A Morning Duck Hunt

    Duck season opened this morning. I took the two dogs, even though there is no sane reason to have two dogs. We toted our gear over to a tiny pond on a peninsula that juts out into a salt pond and tossed out a couple of decoys. Then I improvised a blind in the reeds and made myself comfortable.

    The ocean beyond the salt pond and barrier beach roared. As I sipped coffee, the waves seemed loud enough to be headed my way, and I wondered about the likelihood of a tsunami. A cynical person might have thought the ocean sounded like a freeway, but I decided that cars on a freeway sounded sort of like the ocean.

    At four minutes to gunning time I looked at my watch. Birds chirped all around us and ducks and geese made a racket far from sight.  The rumble of the waves against the beach let up and then grew louder again. Three crows flying to the east cawed about something and then disappeared. I poured more coffee. Something in the weeds to our left repeated a low chirping sound over and over, causing the dogs to growl.  I looked at my watch, and it was still four minutes to gunning time.

    Two minutes after legal shooting time passed I realized it was time to pay attention. We waited. The younger dog, Colby, kept moving about, sitting and then standing, and then lying down until she stood again.

    Two mallards fell out of the sky and landed so close on the other side of the weeds that I couldn’t see them. Colby bolted through the growth like a rocket and the ducks took off low over the water, as if knowing that I’d hardly be able to see them. I never fired a shot, but Colby was a tempting target for a moment.

    We listened to those geese, nervous and sounding about to take off. They were behind us somewhere out on the pond, but we never did see them. I looked at the way the morning light filtered around the edges of the weeds, creating a white fuzzy line around the shapes. A faint breeze tickled my left cheek, but barely moved the dried grasses in front of me. The ocean seemed to growl less as the sun painted pink streaks across the clouds.

    Colby was into it by then, and sat like a statue. Chara, the older German wirehair, had this duck hunting stuff down pat, and sat patiently. Both of them waited and trembled, eyes to the sky.

    Two mallards came in downwind from my left and made a wide circle, then dropped down over the decoys. I stood to shoot and the birds flared. It looked further than I liked, but I pulled the right trigger, immediately wishing I’d pulled the left and the tighter barrel. Wings flapped furiously and the ducks never missed a beat. I am sure I shot under the one that I had picked.

    Cursing at myself, I relocated my stool and the dogs closer to the edge of the weeds and the decoys.  My watch said the sun was up, but the gray clouds hid it. It was going to be a bluebird day, so maybe the gunning was already over. To the east ducks clattered periodically, but the geese behind us were silent. I wondered where the pink streaks in the sky had gone. The dogs sat like quaking statues.

    I decided to hunt until an hour after the season had started, which gave us fourteen more minutes, after all, it was a work day. More crows flew across the sky, The sky changed from shades of gray to dull muted purples, and then three puddle ducks, probably mallards, lifted into the sky far away and traced the southern horizon, never coming in our direction.

    I poured more coffee. That didn’t work, no ducks came. I dug out my camera and snapped a few pictures. Still no ducks. I figured that with a camera in my hand the ducks would storm in. Was I going to have to get up to pee to make ducks come?

    Two male mallards came in, rocketing downwind and from the left, passing directly overhead, and then they made a wide circle in front of us, dark shapes against the sky. As they came around to pass straight over my head again, I stood to shoot.

    I should have shot the second bird before he got to me, rather than trying to shoot straight up at the first duck. I almost fell over backwards into the mud, and the ducks flew safely away.

    An hour into the first day of the season, as the sky turned bright blue and the sun changed the grasses to shades of aged bronze, I gathered up the decoys.

     We would try it again the next day.

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.

Sunshine

     The morning started out cold, the first one with sparkling white frost in a long time. In the valleys, thick fog might have hid most of the landscape, but the freezing mist that collected on the trees created a fairyland of white shapes.

The sun was finally hitting the ground.

     Up in the mountains though, the sun tried to creep over the treetops, but hadn’t quite succeeded yet. The gravel logging road we followed gradually went up the hill, and at an old yard a giant yellow birch had fallen across, blocking further access except for those traveling on foot. From there on golden grasses laced with frost covered the road and our steps fell silently, the only sound being the ringing of the dogs' bells.

     Where a small stream crossed, Chara, the older German wirehaired pointer, insisted on poking through a patch of alders. Wet ground made following her difficult, so I waited in the road. The younger wirehair, Colby, dashed about the woods on the upper side of the road, where maples, birch, and scattered fir grew on drier land. Neither of their bells ever slowed or stopped.

     Up the road a bit, sunlight slipped in through a hole in the forest and lit a small area of ground on the low side. Chara stopped and pointed hard at the rubble that had been pushed up ages ago when the road was shaped. Colby froze when she saw her, standing almost a hundred feet up the road.

     I hurried in and the bird burst into the air to escape down the hill, disappearing into the spruce and firs. We followed into the softwood trees and the bird re-flushed far ahead and almost out of sight. Nosing around further in, Chara did point another grouse, but it flushed far out of range as I approached.

Colby with an early morning grouse.

     The damp ground squished with every step and sucked at our feet, so we fought our way back up to the road and continued up the slope. In another sunny stretch on the upper side Colby started to do the I-got-bird-scent-dance and soon locked up, looking very intense. Two birds flew on my approach and only one of them flew away, the other offering a foolishly easy shot for a ruffed grouse. Colby loves to bring a bird to hand.

     Eventually the road brought us to another old logging yard, much like a small field on the side of the hill. Up on a high banking, where the sun warmed the ground, Chara pointed, her white coat looking bright in the sunlight.

     When I climbed up onto the banking a big snowshoe hare dashed off, and I scolded Chara. Usually she ignores those oversized rabbits. And then a grouse exploded into the air about six feet behind me and to my left, flying along the side of the yard and offering an easy shot…if only I had been ready.

      Fortunately, Chara forgives me my transgressions easily and we hunted on. The dogs were searching for birds, and I was looking for more of those spots where the sun warmed the ground.

     

Living at the Edge

     The forecast for today was unsettled weather; a major storm, hurricane Sandy, was coming ashore miles to our south. So we took off early with three dogs, trying to get some bird hunting in before the weather went to hell.

     We put all three dogs on the ground at once, thinking that maybe they wouldn’t get a chance to run later. The logging road that we walked hadn’t been used in a while and a gate blocked access.  On the right side mixed softwood and maple, about thirty years old, grew, while on the lower left side predominately softwood grew with mixed age hardwoods.

     Abruptly the woods on the right changed to mixed age hardwoods with scattered softwood trees. We pushed in and worked the dogs parallel with the road. Where the softwood grew thicker along the side of the road, we headed away and around through the woods, following the edge of the hardwoods.

     Chara, the older German wirehair pointer, pointed first, and it took a few minutes to locate her and the silenced bell. A grouse burst upward out of a fir tree, taking off only a couple of feet above Chara’s head.  I shot, but to no avail, only blowing a small fir tree in two about eight feet over the ground.

     Pushing through the spruce and farther up the slope, another grouse thundered out of the top of a tall leggy spruce. A moment later, a second one followed, but on my shot feathers flew and the bird dropped like a stone. The dogs found it and the younger wirehair, Colby, brought it to hand.

     Up the hill Chara’s bell again went silent. We hurried ahead, through soggy ground and blown down softwood trees, to find her, but as I approached a bird exploded upward and went between Don Pouliot and I. After it was safely behind us, I fired and missed, then Don shot, then I again, but the bird never slowed.

     That’s when I learned that Don shot at a second grouse and knocked it down…in all the commotion I never knew that a second bird had flown.

     With two birds in the bag and after only a short hunt, we were feeling pretty giddy. We hunted back toward the road and then followed the edge of the softwoods on the far side of a side road. Almost immediately Georgia’s bell fell silent and we started to search for her. Don found her first and walked in, flushing a grouse across the road that offered no shot. Georgia never moved, and as Don walked past a second grouse flew up into a tree, and then flew again to meet a load of number seven and a half shot from my gun.  

     Three birds in the bag on an early morning hunt is a great way to start the day.

Great Grouse!

     The season started with a bang, lots of them. A good grouse population the year before combined with a mild dry spring created a year of abundant grouse. Yesterday, figuring conservatively, three of us hunting moved thirty-eight grouse during five hours of hunting. That easily is the best day of my life. Thirty bird days are almost unheard of.

     The day before we moved over twenty woodcock, so this may well be the season we talk about for the rest of our lives.

Colby with a grouse

     Last night, three tired hunters celebrated with over woodcock and grouse for dinner, while four tired dogs slept silently.

Pheasants

     Yesterday pheasant season opened in our home state.  The local Fish and Game, oh, excuse me, now it’s the more politically correct Fish and Wildlife Department, released pheasants three days before. The birds are dumb and most poor fliers, but it’s an excuse to walk the woods with a gun and let the dogs have some fun.

     We hunted one of the prettiest places on the island, with old pastures breaking up the oak woods, and ancient stonewalls zigzagging across the fields. Every year the birds are released in almost exactly the same spot and seldom do they wander far in the few days before the season opens, so to make an event of the day I lead the dogs in a circuitous route to the release location.

     But early on, in the first field after the trail comes out of the trees, the older German wirehair, Chara, gets birdy. I coaxed the younger wire in the same direction, but she showed little interest. In the muted early morning light the somber fall colors appeared shades of rust.

     And then the dogs point! I wandered in and the pheasant took off like a helicopter, laboring for altitude. At the crack of the shot it fell and the dogs were on it. Colby, the younger dog, pranced to me with it in her mouth. Chara already searched for another.

     Colby bumped a second pheasant up on a knoll that flew quite well, soaring over a cluster of young trees and into a second field filled with knee-high sumac. Marking where it landed, we trekked over there but never found it.

     Timeworn cart paths, edged with lichen-covered stonewalls, took us past old stone foundations and through a short section of woods to second set of pastures. We hunted up the fields and then looped around another old tote road that crossed a tiny stream and to head back toward where we came.

     Both dogs got birdy next to a thicket of briars, but Chara abandoned the scent and went on. Colby didn't give up though, and cautiously poked into the briars. A few feet in she locked up like a statue. Peering into the tangle, I could see the pheasant hunkered down only a few feet beyond her nose.

     Now that presented a quandary. The wall of bull briars was higher than my head and almost impossible to see into, let alone walk into. I circled to the left, but things didn’t get better. Around to the right, things improved a might, so I pushed in. I had to give high marks to the McAllister waxed-cotton coat for protecting my upper body. Chara, by that time, circled back and snaked into the briars too, honoring Colby’s point only a foot or two behind her.

     Thorns clawed at my face, dislodged my glasses, and attacked my legs, and why I didn’t wear my brush pants I will never know. If I had tripped, I never would have hit the ground, the tangle would have held me aloft.

     When I looked again, the two dogs had relocated, and the pheasant sat only about eighteen inches from two sets of jaws, its eyes were wide open as I’m sure it knew it was in a pickle by then. At that point I knew the dogs would catch the bird if it tried to fly, because flight in the tangle would have been impossible.

     So I shouted, “Fetch”, which eliminated the middle man, meaning me with the gun. Chara  snapped up the bird and gave it a shake, then dropped it. Colby carried it back to me. I think Chara didn’t want to walk any further in those briars than she had too. She’s a smart girl.

     That gave us our two bird limit, so I untangled my body from the prickly vines and headed home. Later I would find that my legs looked like I’d lost a fight with a bobcat.

Opening Grouse Camp

     The day is getting close. I’ve sharpened my bird knife so many times that I’m worrying about how much metal I’ve taken away. Last night I counted dog bells, put one on a new collar, and cleaned my gun again. The night before, I printed out the list of things to bring that lives inside my computer, checked it against the one that lives in my smart phone, and cleaned my gun. The day before that I worked the dogs out in the fields behind the house, downloaded another map into the GPS, and cleaned the gun. Pretty soon there won’t be any bluing left on those barrels.

     The dogs know what is coming. They don’t let me get far from their sight and right now two are sleeping under my desk. About every hour I check to see if something or other is on the list, so it won’t get forgotten. Most often it is there already, sometimes in two or more places. I resist the urge to start packing.

     I’ll leave early from work, a week from Friday, and get to Grouse Camp late, probably after ten, maybe closer to eleven. The heat will be on, thanks to a neighbor. In the dark I’ll haul everything in while the dogs dance about. They will know we are there for a while and what it’s all about, and I can just imagine their exuberance. Probably I’ll poor a scotch and talk to my girls (all my dogs are girls) after things are in, and hopefully unwind enough to sleep.

     Morning will come soon enough and the dogs won’t let me sleep late. While the coffee is on I’ll make the grocery list and then suck down the caffeine. Then it will be off to the grocery store to provision the place before the gang arrives. Maybe I’ll find time for a quick hunt above the house after the groceries are put away, or maybe not. It won’t matter; there will be plenty of time.

     And then the two friends will arrive, most likely around noontime, with a young Brittany spaniel in tow. Probably it will be lunch and then out into the woods. I already know where we’ll head, to an old favorite. We might hunt all four dogs, just to let them blow off steam, or maybe not if mine have hunted hard earlier. We’ll find some grouse and maybe a woodcock or two. If we’re lucky we’ll bring a few home with us.

     There’s a favorite alder patch nearby that will be a great place to take that young Brittany, and maybe we’ll make it later that day, or if not the next. There will be a few missed shots and, hopefully, a couple of birds in the bag. I can count on many laughs, lots of excitement, and very happy dogs.

     Grouse Camp will have started another year.

The Pup Named Skeet

     Skeet, the five month old Brittany spaniel, was back late yesterday for his second visit. Of course his owner Tim was in tow. I planted a couple of pigeons in launchers in a neighboring big field and then we let Skeet go. He was off and hunting in a flash.

     It didn't take him long to find the first one, which he barreled right in on. We picked him and to place him back a few feet, then steadied him. On the bird’s release he took off like a bullet and we praised him as he dashed about the field, looking up and following the pigeon.

     After he settled down for a bit we led him toward the second pigeon and when he got a nose full of scent he pointed, then moved in a step and pointed again. We backed him up a bit and steadied him, then launched the bird. Skeet took off chasing the bird and wearing the biggest grin I've ever seen on a dog. Enthusiasm is building!

A New Pup

     A friend stopped by with his young Brittany pup yesterday. The dog is five months old and full of energy, as all pups should be. Skeet is the dog’s name. He comes when called, is well mannered, curious, and appears fearless, all the right makings for a great bird dog.

     We took the pup out to the fields behind the house and I planted a couple of pigeons in launchers, hiding them among the weeds.

     Skeet was having a ball, exploring everything and running about, clueless to the meaning of a bird dog’s life. Finally he found one of the launchers, and while I steadied the dog, my friend launched the bird. Now that really got the dog’s attention. He bounded about following the flying bird. I think I could hear him saying, “Wow that was neat, wow that was neat, wow that was neat.”

     When Skeet finally settled down we guided him over toward the second launcher. After he found it the dog’s owner steadied the dog while I launched the bird. Little Skeet dashed about the field again following the second bird. What fun!

     Skeet was off and about again, enthusiastically exploring as only a puppy can, when one of the pigeons flew back overhead. He spotted it and immediately took off chasing it again. There’s nothing wrong with that dog’s eyesight!

     Skeet is going to be a champ.

A New Season Starts

     

    It has been raining almost since we arrived here on Friday. On the way up we drove in rain most of the way and the rain caught up soon after our arrival. Since then it has rained almost constantly, a light soaking rain, sometimes more of a mist, but relentless. It is Monday as I write this, the first day of the bird season.

    After watching the rain for three hours, I started late, leaving the house about nine, driving to the dump first and then up a bumpy road into old farm country on a hill, to walk down the snowmobile trail that has been a favorite. At first I felt cold and wished I’d worn gloves and cursed the weather royally.

    Just beyond the dip in the tail, where the old mountain ash stands off to the left, Chara pointed into a softwood thicket on the right side, Colby honored like a champ. The trees were about the diameter of my wrist and barely far enough apart to pass between. I scurried up there just in time to see old Mister Grouse fleeing down the hill on foot. My attempt to head him off proved useless and the dogs never found the bird again.

    Further down the road the two dogs pointed a grouse on the left side of the road, again in a softwood thicket. At least that chunk of forest I could enter standing erect, and the bird did offer a glimpse of a shot, but my first barrel went over and my second one shattered the branches beneath where he had been. If another hunter had been in the tote road that bird might have been dead, for that was his chosen escape route.

    Down the road near the big field, where there are alders on the sides, the dogs became birdy.  Chara locked up on a point, but I couldn’t produce a bird. Finally I coaxed them on, only to have the bird flush behind me. I threw some lead after it, mostly to entertain the dogs.

    We hunted off toward a stand of limby spruce where I’d found birds in lousy weather before, but when we got there they had been cut and only an opening in the forest existed where it used to be a stand of fat field grown spruce. It must have been an annoying chore to limb those threes! The branches were so low to the ground a man would have had to do some limbing just to get near the trunk to cut them down.

    I led the dogs to the northeast corner of the field to hunt an area that had been a favorite, but the last time I’d hunted it I thought it was going past its prime. Loggers had been in there within the past year and punched some holes in the forest, which is the best thing for the grouse and I was glad to see it. We found two in there, one of which my girls pointed, but the bird flushed through a thicket that offered no shot. About then I was sweating profusely and wishing I’d worn less clothes, and, in spite of the rain, I had my shirt unbuttoned to my navel.

    We hunted back down the slope into a softwood cutting. It looked like great grouse cover there and almost immediately Chara went into overdrive tracing scent. The area had been cut long enough ago that the young trees are tight together in clusters about ten feet tall, with maple and birch poking up in between. I would push through one softwood thicket as Chara went under another and around and around we went, until finally she stopped on  point. It took more than a minute to find her and then I had to plan an approach. I circled the fir thicket she hid in, but nothing came out. I waded in and a woodcock went straight up through the branches and out of sight. Stuck inside that tight cluster of trees there was never any point in even trying to mount the gun.

    By that time we were running late, why I ever promised to be back for lunch I do not know, so I herded the dogs back to the trail. Just beyond that dip again, Chara got birdy as all hell on the right hand side, but off to the left I heard a partridge take off for the a different zip code. Apparently the bird was taking no chances.

    We were three minutes late getting back for lunch.

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!

Bear?

     We were about twelve miles in the woods, two from where we parked the truck, trying to find our way to a particular lake using old logging roads and snowmobile trails. The three dogs were with us, Chara, the oldest German wirehaired pointer not far ahead, Colby, our youngster GWP maybe a hundred yards ahead, and Bella, our crazy Vizsla somewhere between the two. The dogs knew we weren’t hunting but hiking, so mostly they stayed on the trail and only made short forays into the trees.

     After walking almost an hour over a ridge on hot sunny logging roads, we had dropped down into a valley, following a narrow trail through thick hardwoods with a lot of dense understory. Near a stream, Chara trotted off to the left and stopped twenty feet from the path, so I stopped too, thinking grouse.

     Bella noticed Chara stopped, and her usual routine is to bolt toward Chara but then to circle around to pin the bird between the two of them. But instead she stopped almost beside Chara, with the two of them staring into the woods, not in what I would call a bird dog’s point, but with heads held high as if trying to see.

     And then about thirty feet beyond the dogs the bushes shook and something large moved. My first thought was “deer”, because that is what it would have been back home. But I didn’t see a deer and the critter only moved a few feet, what I did catch a glimpse of was something dark, and then I lost sight of it among the leaves. Whatever it was, it had stopped only fifty feet from our dogs.

     Both Sally and I could hear something like an infant moaning not far away. The two dogs never moved. Colby came trotting back and I stopped her with a “whoa”. 

Calling the dogs to come with us, we hurried on our way. 

     My best guess is a bear with a young one. 

Hot Weather and Dogs

    We are lucky to spend our time in Northern New England in an area where drinking water for the dogs is rarely a concern. Streams are almost everywhere and finding dry footing is a much more common problem. Overheated dogs can die a miserable death, and the weather really doesn’t have to be that hot for it to happen. Staying out of the hottest parts of the day and ample drinking water are their best defense.

    Yesterday the temperatures were only in the upper seventies in the shade, but the sun was very hot. During the morning we hiked up a small mountain north of our place, and the unusually dry weather had dried up all the wet places. In a normal summer, the trail looked like it would be impossible to do without waterproof boots, but instead we tread on hard damp mud.

    The dogs were a concern, particularly after they pointed a partridge and went into hunting overdrive. Tongues were hanging. We calmed them down, but you know how that goes. In one wet spot a moose had walked through and fortunately the footprints had all filled with water. If it hadn’t have been for that spot, which we passed both going and coming, there wouldn’t have been any water for the dogs, except near where our truck was parked.

    The next time we hike where we are not certain of water, we’ll carry them some. 

July Rabbits

Pointing rabbits early last spring

     My dogs are German wirehaired pointers, and we also have a Vizsla in the house, and in Europe they are all breed to hunt furred as well as feathered game. In North America, the hunting of furred game is usually discouraged, and that is what I have done.

     But come July, when hunting is a distant memory in the dog’s mind, and the year’s new crop has bunnies everywhere around our home, I let them have some fun with the rabbits.

     On our morning and afternoon walks they always find one to point, sometimes a whole bunch to point. I walk in and then shout “okay”, which causes the dogs to dash after the rabbit. The dogs have learned to hunt as a team, with one usually trying to come around to cut off any escape route. They seem to have great fun and it causes me to laugh. Only a couple of times have they actually caught the rabbits.

     If they start to point when I’m in a hurry to be going, I shout “leave it”, and they do, but appear to do so with great reluctance. In bird season they would have to be dragged by a bulldozer to get them off a bird they are pointing. They know when it’s serious business.

     Dogs sure are 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.

Between Seasons

Photo by Dennis Swett

     It’s raining up north. I watch the weather forecasts for up there as closely as where we live, maybe more so. At least the young grouse and woodcock of the year should be big enough to generate their own body heat and have honest-to-goodness feathers, rather than just down. Hopefully, almost all of them will survive.

     Often, I find myself looking at USGS Aerial images on my Android phone, and none of them are of where we live, but rather the country I’ll hunt come fall. I’d love to be up there right now trout fishing, so I could listen for the drumming birds, but my work has me trapped down here in the flat lands.  Life could be much worse though, there are two bird dogs sleeping in the den with me, both dreaming with their legs twitching. I wish they could tell me about their dreams later.

     Periodically, I open the gun safe and take out my favorite double, shoulder it a few times, remind myself to go shooting more often, and then put it away. I dig out the list of things to bring hunting, just to double check it, maybe add or subtract something, and then put it away. The new little trout and bird knife that I got for Christmas will get a few strokes on an Arkansas stone. It’s always good to be ready ahead of time.

Drumming grouse,
photo by Dennis Swett

     Daily I walk the dogs. I find it easier to stay in shape than to get in shape. The dogs enjoy it as much as I do, and I love to watch them work the fields and woods. Every once in a while they point a turkey, which always creates a good story and usually a laugh. Maybe once or twice a year they’ll find a woodcock out back, but sadly there are no ruffed grouse here.

     How many days did you say it was until bird season?

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.

Porcupines

Little that can be said good about porcupines.  A long time ago, when I lived in New Hampshire, they were thought so ill of up in that country that there was still a bounty on them.  I think the state paid only fifty cents, which isn’t a lot, but that fact that someone paid to have them killed tells you something. 

Foresters hate the critters because they eat the bark off of trees, often girdling the tree and hence killing it.  During the time that I worked as a logger, we always were careful not to leave the hose from the fuel tank hanging down too low or the porcupines would chew on it to get the salts our hands left behind.  There were stories about them chewing through tires and almost anything made of wood that human hands had touched.

Photo by Mark Laken

One time a friend named Don Pouliot and I hiked up to Stub Hill Pond to fish.  We left very early in the morning and then walked hard to get there before the sun climbed very high into the sky.  To this day I vividly remember how my lungs felt like there were going to burst on that hurried hike.  A friend of Don’s had offered us the use of his boat, a small pram that he towed up there during the winter time behind a snowmobile. When we reached the pond we found the pram upside down over two poles, which were tied between two stout fir trees, with the oars tucked neatly inside.  But one of the oars had been chewed enough by a porcupine to make it useless.  We rowed in circles that day and caught nothing.

My first bird dog, a Brittany spaniel named Zac, had a pronounced stubborn streak.  Twice he pointed porcupines, and let me tell you, porcupines hold really well for a point.  After a while though, when nothing happened, he swatted the critters with his paw, resulting in dozens of quills right through the foot.  On both of those occasions I had the help of friends to deal with the problem, and mostly they sat on the dog while I yanked the quills through.

One fall though, in a thick stand of alders where lush foliage cloaked the ground, Zac locked up on a rock solid point.  I assumed the dog pointed a bird, because it certainly looked like the right sort of place for a woodcock, so I walked with my gun ready and eyes ahead, expecting a woodcock to tweeter into the sky.  But instead of a bird flushing, my dog pounced on a porcupine and tried to bite it.  What a mess.  Quills were sticking out of everywhere.  Many went right up through from inside his mouth and out the top of his nose.

I took the dog to the vet that time and the dog was sedated before the quills were removed.  Months later, when I was scratching Zac’s nose, I felt a quill working its way up out of his nozzle.  Pliers yanked the thing out.

Back in those days, large trunks of dead yellow birch could be found in the woods.  I don’t recall seeing any during the last few years, but back then we called these things stubs.  Most stood maybe twenty or thirty feet tall, and two men together might put their arms around them, and all had lost their tops.  These enormous trunks were nearly always hollow, like a big chimney, with their red heartwood having rotted away.  Quite often there would be a hole at the bottom somewhere and almost always it would be piled high with porcupine poop, sometimes several feet deep, and a person could see where the dreadful rodent had tread over their own droppings as they came and went.  At times the ammonia smell of urine alerted me to these porcupine dens long before I saw them, and looking at the filthy mess you really didn’t want your dog to get quilled by an animal that disgustingly dirty.

About three years ago, while bird hunting, I found a stand of sugar maples where almost every tree for a hundred yards in every direction was chewed.  Not many were girdled, but some were, and many were badly wounded.  Two years ago my oldest GWP pointed a porcupine.  Walking up to the dog, I was able to heel her away unharmed.  Last fall my two wirehairs pointed side by side, while the porcupine tried to hide under a pile of bulldozed-up stumps.  Again, I heeled them both away.

One time I found a dead porcupine, turned almost completely inside out with most of the meat gone.  That puzzled me, but an old-time woodsman explained to me how a fisher cat could flip one over and kill it without getting quilled, and then eat the thing through the unprotected stomach.  Fishers must be fast, or very very hungry to try that.

Sitting on a knoll against a stump and waiting for deer one November, I heard something shuffling through the leaves.  Rising up slightly I could see it was a porcupine just off the crest of a rise.  Figuring that I would scare every deer for miles if I shot the thing, I let it pass.  It went about two hundred feet and then climbed the only hemlock in the stand of hardwoods where I sat.  I remember the claws making quite a racket on the way up the rough-barked tree.

When the animal got up among the limbs it started screaming and snarling loudly.  At that point my curiosity got me up on my feet and I figured every deer within a mile could hear the ruckus anyway.  About twenty-five feet up two large porcupines we looking down at me, obviously more afraid of me than they were angry at each other.  Was it two males fighting for territory?  Or was it their version of a marital disagreement?  Or two grown siblings quarreling over something? 

I will never know, but I do know that a .35 Remington makes a very effective porcupine cartridge, just make sure you know where they are going to fall.  The faces and front legs of both critters were filled with quills, obviously from fighting the other.  I can’t imagine how they would have ever removed the things.

The last time I saw a porcupine dead in the road it was on the Route 495 belt west of Boston.  And the one before that was on Route 9 out near Belchertown, MA.  It seems their range is expanding back into country where they haven’t been seen in years. 

Taking a cue from the people who train hunting dogs to ignore rattle snakes, a friend of mine shot a porcupine and when his dog showed interest in the animal he zapped the dog an e-collar at its highest setting.  I don’t think the dog has been quilled since then, but I don’t know how many porcupines it has encountered either.

If you hunt with dogs in porcupine country you should have needle nose pliers or forceps handy, as well as scissors or snips of some kind.  Immobilizing the dog is usually the hardest part of the task, so you may want to give it some thought ahead of time.  A big stick across the back of the mouth will hold the jaw open, and a large coat or blanket wrapped around the dog may keep it still.  The quills do come out easier if you snip them to let the air out, which makes them a little less rigid, and quills that pass through tissue are more easily removed by pulling them through.  Remember, there is a hook on the end that went in first and it wants to catch and tear on the way back out.  Liberal amounts of peroxide or some other disinfectant is good to wash the wounds out with.  It is always best to see a veterinarian, but often in the best bird country they are hours away.

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.