Alaska grouse ver. 2

[Richard Flanders]

Trigg and his setters showed up on Sunday and we hunted 70 miles north of Fairbanks around Livengood yesterday in snow. We picked a good looking spot along the road and gave it a try and hit a real honey hole. I again carried my GHE 12; Trigg carried a FAIR(made by Rizzini, I think) 5.5# 28gaO/U. We found lots of birds and got three ruffies each. Neither of us has ever had a better ruffie day in Alaska ever. This place was absolutely ideal habitat. Triggs dogs did very well. The young whiter setter was on his second hunt and pointed birds solid several times from a long ways off and even honored the other setters points several times. The shot of Cai on point was taken just as the bird flushed and Trigg shot it. Perfect point. His younger setter launched off top of the bank behind Trigg to make the retrieve; I guess that was impressive to see. It was a sterling day in the woods. I got two red phase birds, one a large adult male that is a gorgeous bird. What a day. This is our first snow that will stick; winter is officially here.

Addendum: I just cleaned these three birds. One of them has more fat than I have ever seen on a grouse anywhere. Another had a crop full of clover-cranberry salad that looks good enough to eat. I tasted one of the cranberries; it's a lowbush variety, which I thought ruffies didn't eat so I learned something important from this. These guys lived in an ideal spot it seems. Turns out the far left grouse in my right hand is a spruce hen so our ruffie total was 5. It was difficult to note the difference in the heat of the action in a woodlot where the grouse outnumbered the chickadees. That's ok; I just had him for lunch....