| Richard Flanders |
10-07-2017 12:22 AM |
Alaska grouse hunt
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Trigg came up to Fairbanks a couple of days back and set up at my house. He brought his flushing cocker and his Llewellyn setter that looks a lot like Bruce's Triple did. We hunted the two together yesterday in dense grouse cover by mostly keeping the cocker at heel, which he did very well, while the setter ranged and found and pointed birds. When we went in on a point he'd keep the cocker tight and one of us would try for a flush and shot. If the bird had moved, which seemed common, he'd turn the cocker loose to help find and flush it and then retrieve it if we managed to hit it. This dog has an excellent nose and is a real wizard at finding lost birds. Mostly we found that the bird had not held and had either run or flushed before we arrived, or it was a spot where there had been a bird very recently. We had a ton of points, flushed a number of spruce and ruffies and got two spruce grouse. Our grouse numbers this year are sky high; I've never encountered that many birds on this trail before; not even close. Others have worked the area extremely hard though and have killed the dumb ones it seems. A local lady hunter I know has taken around 30 grouse out of that area this fall. Trigg wanted to get his dogs onto birds and we certainly did that. His setter is a wonderful and well trained dog and hunts hard all day. He sure did some pretty points for us. Unfortunately, I didn't even have a camera along for pictures. I carried my #1 frame 26" GHE dam 12, Trigg a ruger S/S. It was a good hunt. We walked 6.5 miles and sure didn't have any trouble sleeping last night. Have added a picture taken this morning in my yard.
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