sky changes from shades of gray to blues and eventually a star speckled sheet of black.

     Spring is awakening, a slow process up here at Camp Grouse. 

We love the long quiet evenings.

Where is Spring?

     It is Saturday, March 23. The spring equinox passed a couple of days ago. Oldman winter apparently missed the memo. Outside, new snow is piled higher than it has been in any one storm all winter. For almost twenty-four hours it has piled up, a heavy snow with a high water content. The deck has been shoveled off multiple times and gauging the amount is difficult. It appears Camp Grouse has about eighteen inches of new snow on top of about three feet that was already on the ground.

     Now the snow has stopped and the wind rocks the trees. To the south a fox barks on the hillside, as it has for the last few days. The songbirds have returned to the feeders and a squirrel dared a visit to our deck. Our bird dogs are bored and watch the world outside through the sliding glass doors.

     In spite of snowshoes, my feet sink more than a foot into the new snow when I follow where the snow was packed before the storm. Off trail I sink well above my knees. Without snowshoes walking is impossible. The two hundred foot trip to the compost pile brought on quite a sweat.

     The trees rock in the wind, but the snow doesn’t shake off. How long will our power stay on? The ravens are enjoying the wind and riding the currents over the hill to the north. If the power goes out we are ready, with water stored and the woodstove cranking.

     It is pretty, a spring snow. Tomorrow the temperatures are supposed to be near 40 degrees and the snow will settle and fall from the trees. Somewhere a male ruffed grouse is standing on a log getting ready to start drumming.

The Middle of May

The grouse are pounding, literally. Some days it goes on all day long, others less so. Seldom during the day can you not hear them for long. The leaves aren’t out, but the red maples are pink on the hillsides. Distant pale green patches mark clusters of poplars. Water seems to be rushing everywhere. Only during the past week has the ice gone out on the lakes and the streams are still swollen.

Most of the logging roads are blocked off and they feel none too hard when you walk on them. It is spring in the North Country, a time of waiting. Luckily, the last week so so the weather has been spectacular, with blue skies and bright sunshine.  Woodcock are already nesting and maybe some of the young have already hatched. The woods will dry out soon and the streams will settle and warm. Warblers are already singing from the trees. Soon the trout will be feeding on hatching mayflies.

April at Camp Grouse

       The snow finally left about a week ago, it had doggedly lingered in the shadows of the softwood trees. If you poke around on the north side of the hills, there probably is still some in the shadows.

       In the woods the ground is very soft. None of the spring flowers are up and streams are high, making crossings difficult. The juncos reappeared for a few days, then left. A mourning dove arrived early, before the snow had gone, and took advantage of lawn exposed by the snowplow, but he is gone now too. We are waiting on the warblers, but every day birds show up that we haven’t seen all winter.

       Fishing will start soon, as the water warms and the streams drop. Most of the ponds still have ice on them, but it will soon disappear.

       Woodcock came back weeks ago and probably are nesting by now. Every day the grouse are drumming in the woods, one down below the house and another up above. The weather plays a big part in the breeding success, so we watch with fingers crossed.

       April is anticipation.

Tween Seasons

    The snow went, but never quite all the way. On the north sides of the hills and hidden in the shadows of the softwood stands it lingered for what seemed like eternity. Bare fields waited for the robins and on walks in the woods the dogs searched for woodcock. Early in the mornings and late in the day grouse drummed in the woods above the house.

     In a drainage ditch next to a logging road, which leads into an enormous wilderness valley, a woodcock fluttered up in front of the pup’s nose. It was the first of the year and the first of the young dog’s life!

    Spring would come after all. On the way home a hundred robins rested in a pasture that hadn’t yet greened. For the next couple weeks the girls would hunt hard.

    One day a sudden snow blanketed the garden, then left as fast as it came. Down by the brook, in the murky shade of spruce and firs, frozen puddles refused to leave and refrigerated air. Across the stream a grouse drummed a challenge to the one on the hill. The water was cold and high and trout fishing would wait. At night the coyotes howled.

    On a sunny afternoon walk, well up on a hill in a deserted field, a stand of maples no bigger than my wrist beckoned. Coaxing the dogs over, the seven year old wirehair locked up on point where the grass met the young trees. Rushing ahead with her camera, my daughter hoped to spot the woodcock in front of the dog, but the bird spiraled up from beneath her feet, leaving its nest behind. Three eggs waited for her return. The dogs would spend less time in the woods for the next few months.

    Now it’s early May. The grouse still drum. Streams are still too cold and a quarter of the way through the month snow mixes with a cold downpour. It’s time to train the pup and get the garden ready for warmer days.

   And wait.

Waiting For The Woodcock

    Snow lingers in the woods. Pockets of white hide in the shadows of trees and rock-like ice fills the hollows. Beneath blankets of white, north facing slopes still sleep where the air remains icebox cold.

    But the slopes facing the sun are welcoming her warmth. Swollen streams rush down the hills, creating a rumble that seems to be everywhere. Songbirds chirp and flit about, shyly hiding in the softwoods, busy with courting and spring tasks.

    The bare fields have been invaded by cackling geese, cackling about whatever geese cackle about. Soon after dawn, high in the sky, a pair honked their way up the valley, causing even the dogs to stop and listen. Blue skies and warm breezes make promises we hope are true.

    A walk down along the stream finds the ground cement hard in the shadows of the softwoods. Even amongst the sunlit alders it is the same. Undaunted, the dogs make the effort, searching the ground thoroughly. No woodcock or grouse in a covert that often has both.

    Circling back, up the bank where the sun warms the earth, the bare ground is soft. Eager noses search for the scent of returning woodcock. Optimism grows with the heat of the sun, but too soon the cabin comes into view.
    We’ll have to try again tomorrow.

Waiting for the Drum Roll

   Rain falls and snow melts. It is early and perhaps winter is not over, but shrinking snow and song birds chasing each other in lust says it is. The last snowfall had the heft of spring snow, not the downy consistency of a winter storm. Enough bare ground exists for the woodcock to have returned, but the ground is still frozen hard and the likelihood of their proboscis poking into the soil to find the necessary protein is unlikely.

     The dogs sleep. Waiting is easy when you sleep. Soon the woodcock will return and during the early weeks, before their nesting season, the dogs will search them out to point a few, which is great early spring fun.

    Melting snow causes hurrying flooded streams. Trout fishing will come as the water slows and returns to the confines of its banks. Flies can be tied in the meantime. Down by the stream below the house a grouse flushed a few days ago, leaving behind tracks in the snow. Fly fishing passes the time between bird seasons and gives an excuse to search for grouse and woodcock cover.

    The rain continues. Neither dog has moved for hours, even when a log shifted and clunked in the woodstove. It is easy to envy them.

    When the rain stops and going outside is again a possibility, maybe a grouse can be heard drumming.

Waiting on Woodcock

    The blanket of snow has withered to dirty mounds and rain is creating huge puddles. Our dogs pace anxiously, hoping someone takes a walk them among the fields out back, but they finally have resigned themselves to laying in my office beneath my desk and chair. On a walk earlier, the first patches of bare ground remained frozen and felt like concrete.

    Maybe tomorrow, possibly the day after, or a least sometime soon, the woodcock will show up again. They will do their mating dances over the fields out behind the house and then hide among the weeds along the edges. On the morning walks the dogs will find their scent and point them.

    Spring will have arrived.

Trout Fishing

My desk.

I’m a lousy trout fisherman. By that, I mean everybody usually catches more fish than me. But I love it. I love the rhythms of fly casting and the history of the sport. It is a great way to pass the time between bird seasons.

My bookshelves are lined with volumes of fishing literature, and I’ve read every one, some many times. I can spend hours at my fly tying desk and enjoy every minute of it. A few years ago I built myself a fly tying desk, with stacked shallow cedar-lined drawers, which are now filled with every imaginable fly tying material.

More than a few of my flies are tied with feathers from ruffed grouse or woodcock. The colors look buggy to me, and apparently to a few of the fish too. Soft hackle wets can be tied from grouse hackles, and woodcock feathers make great wing cases on nymphs.

The old traditional wet flies, like Parmachene Belle, Tomah Jo, Coachman, Montreal, and White Miller, are all favorites of mine and I fish them all. Sometimes brookies are still fooled by the bright colors, but they seem to have gotten smarter in the bigger streams.

Where's the trout?

More than a few rainbows have been fooled by those Tomah Jos, but the wood duck flank feathers needed are hard to come by. Just looking at those beautiful feathers is half the fun of those flies. Did I mention that I have tied hundreds of Atlantic salmon flies and stored them in a large Wheatley box? And I’ve never been salmon fishing. I just like pretty flies.

Sylvester Nemes’s soft hackle wets catch more fish for me than most wets or nymphs, and some of the patterns even call for partridge, like the Partridge and Green. That makes my heart smile.

My fly boxes are filled with traditional streamers, from Black Ghost to Grey Ghost, and Edson Tigers to Warden’s Worry, almost all the patterns originating in my New England. The only thing I’ve ever caught on a Muddler Minnow is the back of my head. Actually, the Black Ghost is about the only streamer that I have much faith in. And it had better be tied on a number ten or smaller.

Adams, Wulffs, Royal Coachman, and a down-wing fly I call the Red Tag Coachman are the dry flies in my vest. In a box that stays in my fishing duffle, are hundreds of dries that I tied over the years, tied just as Art Flick would have taught, and they sure are pretty to look at. Once in a great while I dig through them, but usually, if the fish are rising, it’s those simple flies in my vest that I use. And most of the time they work well enough to keep me fishing.

I’m stuck in the old ways I guess, which may explain why others catch more than me. But fun in fishing isn’t measured in numbers of fish caught.

The thing I love most about trout fishing is the country. I’d rather fish a hidden stream, way back in the woods, than a crowded popular river any day, even if that secret stream rarely produces a fish while the popular one is loaded with trout.

Spring grouse.

And so often on the hike in, I’ll scare up a grouse, which of course both startles and delights me. Or sometimes a woodcock will flutter ahead, paralleling the stream bank before disappearing into the forest, giving me another place to return to hunt in the fall.

Maybe trout fishing for me is just prospecting for grouse and woodcock.

Back from Grouse Country

     We just returned from a few days up north.  It’s been one of the mildest winters ever, with little snow cover or precipitation of any kind, so what usually would have been a weekend of snowshoeing turned out to be a weekend of hiking.  That’s fine.

In the woods there was snow

     Everywhere we hiked, we found ruffed grouse, or rather the dogs did.  Usually the birds were in clusters of two or three, and mostly along the edge of softwoods.  We did see three sitting up in a poplar right on Route…oh yes, I like to keep where I hunt secret!

     So it looks like a healthy number of grouse survived the winter.  Now comes the big wait, where we chew our nails and watch the weather.  When the young of the year hatch, we hope for dry weather until they get their feathers.  If the hatch is good this year, after the bumper crop of birds last year, this could be the year of a lifetime.

Colby on bird scent.

     Let us hope.