Rain

 Few things are as soothing as the sound of rain. Without rain the world would be nothing but a ball of dust. And why is it that the dogs sleep so soundly every night when rain falls on the roof, even when they’ve been wound up all day?  And so do I.
     The rain has been falling for hours now. It is time to tie flies and dream of streams filled with trout.
     Woolybuggers. Maybe it’s because I’m not much of a nymph fisherman that I use woolybuggers so much. They don’t look like any particular life form, so there is no wrong way to fish them. A fish might mistake one for a leech or a small fish or a stonefly or a dragonfly. A few weeks ago a trout came to hand with a hellgrammite in its mouth almost the same size as the number twelve woolybugger beside it.
     My woolybuggers don’t have much flash, not like the ones I see in fly shops. Drab green body of shaggy wool is my favorite, with black marabou tail and wrapped with black hackle. Fine black wire keeps everything tidy. Wet the fly is a very dark fly. I tie other colors too, some with bead heads and some without, but green catches the most fish for me.
     If it doesn't stop raining soon the pile of woolybuggers will be a foot high.

The Hole

      The water shoots from a tangle of fallen softwood trees that fell into the stream, rattling down a riffle into a sharp left-hand bend, where the water has carved a hollow out against the streambank. From there the water eases through a long deep pool guarded by fallen tree trunks. It possibly is the longest pool on the entire stream. Tall spruce and fir trees shade the riffle and pool.
      There had to be a big trout in there. Only a few pools in the stream are deep enough to hide the bottom and this was one. But fallen trees and sagging limbs shielded the fish.
      Stealth! It cannot be overstressed when fishing small streams. A stony outwash created space to work from, but the stones underfoot were noisy. Crouched low, to remain unseen, line was stripped from the reel.
      The flow of the riffle carried the leader and fly into the shadows. Overhanging softwood trees blotted out the sunlight. Patience. The bead-head woolybugger danced unseen in the current. Mending the line would let the fly sink, tightening would raise it up. Moving the rod tip out over the stream swam the left and right.
      It felt like an automobile snagged my fly.

The Stream

 

 

   

  

     During the summer months a fly rod always leans the corner of our screened porch, rigged and ready to go. It is a three-weight rod and the fly on the end of the four X tipper is usually a green woolybugger, if not a woolybugger then a red tag coachman.
     A week ago I caught a seven inch trout with an inch long hellgrammite in its mouth beside my #12 woolybugger. That is described as gluttony, I think. Dry flies are always fun, but the fish are usually smaller.
     Now there is a beaver pond just upstream from our property. What fun. It must have been built this past winter. The dam is nearly four feet tall and thirty feet wide. I will be back.
     Today the wind funneled right up the valley, making accurate casting impossible, but fish were still caught. Walking back towards the trail that leads to home, the wind rocked the trees on the hellishly steep hill to the south.
     The path along the stream has grown in and needs some trimming. During the past winter dozens of softwood trees blew down, some across the stream and others landed in the old path. That kind of work, cutting up trees and moving logs, is fun when accompanied with our dogs, almost as much fun as fishing.
     A woodcock flew across in front of me as I walked the trail to home.

 

Red Tag Coachman

Hook: Dry fly, #16 to 10

Tag: Red wool

Body: Peacock Herl

Wing: White calf tail, tied down-wing caddis style

Hackle: Brown

Thread: Black

 

Think of it as a down-wing attractor pattern. It can also be tied and fished as a wet fly

An Adventure

 

     It doesn’t take a lot to make an adventure. How about a spot on a map and time to go find it? That’s what we had. 
     The spot was a stream that drains a mammoth softwood bog before joining another

stream to flow together into a lake. In satellite images of the upper reaches there appeared to be white water or rapids where the stream tumbled from the large swamp. And a complete lack of easy access made the goal so much sweeter. The quarry was wild brook trout.
     Early morning rising means wet foliage, so with pants soon-to-be soaked we headed off, trekking generally northeast. After only a short distance we heard the stream off to our left.
     It wasn’t easy following the stream. Over the eons it had carved what was more or less a canyon or gulley. Approaching the banks, it was often ten or fifteen feet below us, so following the stream bank closely was

Maggie was guiding the way.

impossible. The land parallel with the stream contained small plateaus divided up by rocky ridges and narrow valleys created by feeder streams, all in the shade of softwood trees. For a while an ancient logging road made easier walking, but then it disappeared in a ravine. Occasionally there were small openings in the forest, where tall green grass covered the ground. Walking through those really soaked one’s pants. We preferred the silence of soft ground under the spruce and fir trees.
     Eventually the land started to flatten so we followed along the stream’s edge, trying to find a place that looked “fishable”. The water was almost as dark as coffee, stained with tannin leached from the softwood bog upstream. In places the water squeezed between rocks or rattled down riffles. As the land leveled out it started to slow and meander. Soon after a hard zigzag in its course we found a pool half the size of a tennis court. Along the right-hand side three rocks protruded from shore, creating an easy place to cast a fly from. Beneath the glassy center of the pool the water looked dark and deep.
     A bulging dimple in the surface grew into an expanding ring…trout were there. 

Living the New England Upland Life

 

     Before we can talk about a New England Upland Life, we had better decide what an Upland Life is. I supposed to different people it can mean different things. Among those who hunt birds, it means a life based around hunting upland birds, preferably with dogs. Of course, other activities are allowed, but bird hunting and bird dogs come before anything else.
     In New England, bird hunting means ruffed grouse and woodcock. Pheasants are an invasive specie and a poor substitute. Boy, that last sentence will bring some hate mail.
     An upland shooting life in other parts of the country might be very different. The charm of riding horseback through a quail plantation is appealing. The wide-open grasslands of the West look intimidating to someone used to the thick cover of New England. Desert quail sounds like fun, but it is rattlesnake country.
     I’ll stick to the shallow mountains of New England.

Running Water

 

     Step outside the door of Camp Grouse. The sound of running water is everywhere. Snow is melting. Spring rains made certain the remaining snow contains an abundance of moisture. Streams are swollen.     
       Almost every night the temperatures have dipped below freezing, but the sun, with its higher declination, rapidly warms the air each day into the upper thirties or even forties. And even more water is added to the spring freshet.
       Woodcock are about. The dogs accidentally found one and pointed it. That certainly made their day. I’m not sure about the woodcock’s. Grouse are probably drumming, but it’s been too cold to sit out in the evenings to listen. The first evening that the temperatures are a bit warmer we’ll sit on the deck and sip our evening cocktail to listen. It’s a sound that reminds us that all is well in the woods.

Can you see him?

High Bush

Cranberries earlier in the fall.

 A friend mentioned that a few years ago visiting bird hunters had found a parcel of grouse in windrows that divided several large rectangular fields beyond his home. His story went on to mention that the birds had been feeding on high bush cranberries. 
      Driving the rough town road that bisected some of those fields I noticed the bright red of high bush cranberries and made a mental note to give those windrows a try.
     My opportunity came along on a windy cold day when frozen snow covered the ground. My two wirehairs were wound up and oblivious to the wind chill. Big fields meant run big. A hundred yards from the first windrow I could see the red of the cranberries and headed toward it. The younger of the two dogs was two hundred yards away scouting a different line of trees.
     The windrows were made up of all sorts of weeds and trees. Some softwoods stood thirty feet tall along with maples and birch and alders and poplar. In the spaces between the larger stems grew raspberries, blackberries, and all sorts of tangles.     
     A ruffed grouse hopped up onto a branch while I was still forty or fifty yards away. My older wirehair had worked around the other side of the bushes and obviously the bird was aware of her. Then the dog froze. I hurried.

Maggie inhaling grouse scent.

     A grouse exploded out of the weeds over the dog and the one on the branch shot out right over my head. I twisted like a corkscrew, trying to mount the gun and see the bird. A late shot saluted the grouse as it disappeared into the trees.
     Breaking open the gun to replace the spent cartridge was timed, of course, with another grouse leaving out the back of the line of trees. It would have been an almost impossible shot anyway.
     By then the two dogs were working the windrow a bit downwind and I was about to move on. It was much too cold to stand still. Thinking there might be another bird hiding among the shrubbery, I took a couple of steps toward where the grouse had launched.
     A third grouse burst out the back of the trees and another twisted out over my head. Again, I gyrated and missed!
     I can shut my eyes and still see those birds flying over the wide open field, just like a painting.

 

Weather

      Bird season stayed hot for far too long. Usually there are frosts and cold mornings, often an inch or two of snow that never sticks around. Not that there aren’t ever warm days, but just not so many of them as this year.
     The past summer was dry, actually the drought started almost two years ago. As happens every year, people started talking in August about what the fall foliage season would look like. Some said the leaves would just turn brown and drop, others said the colors would be brighter than ever. Every year it is the same arguments and, honestly, nobody ever seems to know.
     What happened was the leaves turned late and then refused to drop. And the WIND NEVER BLEW to help loosen them. Two weeks into the month of October the leaves still clung to the branches, but then reluctantly started to fall.
     During the summer an unusually high number of grouse broods were seen along the roads. This excited the bird hunters and made us all optimistic. The dry spring may have wreaked havoc with the gardeners, but it certainly helped the hen grouse raise those broods. We could not wait to get the dogs in the woods.
     And in October, those birds that seemed to be everywhere in September, just disappeared. The warm weather made the dogs miserable. It made us miserable too.
     Fortunately, in the middle of the month the weather changed and the grouse came out of their hiding. About that same time the migrating woodcock showed up. Hunting became fun again. The birds were in their usual fall places.
     Where had they been the first two weeks of August? Sitting in trees watching the hunters and their dogs? It certainly was easy to imagine that. I wish I knew.

 

 

July

     Hot weather, isn’t that July? We had some up here at Camp Grouse, but most of the weather has been cool. Many mornings there has been a fire lit in the woodstove to take the chill out of the house. Today it is near seventy and much needed rain is falling.
    Early in the month ruffed grouse were often seen along the sides of the road, usually hens with their broods. Sometimes the young were as small as sparrows and the next day a brood might be seen as big as quail.
    We keep the dogs out of the woods to prevent chance encounters with young grouse or woodcock. Soon the birds will all be big enough to start running the dogs on them.
    October still seems a long ways off.

The Young Ones

 

 

    It is June, the time for young grouse to climb out of their eggshells. It actually started at the beginning of the month and maybe even in late May in some places. 
    We spotted our first brood the second week of the month. Momma grouse slinked across the road, so we stopped to watch. When she safely crossed, she called the young one. Not much bigger than bumble bees they crossed the road as singles or in pairs, eleven all total.
    A few days later I spotted another brood crossing on our own road. On the approach of my truck they all stopped in the street. The hen had two near her and three more stood frozen near the tall grass along the side of the road. I waited and waited and finally crept closer with the truck. Mom herded the crew back where they came from.
    A day or two later we spotted a hen beside the road. On our approach she flew into the woods accompanied by four or five young the size of quail.
    Not long after that I spotted another cluster with their mother, all much smaller, about the size of sparrows.
    So it is obvious they don’t all hatch at the same time, but they do grow so fast that they reach near adult size in little time. According to the Ruffed Grouse Society, baby grouse are able to walk as soon as they hatch and take off following their mother. About a week after they are born they can fly like little bumble bees.

Take the Time…

 

      There’s getting to be less and less of the old timers around, at least from my prospective. When you find one and he is willing to talk, take the time to listen. They have lived in a world that is very different than the one we live in now, and one you will never experience.
      I’ve only known one old-time hardcore bird hunter really well. I never used to miss a chance to stop by his home and listen to his stories about birds. There were tales of where to find them or when to find them. And of course dogs, there were always a stories about a dogs. And guns. He was an avid Ithaca fan, owned a 20, 16, and 12 all with the same stock dimensions.
      He always asked my opinion about the upcoming season and the weather. New Englanders always ask about the weather. Dogs were always welcome and he would take the time it rub an ear or pat a head. He worked in the woods for a logging company, which added another dimension to his tales. Eventually all of the country he worked in and hunted was laid out in my head.
      There’s been other old timers, too. A character from Fort Kent, Maine who worked in the woods since his thirteenth birthday. He was still working and sixty-five when I met him. He told how there were 18 siblings in his family and when the oldest got married there were twenty-one at the dinner table. He started young picking potatoes and seemed to always have a bag of them in his truck.
      And the sea captain that ran a boat yard down on Cape Cod, who sailed his own yawl down to Miami in 1950, jumped aboard a schooner heading to Cuba, then sailed back to Pocasset, Massachusetts to start a boat yard he would run nearly the rest of his life. I remember him standing like a sea captain, with hands clasped behind his back, looking at the Pocasset River flow by. He lived to be one hundred years old.
      Their stories were fascinating. When you find and old timer who will talk about times long gone by, listen to the details and ask yourself if you could do the things that they did. It’s a world we will never see.

Snow

    February usually means snow. By the time the month starts the hillsides are covered with a couple of feet beneath the hardwoods. Under the boughs of the softwoods there is always noticeably less. Temperatures are cold, often going for days without a temperature as high as freezing and many nights dipping well below zero.
    This February has been no different. There certainly is two feet of snow in the woods, but this year there is no base underneath. The snow is fluff all the way to the ground. This makes excellent roosting snow for ruffed grouse and tough snowshoeing for humans.
    On cold nights ruffed grouse will dive into the snow to take advantage of the snow’s thermal protection. Snow has an R value of about 1, which is nearly the same as wood. Twelve inches of snow has the same insulating value as a two by four wall filled with fiberglass insulation.
    I know of people who have been out snowshoeing and a grouse suddenly burst from the snow and startled everybody. There are stories of grouse diving into the snow and breaking their necks on hidden stumps or logs, but I have never seen that. I’m sure a predator or scavenger would clean up any evidence as the snow melted come spring.
    By the end of February the days are noticeably longer, which is a welcome change. March will bring on bigger changes.   

An abandoned ruffed grouse snow roost.

January

 

Catkins will feed the winter
grouse.

    Winter really gets a grip on the land come January. Temperatures drop often to zero or below and snow accumulates in the woods. We still run the dogs down under the softwood trees. It breaks up their monotony and keeps all of us in shape. Often we hear grouse thunder out of the trees and on rare occasions one of the dogs will point one on the ground.    
    By the end of the month our brook is pretty well frozen over. Snow has forced another batch of trees to the ground, with many falling across the stream. Song birds entertain us at our feeders near the house. This year evening grosbeaks, common and hoary red poles, and nuthatches galore are all a treat to watch. Of course there are the usual clouds of chickadees, blue jays, and woodpeckers.
    The month is a good one for hunkering down and tying flies. Spring will be here soon enough and the fly boxes are best full.

Figuring It Out

    Grouse hunters are always trying to figure it out. Why was last Sunday so good, with birds everywhere? The day before we saw none in similar cover. Oh the dogs seemed to get birdy a few times, but where were the grouse? Were they in the trees?
    Grouse are reluctant to spend a lot of time on the ground when there is snow cover. Is that because they know their natural camouflage is compromised by the white snow? Or is it only because the snow has buried much of their earth bound food?
    Sunday was great, moving more than a dozen birds in under two hours. Was it the weather? We had just finished a week of unusually warm weather for December. Warm weather means the birds don’t need the calories to keep up their body temperatures, so they may not feed as much. But the temperature dropped a little and an inch of fluffy snow fell. Did that cause the birds to come down to feed?
    Do the birds know when the barometer falls? Do they move about to feed in anticipation of a cold front? It certainly got colder.
    Most of the birds were on the ground on Sunday, where for the previous couple of weeks the birds had been content to sit in the safety of the softwood trees. I assumed they had been plucking catkins from alders and birch because the birds we saw or heard flush from the trees were all near alders or birch. We saw few tracks anywhere.
    What time of the day is best? Sunday it was late morning, but maybe it was better later. Or earlier. Who knows? This time of the year the shadows are long shortly after lunchtime and by three the day feels late and the temperature is plummeting.
    Two weeks ago a shot bird had a crop filled with fern leaves, even though a couple of inches of snow covered the ground. Where did he find those?
    If we ever figure out all of this I’m sure it would get boring.

Fickle December

     About every other year the snow is deep enough by December that upland bird hunting is either difficult or impossible. When the weather turns bitter I choose not to kill the grouse, instead letting them live to perpetuate the species come spring. The balance of calories expelled versus calories gained is a delicate one without unnecessary scaring of the birds.
    This year the ground was bare the first weekend in December. A shot grouse provided a crop full of fern leaves, showing a diet not all that different than early November. During a hunt early in the month the dogs pointed several birds on the ground.
    About six inches of moderately heavy snow arrived the middle of the month. Afterward, I hunted to dogs in a favorite area and they found plenty of scent, but few birds. The only bird we heard flushed from a low branch in a softwood tree. I’m sure others were hiding overhead. Their diet had shifted to catkins, for the only place birds were found was along alder patches.
    When the temperatures dipped well below zero at night I didn’t bother to bird hunt, instead letting the birds preserve precious energy. The dogs are amused by squirrels that appeared when the song bird feeders come out. Maggie actually sits next to my twenty-two inside the house, hoping I will grab it on the way out the door.
    It is hard to admit the bird season is over, but, even with almost a week of December to go, it is.

Hunts x Years = Memories

     I hunted a place today that I used to hunt every year, but it has been three or more years since my last visit.  Some of the trees are noticeably bigger and areas of underbrush have disappeared from the lack of sunlight. Someone has kept the old two-track tote road open and the streams still cross in the same locations. Every mud hole or puddle in the road looked exactly like I remember it.
    For ten years or more I hunted that covert once or twice each year. A lone post used to stand in a soggy meadow where old logging roads converged. That post disappeared a half dozen or so years ago. Red twig dogwood once grew along the side of that meadow, but recent logging erased that. It’s embarrassing to think about how often I flushed grouse from that dogwood only to see them disappear into spruce across the gully before my gun even fired.
    One year I hunted up to where the forest ended to the east at a clear cut and started walking back the road I had hunted up. After passing a maple the diameter of a basketball a grouse rocketed back away from me at an angle that kept that maple between him and me. Ten minutes before I’d walked by that same tree, where did he come from?
    I used to walk up the hill from Camp Grouse to get there. It was a long trek, but usually ruffed grouse could be found along the way, sometimes several and a woodcock or two among young hardwoods. Those hardwoods are much bigger now and the woodcock have been absent for years.
    Back when my old girl Chara was still learning her ropes, we had almost reached that meadow and she locked up on point beneath a low-limbed spruce. Scurrying up I literally could see a grouse running away from her. The young dog couldn’t take the insult and bolted after the bird, no shot was offered. In years to come she would learn about relocating and become an expert at it.
    On opening day about eleven or so years ago I hunted up the hill with Chara and a pup named Colby. Chara pointed right next to that meadow with Colby backing. I walked in, flushed the bird, shot as it disappeared into the colorful fall foliage, and had no idea if I had hit it. About two minutes later the dogs came back each carrying a wing. Walking toward where they had come from I found the breast of a ruffed grouse. Fortunately, retrieves since then have been less contentious.
    Today we didn’t find a single bird, but around every bend I recalled a memory. That little piece of the planet will always be special.

The Old Dog

     She is twelve years old this year. She walks with a hobble and her hearing is almost nonexistent. Eyesight has never her strong suit and sometimes it is just plain hard to get her attention. But Colby has heart.
    For the last week or two Colby has stayed home while the younger dogs hunted. It is easy to justify. She falls often when she’s in the woods and sometimes needs help getting over fallen trees or up steep inclines. It is not easy being an old dog. Yet the desire to hunt is as strong as ever.
    Today we took her and our two younger dogs out on the logging roads of the big woods, up near where I logged forty-five years ago. The first hunt followed a nearly level side road to an abandoned logging yard. Up beyond the weed chocked yard, Maggie, our four year old, pointed a covey of four or more grouse. On my approach they exploded in every direction. Somehow Colby found her way up on to that knoll and bounced around under those treetop grouse with the younger dogs. Walking back out the grown in road Maggie, our four year old, pointed, with our pup Mollie and the old girl Colby backing. Pretty neat. No bird was found, but a few steps further on two flew from a tree.
    Colby doesn’t get far from the roads on her own, but she hunts hard along the edges. Down the road a piece we hunted around another logging yard and then up another two-track tote road. The younger dogs worked the woods on either side, while Coby punched holes into the woods, but mostly followed the easier walking of the roads.
    On one of the day’s last little hunts, Maggie locked up about fifty feet into the woods with our pup backing her. Both were in the classic front-foot-up pose. Colby walked from the grassed over logging road about fifteen feet into the shade of the softwoods to back too. She certainly has heart.
    Now she’s sleeping on her bed with a whole new set of memories to dream about. Her muscles twitch and soft sounds come from her throat. I’ll be heading to bed soon too, hopefully with a full set of new dreams too.

 

Colby bringing back a ruffed grouse.

 

The Puppy

 Mollie runs on high octane. At six months old she’s a rocket ship in the grouse woods. Our older dogs hunt and she follows, then tears about a bit on her own, all the while trying to sort out what life is all about. Birds equal excitement, there’s no doubt about it.
    Yet she is cautiously bold. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
    Not really. When she encounters something new, she stops to watch a bit, maybe analyzing or trying to figure out what it is or what it does. Let’s hope she does that when she encounters her first porcupine.
    During her forays into the grouse woods, her range is less than Maggie’s, which is good, and she regularly checks back to see where I am. When she gets a nose full of scent she slows or stops to figure things out, then points. What more could I want?

           

 

ICE

 It was December a long time ago, just me and my wirehair, Chara, hoping to fine some late season grouse. Barely a dusting of snow covered the ground in most places, but maybe an inch hid in the shadows of the softwoods. The leaves and the woodcock were long gone, it was ruffed grouse we were after.
    Back in October, every time we hunted the high side of that logging road the dogs would find birds. For well over a mile we didn’t moved a one. A bit discouraged, we took to the low side of the road, hunting down toward the softwoods that stand along the river.
    Chara went on point and the day improved. More than a few birds hid in the edge of the softwood stand. Down a little slope I noticed an iced over beaver pond and headed that direction.
    Chara’s bell fell silent.
    She was off to the left beneath tall spruce and fir trees where the ground sloped toward the pond. Hurrying toward her, a grouse exploded upward and another burst toward the pond.
    Reflexes fired my gun. A grouse fell onto the thin ice of the beaver pond. The thought of my dog running out onto that ice scared me to death.
    Chara had once been steady to wing and shot, but those days were long gone. Hunting alone much of the time, it became impossible to enforce and I was no longer doing hunt tests. This bird hunting was supposed to be fun.
    Slipping and sliding, I hurried down toward the pond. Chara hadn’t seen the bird fall and worked the slope looking for a dead bird. What a relief.
    When she got down to the edge of the pond I hitched her to a tree. A small but long dead fir tree reached the bird and slid it to firm ground.

Chara nuzzling the bird. 

September

       September brings the turning leaves and the first frost. The dogs can sense the changes, or maybe it is our frequent treks into the woods looking for birds that tips them off.
        The streams may be high or low, depending on rain. This year they are extremely low. Trout and salmon will be stacked up in the lakes and ponds, waiting for rising water and cooler temperatures before entering the streams. Nature is calling for them to preserve the future of their species.
        The birds and animals are shifting from their summer diet of fruits and insects to seeds, catkins, and buds.

        Frozen and then thawed apples are a favorite of deer, bears, and grouse. Mushrooms, ferns, and assorted greens create an interesting salad for grouse.
        We’ve been running our girls nearly daily. Colby, our oldest, stays mostly on the old roads and almost underfoot, but still surprises us with an occasional point. Maggie, who is four right now, covers the most ground, at times almost appearing to show off. Maybe she is. Then there’s a pup in the house. She’s great, checks back often to see where we are, hunts on her own most of the time, and backs the other dogs when they point. The older dogs always hate to be shown up, particularly Maggie, so she tries to cover much more ground than the pup. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to bumped bird. But with Mollie backing the older dogs almost every time they point, it certainly makes life easier. Yesterday she backed Maggie on a skittish grouse.
                Sometimes Mollie charges through the woods on her own and we wonder if she really knows what she is after. I’m guessing that probably she does, it seems the dogs are usually one step ahead of us. Today she pointed where a ruffed grouse recently departed from and also a woodcock. Life is looking pretty good.