Waiting…

      There are a million chores that arrive with spring. Up here in northern grouse country, spring doesn’t come until summer, so much is jammed into a short period of time. The grouse have stopped drumming and a woodcock hasn’t been seen flying up the valley in over a month. Both could be sitting on nests or tending to their young. Abundant foliage crowds the forest, limiting visibility and providing cover for ambushing armies of mosquitoes. When the chores are finally caught up, what is a grouse hunter to do?

      Trout fishing!

      Both sports share similarities, with long histories and loads of nostalgic traditions. Finely crafted rods are works of art, just as fine doubles can make a man’s heart flutter. Volumes have been written and tales romanticized to questionable extremes in both sports. If only our dogs could participate.

      In the valley below Camp Grouse, a small stream rushes to join the larger river two miles away. Every year it is different, and this year fallen trees appear every which way, like a giant pile of pick-up-sticks atop the water.

Pick up sticks.

      A favorite fir tree that leaned out over an undercut bank has succumbed to gravity. It should look like a fallen Christmas tree, with the collection of lost flies decorating it, but the trunk is awash and the flies are gone forever.

      The jammed up log piles offer shelter for the brookies, or squaretails as some of the locals like to call them, and make for challenging fishing. Thinking and figuring is what it takes, just like grouse hunting. Knee-high rubber boots are all that is required for most of the stream, along with a rod and a box of favorite flies.

Is Maggie pointing a trout?

      Simple, that is the way fly fishing should be. Just like grouse hunting, where a shotgun and dog are all that is required. Breakfast swims under all those tangled trees.

      And the dogs wait, patiently, watching the goings on and trying to understand what we could possibly like about trout fishing.

Our Dog's Health

Here is more information on a troubling and controversial subject;

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2016/07/27/neutering-spaying-effects.aspx

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.

A Skeptic…

     Being a skeptical Yankee, I might be a bit slow to accept new ideas. At my age, I’ve seen enough new ideas come and go to let other’s try them first before I jump in.

Gun-tips 

     One of the reasons I love upland hunting is there isn’t a lot of gear needed, unlike duck  hunting where you accumulate a boat load of decoys, calls, waders, and the list goes on.Turkey and deer hunting can be almost as bad if you let it. Upland hunting only requires a shotgun, a fistful of shells, and a bird dog, and I’ve heard tell some do it without a dog, but I can’t imagine that. 

     Anyway, a company that makes a product called Swab/its contacted me to see if I wanted to try a few samples, for free. Being a New England Yankee, the free part caught my attention.

     Opening the package kindled my skepticism. The foam tips looked like they would dissolve in gun cleaning solvents. Would they last more than one use?

Swab/its

     Well, I’m a believer. The little Gun-tips are great for cleaning inside the gun, getting the dirt out of all the corners and they don’t leave lint behind. Solvents don’t affect them and when they do get dirty I have just washed them out with warm water. Maybe the manufacturer doesn’t want to hear that.

     The bore swipes do a good job. I keep one for solvent and another lightly oiled to run through the bore when I think it is clean. So far so good. They come in a variety of gauges and calibers.

     Sometimes a new idea comes along that works.

Is Your Cat a Killer?

Woodcock eggs

    We have all seen housecats coming home with a mouse or bird in their mouth, looking quite proud. Recent studies are showing housecats killing staggering numbers of birds and animals. Ground nesting birds, such as grouse and woodcock, are very vulnerable.

     If you have a neighbor that allows their cat outdoors, test your diplomacy and get them to read the link below.

     https://abcbirds.org/article/invasive-mammals-pushing-native-birds-brink/

Woodcock

More on Neutering

    For the last couple of decades we were told that if we didn’t spay or neuter our pets we were irresponsible. Possibly, we were rushed into this new mantra without looking at the side effects. Below are the results of two more studies that delve into the side effects.

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2014/11/05/neutered-golden-retrievers.aspx

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201702/are-there-behavior-changes-when-dogs-are-spayed-or-neutered

    I know one case does not make a study, but my experience with our oldest German Wirehair Pointer, who I had spayed at a young age, confirms, in my mind, much that is mentioned in these sites. If it were possible, I wish I could undo the damage done and put off her spaying possibly indefinitely, or at least until she had been a couple of years old.

    Life is one long learning curve.

Ghosts

     It happened back in my early duck hunting days, long before I owned my first duck boat. In those days I used to put a tiny outboard on the side of my old 18’ Grumman canoe and head out into the marshes.  My Brittany spaniel, Zac, usually was my only companion and the canoe would be piled high with decoys.

     That morning was black, with no moon and a thin fog to soak up the stars. Not a breath of air rippled the inky water of the bay. 

     I had grown up around there, so the waters of the inland bay were very familiar. A saltwater river flowed with the tide to a larger bay and then the ocean.  Back in those days, nobody was around that time of the year and no lights showed along the shoreline.  Far to the northwest and across a distant marsh, the dim glow of one streetlight could be seen

     Zac and I headed off in the right direction, my eyesight good enough to differentiate between the black of the water and the still blacker land.  Running lights or a flash light would have destroyed my night vision, so I never ever considered them.  In all the years I’d been hunting there I’d never seen another boat out on the water, so the odds of hitting another unlit vessel were about the same as getting killed by a meteor.

     In the far corner of the bay, where the river entered, I slowed because the tide was low and I didn’t want to break a shear pin.  The bottom was soft everywhere, but not that soft. Finding the middle of river turned out to be a bit difficult.  Eel grass clogged the shallower water. Worried, with the tide so low, we barely made way. My eyes strained to see the banks of the river.

     And then beside the canoe, about amidships, a great white ghost reared up from the black water, appearing over six feet tall.

     My Brittany stood up on her hind legs and almost fell backwards from the boat. In an instant the canoe’s momentum carried my head within an arm’s length of this creature.  Reflexes brought my arms up to shield my face. Spread wings flapped, as big as bed sheets and about to engulf us.

     In one long second, the canoe’s headway carried us beyond the ghost. 

As my pulse returned to normal, the vague shapes of maybe a dozen swans could be seen on the river. Zac stood atop the piled decoys looking aft. 

     Those things should have running lights.    

More on neutering...

There is a growing body of evidence that the negative side effects of neutering a dog young are serious. Here is another read on the subject.

http://www.dogs4dogs.com/blog/2015/02/03/spaying-and-neutering-new-warnings-about-health-problems/

Winter Grouse

Our brook.

We walk often in the winter. When the snow is deep enough that the dogs bog down, the plowed logging roads become our choice on weekends. But the favorite is below Camp Grouse, a path that follows where the flat wetlands meet the craggy hill before turning back and following the brook. Most of its course is beneath softwoods or a mixed canopy, and with regular walking the path is packed enough that snowshoes aren’t necessary. Underneath the softwood trees the dogs can usually manage without sinking into the snow too.

          The path can be walked every day for a week without a new animal track crossing anywhere, then, as if in chorus, a half dozen species will have traipsed about. Snowshoe rabbits are the most common, which are hares really. Lately turkeys are probably the second in number. Then there’s a mix of coyote, beaver, bobcat, mice, otter, small birds, deer, and an occasional moose.

Grouse tracks

          The track I am always looking for is Mr. Grouse. Sometimes he is close to our house and sometimes further away. Seldom is he deep into the softwoods, but more likely along the edge where hardwoods mix in. The dogs will sniff the tracks and follow, but they almost never find him on the ground. Occasionally he bursts from a softwood tree high up overhead and the dogs get excited at the sound. I am sure that most often we pass beneath Mister or Misses Grouse and they just watch.

          The population is down this year though, so hearing a grouse isn’t as common as it should be, nor are there as many tracks as some years.

Colby among the long shadows.

When the weather is bitter and the birds are struggling, it is a shame to have them wasting energy on useless flushes to avoid no real danger. I neither encourage nor discourage the dogs. The older one is happy to stay on the packed trail and would be happy for us to move to where winter never would come. The younger dog dashes about, oblivious to the snow and cold. When a grouse does flush out of a tree I cringe a bit, hoping it doesn’t fly far or burn too many calories.

       Last year little snow fell and snow roosting would have been impossible for the grouse. Snow roosting, where the birds dive and borrow into soft snow, keeps the birds warmer on cold nights and hides them from owls and hawks. Perhaps that is part of the reason the grouse population plummeted.

      This year the snow cover is sufficient for snow roosting and, so far, there have only been a few really cold nights. Hopefully the grouse that are in the woods now will still be there to breed in the spring.

      With the lengthening days we should hear the drumming soon. 

A Winter’s Walk

    The snow is deep and climbing over the plowed up snowbank is difficult. Then caution is required going down the slope, although slipping would only land one in a bed of thick fluffy snow. Stepping into the shelter of the softwoods a tiny stream gurgles beneath the snow, but a few steps on there is silence. The new snow has stolen all sound.

     The dogs zig and zag, following their noses and scents we can only try to imagine, snow is flying everywhere, then they disappear ahead.

    Boisterous squawks and clucks and thundering flaps of wings ahead!

    A big black turkey flaps overhead, then another. Hurrying on, the huge three toed tracks cover the snow. The dogs bound about with enthusiasm, going back then rushing ahead. Another turkey is aloft…five in all.

 

   When things quiet we proceed. Colby, the oldest German Wirehaired Retriever, stuffs her head into a fresh deer track. There are many tracks, all headed down the hill and none were there before this last snow. Both dogs show interest, but neither follow, instead vaulting ahead on the path hidden by snow. They know the way.

    An opening in the forest allows sunlight, it is almost a small field, and another slope through wrist-sized maples takes us to the valley’s bottom. More deer tracks, most wandering, with a few snowshoe hare tracks mixed in.

    Beneath tall softwoods a stream rushes, coming down through ledges above us and hidden by ice to be easily crossed. Only the muffled babbling gives away its presence.

    Next to the edge of a meadow, whose tall grasses are unseen beneath the snow, stands a fat ancient white cedar. The deer have beaten a path, coming down a particularly steep slope and passing next to the big tree. Maggie, the younger wirehair, plows through the open meadow in big bounds, the feathery snow up over her shoulders.

    On the far side we hear a grouse flush from a tree.

    Our path follows the edge where the soft boggy open ground meets the forested steep rocky slope. Above us spruce, maple, and birch cling to craggy ledges. Fractured rock shapes the hillside, creating vertical walls. A deer used our path since the last snow while one or two others crossed the spongy meadow.

    In a thicket of young fir trees we leap over a small brook. No ice has formed there yet. Only a couple of weeks ago spawning brook trout swam in the gravely shallows. Perhaps the soil of the boggy meadow warms the water to keep it from freezing. Beyond the stream the softwoods are huge and again swallow up the sound.
Branches bent with snow hang into our trail, sometimes sneaking snow down the collars of our coats. The path is hidden beneath the new white blanker and we stop to sort things out.

    A second ruffed grouse thunders from high up in a fir tree.

    The dogs sniff beneath its branches with tails wagging. There are no bird tracks in the snow. In ever widening circles they search. We walk on.

    Approaching a dogleg in the main stream we pass through alders then step out onto what is a gravely bar in the summer, but now is a plateau of snow. On the far side a small field allows the north wind to drift snow over the stream’s banks, creating wavy shapes with sharp edged shadows. A gentle wind nips at our faces so back into the shelter of the tall softwood trees we go.

    An otter created a shortcut where the brook makes a bend, leaving a lumpy trough through the snow. How many trout might the critter consume in the winter? Our path now parallels the stream. Pools that hold trout in the summer are now covered with ice and snow, but dark inky runs and riffles have so far remained fluid.

    Deer have crossed where the forest hugs the stream from both sides, avoiding the field and a near vertical slope ahead on the far side. Rabbit tracks mix with the deer tracks. Squirrel tracks look tiny. Unidentifiable little tracks look like stitching on the snow.

    A fir that leaned over the stream the past three summers has shattered from the weight of snow and now bridges the stream, its stubborn jagged stump pointing defiantly upward. Clumps of ice cling where the green branches touch the water and balls of snow sit atop, while dark water bulges around their bases.

   The path continues between the straight trunks of tall spruce and firs. Rusty barbed wire, inches inside the wood, stretches between a handful of trunks. Other fallen trees lay cross the stream, but have done so for two or three years. One day a large spring runoff will carry them away, but in the meanwhile summertime trout hide beneath.

     At another large bend, where the stream alters its course to create a gravel bar half the size of a tennis court, the otter again made a shortcut, probably preferring the shelter of the woods to an open exposer. Even though its tracks are fresh, the dogs show no interest.

    In the opening a second freshly fallen fir collects ice and snow, enough to make the water bulge on the upstream side. The spring freshet will rip the tree from the bank for sure and again change the shape of the stream. In ten years that gravel bar has quadrupled in size.

    Maggie covers all of the flat ground between the stream and the hill, hunting hard and oblivious to the snow. Colby doesn’t like the cold or the snow and stays closer. Neither dog shows any interest on walking on ice where the stream is frozen, but we keep an eye on them anyway.

    Beneath tall softwoods the path bends where the water has undercut the banks in another sharp turn. Upstream, an almost continuous riffle creates a long straight stretch. Rabbit tracks weave with no discernible pattern. In an abandoned field on the far side, alders have flourished to create what looks like excellent woodcock cover.

    Eventually we turn away from the water to cross to the slope that will take us up to our home. Deer have followed the edge of the incline, staying in the dense cover of young fir trees. Their tracks pass under unbelievably low leaning dead softwood trunk. We pick through the thick trees up to an old skidder trail then follow it up the hill.

   Ahead of us is home.

December Grouse

There is a grouse hiding in there.

    In our neck of the woods most of the grouse hunting stops when the deer hunters enter the woods the second week of November, but early in December the riflemen leave the woods to the shotgunners again. The late season can provide of the loveliest hunting of the year or the snow can be so deep the dogs cannot work. Nothing is certain.

    The grouse will be in different cover than October, with most of the fruit gone and snow possibly covering ground covers. Buds and catkins will make up most of their diet, but the birds also eat a variety of green leafy plants if the snow isn’t too deep. Hunting the edges of thick softwood stands usually is productive.

Grouse picking at catkins

    Just like early in the season, often groups are found, frequently up in the boughs of softwood trees. On sunny days they will come down to feed, foraging for whatever they can find or to just soak up the sun on a south facing slope. But when the weather is wet or cold it is easier to retain body heat in the protection of the softwood trees.

    In December it is possible to drive twenty or thirty miles on logging roads and never see another vehicle. Of course you don’t want to have truck troubles when you are fifteen or more miles in the woods by yourself. Keep that in mind and be prepared for a vehicle that might not start.

    A few years back, hunting late in the day in a stand of softwoods long since harvested by the loggers, I stumbled into a covey of grouse that flushed from high in the trees. Most flew across the logging road into a cutting that the previous fall had been waist high weeds with scattered Christmas-tree-sized spruce and firs. By December the weeds had been flattened by rain, frost, and a little snow, so it felt like an open park.

    Almost immediately my dog pointed at the base of a fir. On my approach the bird flew out the back. A minute later the scene repeated, but I went to the left and the grouse to the right. The scenario repeated a couple more times. If there had been someone with me the shooting would have been fantastic, but the grouse were successfully using the trees as shields. Finally, my dog pointed a grouse that had made the fatal mistake of landing in a raspberry patch surrounded by flattened weeds. When the bird thundered up above the brambles into the wide open spaces it was one of the few easy shots one ever gets on grouse.

Chara during a late season adventure.

    But the whole time, in the back of my mind, I kept hoping my truck wouldn’t let me down. It was fourteen miles from there back to the pavement. That weekend I drove over forty-five miles on logging roads and saw only one vehicle, which happened to be a logger.

    When the weather gets bitter many who love ruffed grouse hang up their guns and call it a season to give the birds a break until the next year. Biologists say it doesn’t make a difference in the overall grouse population, but I still can’t harass the birds when conditions are tough. The struggle for calories to maintain body temperature is harsh and one unnecessary flush could be the tipping point in the delicate balance. I prefer to think that a grouse left alive will have a big brood in the spring.

    This year the grouse numbers were down. When the deer hunters left the woods I took the dogs for a few late season hunts, but I’m not sure I would have killed a grouse. The dogs loved wearing their bells again and hunted hard. I carried my shotgun, but never raised it to my shoulder. The few birds we found all flushed from high in softwood trees, with most leaving unseen, and I wished every one of them well.

    The shotgun went into the safe to wait out spring and clay targets.

    Let us hope the grouse survive and the spring weather is kind to the young broods.

Tracks.

A Slow Season

    After a slow start the 2016 bird season improved slightly, if only because we finally received some much needed rain and the woods returned to something near normal.            

    The usually abundant streams that dried up in August again had water in them. And the late arriving cooler temperatures helped both the dogs and hunters stay comfortable.

    Finding grouse remained difficult, but woodcock were easier. We never found a bumper flight, but the numbers were average. Luck has a lot to do with hitting a memorable flights of woodcock. There was that day in the National Forrest a few years ago where we flushed more woodcock in a hour than we do some seasons. I am sure it will happen again, but not this year as the shooting season has closed and there are ten inches of snow on the ground.

    Even well into November a few grouse could be found hanging around apple trees that still had fruit. Usually by then the fruit is gone and so have the grouse, but in spite of the drought there was a bumper crop of small apples. Hunting the clear cuts took lots of walking between birds. Deer hunting in late November with several inches of snow on the ground I have yet to see a grouse track of flush a bird.

   During fifteen years of keeping records, this was the slowest year yet. Let’s hope for better numbers next year.

A Tough Year

Taking a break on a hot day.

    This year has been warmer than normal and extremely dry, and where are the grouse?  

    So far the bird season has been frustrating. Early on a few grouse were found around apple trees, perhaps for the moisture in the fruit, but many of the usual coverts are empty or nearly so. Our daily average has been the lowest in years.

    A great number of the little streams that usually wind down the hillsides dried up. In the past woodcock could often be found in the moist ground along them. Alder flats that are usually wet and muddy became easy walking. In spite of the lack of rain the apple trees had a bumper crop of fruit, and blueberries, raspberries, highbush cranberries did the same. Did the abundant fruit cause the birds to scatter?

    The spring weather wasn’t unusually wet or cold, so I expected good brood numbers. Wet cold weather right after hatching can wipe out much of a year’s young grouse. The entire year has been unusually dry, and since the spring particularly so.

The usual wet lowlands were just low.

    But the weather has turned now and the migrating woodcock have showed up. The grouse are still sketchy and hard to find, yet we keep trying. Almost all of the leaves have dropped and it is a great time to be in the woods. When a bird goes up at least we can see it.

   We’ll keep trying and perhaps figure out these grouse yet.

Magic

A point during training.

     Nothing matches the magic of having a new pup in the house. Old dogs create comfort, new dogs bring wonder. The pup’s excitement and curiosity generate the same in us. Every trip afield becomes an adventure.

     There is laughter sprinkled with frustration, but most of the latter is usually brought on by our own unreasonable expectations. The difference between flustered and amused is attitude.

A woodcock point.

     Hopefully, the pup is trying its hardest to do what we want…but it’s just so hard to stand still when that bird is four feet from the nose!  I constantly remind myself that a bumped bird is a learning experience, and hopefully the young dog is smart enough to put it all together

     An older experienced dog is a great teacher and the pup will learn much. Of course, it is important to teach the younger dog to honor the older dog’s point, then hunt them together as much as you can.

     So this is our autumn to teach a pup, but Maggie seems to be teaching herself. On her own she knows to stay close in thick cover yet ranges further where the country is open, always quartering nicely to search every corner. Somehow she learned we are all part of the team, for she checks back often to know where I am. If only my shooting were better the process would cement in her mind quicker.

     When she comes upon the older dog pointing the brakes are applied. When she finds bird scent on her own Maggie’s hind end wiggles in overdrive until the bird is pinpointed. Now we are working on patience to just hold that point longer.

I walk ahead of Maggie pointing a woodcock.

     I am certain most of our success comes from good breeding, for that the credit goes to Ripsnorter Kennel in Ohio. Maggie’s manners were taught early and she loves to please.  

     Life is looking pretty good.

The Old Guy Next Door

    The old man next door always has a bunch of dogs, sometimes three, sometimes more. I’m not sure if they all are his or if he’s just taking care of them for somebody. Somebody once told me he trained dogs for people, but I don’t know nothing about that.

    When I stop over there he’s always laughing. Don’t know what that is about. One time I even pointed out the flat tire on the back of his truck and he said, “Well if that don’t beat all,” then chuckled a bit. If it were me I would have been pissed. He just went about fixing the darn thing while his dogs got in the way.

    Behind his house he grows a big garden, more than two people can eat. His missus is the one that takes care of that. Most of the day he works in his shop, making things for people that pay him enough so he can take most of Octobers off to hunt birds. His missus is a pretty woman and I like to stop over there to chat with here whenever I can. 

    A few weeks ago the old man invited me over to shoot skeet with him. It wasn’t anything formal, like down at the club, but shooting skeet right behind his house. His dogs go crazy with the shooting, thinking that dead birds must be falling I guess. He laughs and keeps them out of the way when we launch the targets, but then they go dashing off into the weeds looking for dead things. I missed more than I broke, but he didn’t miss any.

    Twice his dogs brought back intact clay pigeons that we’d obviously cleanly missed. It was sort of embarrassing in a way, but the old man just laughed and took the targets from the dogs, then flung them out to shoot at again. Recycling he called it.

    Deer hunting is my favorite kind of hunting, but the old guy mostly hunts birds. Oh, he does hunt deer and other stuff, but every day in bird season I see he is out. Last year he invited me to go with him and it was fun to watch his dogs. It’s like they live to hunt birds, but then maybe the old man does too. You should have seen the smile on his face.

    Three times the dogs pointed, like quivering statues, and I got to walk in and flush the grouse, but I never hit a one. A woodcock flying straight away dropped when I shot, but that was an easy one. The grouse were impossible.

    This year he says we’re going to go again. I can’t wait.

Stonewalls

    The forests of New England are littered with stonewalls. Different regions have different walls, in the southern areas the stones might be rounder and bigger while in the northern regions the rocks might be smaller and more angular. In some areas the walls are wider or neater, while elsewhere they are hardly walls at all but more long piles of rocks. Sometimes I wonder if the walls were made as a convenient place to pile stones out of the way or as barriers to segregate the newly created opened pastures. Maybe both. A hundred or so miles to the south of Camp Grouse the walls divide up the forest with unbelievable regularity every few hundred feet, many left behind by sheep farmers centuries ago. Up here, way to the north, they walls are more scattered and hard to find, often buried in forest where once pastures were cleared.

    Here the walls are often with miles apart and finding one is significant. Well over a century ago the loggers moved through this country, stealing the timber before moving ever westward. Farmers followed, after hearing stories of green intervals and free land, but the summers proved too too short and the brutal winters extremely long. Giving up after a few years the new farmers left for greener pastures to the west and let the forest reclaim what was hers.

    When we find stone walls out in the middle of nowhere I have to wonder who the farmers were, how long they fought the land and climate, and where they went after throwing in the towel. Mentally I measure the distances to the towns and ponder the lonely lives they must have led. Visiting with neighbors must have been such a treat. Usually the walls are few and if a foundation is found it is tiny, making me think they did not stay too long.

     Openings in the forest often have apple trees around the edges, left behind by those lone gone settlers and often the trees are full of fruit. Grouse love those trees, but so do deer, bears, and other bird hunters. I always poke around, hoping a cellar hole can be found, or maybe even an old door or other remnant. Most often there are only the stone walls almost buried by moss and leaves. The forest tries to hide the tales of the early settlers.

    Hunting those abandoned old homesteads often brings on spooky thoughts of spirits left behind, enough so to interrupt one’s shooting. Any grouse or woodcock flushed is usually pretty safe as they fly straight away. I laugh about the  missed shots but they are real. 

    The old cellar hole…was that where the main house was? Sometimes it seems incredibly small by today’s standards. Was that big old white pine tree there back when the house was built? Or did they plant that pine…imagining that someday it would shade the house. Could an herb garden been planted next to the house? What about vegetables? Which side had the  front door?

    Sometimes a “dump” can be found nearby. Finding those was easier four decades ago than it is now, but still treasures hide among the leaves. 

    The smell of rotted leaves drifts up as I kneel down. A rusted barrel band, maybe a rotting stave, a chunk of unidentifiable cast iron, an ancient bottle….

     The dog’s bell brings me back to the present. She is down the hill where the alders meet the hardwoods, close to where the brook flows into the larger stream that rushes to the north.

    Then sudden silence reminds me of why I am here. Picking up my gun I traipse towards the quiet. 

Chara

       

A special pup.

 June 3, 2001 - August 12, 2016

     Sometimes we are really lucky and in 2001 I certainly was. Stumbling around looking for a German wirehaired pointer, I came upon a breeder in New York who introduced me to Weidenhugel Chardonnay, a predominately white German wirehaired pointer pup. It was love at first sight.

          By then more than a dozen years had passed since a bird dog had been part of my life. Chara was smart, learned quickly, loved to hunt, and became more than a dog, much like a best friend. When I worked in my shop she hung around, always ready for a two or five minute lesson. Heal, stay, whoa all came easily to her. Pigeons and quail became part of my life, for without birds you will never have a bird dog.

          The first hunt, at five months of age, was in a state run wildlife management

Learning together.

area. She pointed a pair of quail and brought back the one that fell to the shot. I never felt prouder. And throughout her entire life, her hunting enthusiasm never waned.

          I could go to the post office in our busy town and ask her to sit outside by the door and know she would be there when I came back out. Walking unleashed, she would heal through the sidewalks as people passing patted her head. I beamed.

          Exiting the post office one day a car’s tires screeched. A scared young golden retriever dashed across the street not twenty feet away, narrowly dodging the skidding vehicle. Good Samaritans tried to catch the dog, but it was too scared to trust anyone and dashed hither and yon, eyes big as golf balls. I walked to my truck and let out Chara. She trotted over to the frightened dog and the two sniffed noses. Slipping my finger into the collar of the golden retriever, then I walked the dog back to its owner. Never did I feel prouder of Chara.

   

As a young dog.

       On our first trip to grouse country she never actually pointed any of the skittish grouse, but she performed perfectly on woodcock. It was the beginning of a partnership that lasted her life time. We hunted old coverts that I had hunted as a younger man with an overly eager Brittany spaniel. Chara’s performance made that Brittany look like a fool. Together we stomped all over the north woods.

          Our first duck hunt together confused poor Chara. Why weren’t we walking and looking for birds? After all, we had a gun with us? Forcing her to sit, we sat in the weeds behind a few decays that I had carved years earlier. If it wasn’t for my hand on her neck and finger inside her collar, she would have dashed off looking for upland birds. Not long after legal shooting time a pair of mallards fell out of the sky and I stood to shoot, causing one to tumble into the water.

          About to give the retrieve command, she was already in the water and halfway out to the duck. Duck hunting was a piece of cake after that. One cold January she even retrieved a golden eye.= that fell a hundred yards from our duck boat.

          I learned to trust her nose and never doubt when she worked bird scent. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty in the classic sense, but with the nose to the ground she always found the bird. Grouse have always walked and now woodcock seem to also, but with Chara it didn’t matter, she would always find them. Point, think, wait, re-point, think, move, re-locate…it would continue, and I could always tell when the bird was pinned.

            The memories go on…the day where we must have found a hundred woodcock,

Hard on a point.

or the woodcock that fell into the river, or the crippled Canada goose that paddled out over a hundred yards from shore. Or the grouse pointed on opening day one year while her fourteen month old sibling honored, only to have the each retrieve one wing of the bird while the breast stayed where it fallen. Or the time she pointed straight up at the bird in a softwood tree? Or the day we hunted all day from the house and moved so many birds, but none really offered a shot. When I broke open my gun back at the house I had forgotten to load it. We laughed, at least I think she did too. Those things will stay with me.

          So many times, when her bell went silent and I knew she was on a point yet I couldn’t find her, I would call her name. It’s a mystery how she figured it out, or even how she did it, but Chara would move just enough that her bell would ding once, letting me know where she was without frightening the bird.

          So many other dogs passed through Camp Grouse, but Chara was always the Grande Dame. In the alder thickets or grouse coverts, she never seemed to notice the other dog’s presence. Dogs hunting with her learned a lot, of that I am sure, and I wish our young pup had had a season or two with her.

          But that wasn’t to be and last week Chara left us. It was her time, with fifteen hunting seasons behind her. It was more than I could ask and a life that most dogs would dream of, never tethered and in the woods almost every day.

In her last years she loved the cool stream.

         The last few bird seasons were easy hunts, but some that I will remember forever. Hunting over an older dog is very civilized, with a slower pace and avoiding the nastier thickets. She stayed determined and hunted hard until the end. We hunted the cream coverts the last couple of years, flat with few thorny thickets.

         Now she is buried beside the apple tree behind the house and I hope the grouse come out to visit her. I am sure they can share stories and have a few laughs. Come spring time she certainly will be able to hear them drumming.

          Chara, I will never forget you.

As I will always remember her.

What is Good Enough?

    Years ago when I had more energy my dogs had better be perfect, or pretty close. Steady to wing and shot, retrieve to hand, with perfect manners around the house were expected. My oldest wire was a struggle with the honoring of another dog’s point, but the steady to wing and shot came without too much trouble. Life looked golden.

Maggie on the run.

    But achieving something and maintaining something are two different things. I hunt alone much of the time and enforcing the steady to wing and shot turned out to be difficult when she had a different mind. I would get frustrated and the dog would dig in her heels. During one December hunt in her fifth or sixth year I threw in the towel and stopped reprimanding her when she broke on the flush. Bird hunting has been more fun since then.

    But I understand and admire owners who demand dog perfection and can maintain it. We all set our own standards, whether bird hunting, trout fishing, or maintaining our home or vehicle. Life demands much and time is finite, so each to their own priorities.  

    A dog’s intelligence is the most important thing and that probably has more to do with the breeding than anything else, but we can do a lot to stimulate a puppy’s brain. I love a dog who figures things out on her own and learns relocate on a moving grouse. My oldest always knew more about where the bird was than I ever would, at least until it flushed. So I let her move, head down sniffing foot scent if necessary…stopping, starting, and pointing whenever the bird stopped.. She almost never bumped a bird, her patience and determination certainly surpassing mine. If I waited long enough we would certainly find and pin the bird for a flush.

    Manners around the house are a must, after all, dogs in our home live pretty darn well. Honoring another dog’s point is also a must, because visitors often bring their dogs along and nothing frays friendships quicker than one dog stealing another’s point.

Georgia working her magic.

    One thing I have learned over the years is that breeding has more to do with how a dog turns out than any training along the way. Georgia, a German shorthaired pointer from Hedgehog Hill Kennels in Vermont, taught me that. With no bird hunting training at all, only the basic manners that every dogs should be taught, she was a gem to hunt over. For four seasons I had the pleasure of “borrowing” her for bird season and she truly was a rock star, repeatedly pointing and retrieving ruffed grouse and woodcock.

    Right now we have a seven month old German wirehair in the house from Ripsnorter Kennel, named Ripsnorter Magallow Magic Snapshot. She seems smart and constantly watches the older dogs to quietly learn. Her lineage goes directly back to my oldest wirehair, who has been a brilliant hunter. Young Maggie hunts hard when we are in the woods, points song birds and butterflies in the yard, and watches with fascination the birds flying overhead. The manners required for civil living are pretty well ingrained and soon we’ll be looking for woodcock to train on.

Chara with her great, great, great, great, niece last March.

    So far she is more than good enough. I am very hopeful.