Like a man almost suffocated...

[Dean Romig]

We headed for Grouse & Woodcock Camp today and after a loong 3-hour drive, finally arrived at camp.
Jamie brought his beautiful Trojan 16 and I brought my 28 gauge VHE Skeet gun as well as the 20 gauge Trojan I bought for my granddaughters... hey, I need to find out how it patterns don’t I?

Stepped out of the truck to witness the Vermont hills I love so much covered over with their very vibrant quilt of many colors. It is glorious here, and like I stated in the title, I felt like a man nearly suffocated by 2020 and all the restrictions on our lifestyles as well as being away from this place for nearly a year now, I am free and I can breath and stretch my arms and legs and get back out there in the woods and fields where I belong.

Tomorrow we go into the woods to experience the upland covers as we have come to know them.

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[Harold Lee Pickens]

Dean, I am so glad that you were able to get away, one day I may try to hunt the classic New England covers---kind of like a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I am already in stages of packing for my 36th annual UP trip. I plan on hunting about 17 days, next year a full 3 weeks. Grace will be in her glory up there, doing what she was bred to due.
Now be sure and social distance yourself and wear that facemask:)

[Dean Romig]

Harold - Gracie is soo happy to be here again. She keeps running back to me all happy and giddy as if she’s thanking me for bringing her back. And she plays ruff n tumble with her best friend “Mazy” the 6 year old great dane.





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[David Gehman]

Good luck to you. Wishing you many nice points and good shots.

[Dean Romig]

I was talking with Allan Swanson yesterday and he told me he has seen a good number of birds this year and a few hens with their broods.




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[Garth Gustafson]

Our health is better in October, especially in a place like that. You’re a lucky guy Dean.

[Brett Hoop]

Hope Grace has many productives. That's the big thrill for me seeing the dog hunt and lock up. Couple more weeks of prep and pack, some stuff never gets unpacked.

I have more left gloves than anybody according to my wife. I tell her if I start finding the right hand gloves I'll need a single trigger gun. I forgot to put one of those on last time Harold and I shot at Terry's, although I did shoot in my hunting vest. Water bottles and dog first aid on board. If I had remembered the collar controls I would have shot better.

[Mills Morrison]

Beautiful! I will say the virus has got me outdoors a lot more this year which is great.

[Dean Romig]

When stepping out of camp this morning I encountered this covey of the rare pink grouse. (Are they related to pink elephants?)
They remain unmolested because I’m not that guy who ground-swats these noble birds.


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[Rick Losey]

good luck to Gracie and her hangers on

the fall colors and fresh air are going to be a bright spot in this less than spectacular year

we were in an old cover back home yesterday, colors were at least 50%, probably peak.

being out in the woods at a time like this is a privilege, the leaf peekers with lines of obstructed traffic stuck behind them could never appreciate natures kaleidoscope through a windshield the same way

[Reggie Bishop]

Beautiful landscape! Good luck and enjoy!

[Dean Romig]

First day was a bust. It rained pretty hard all day and at around 2:30 the clouds started breaking up so we went out for a hunt. Grace was working really well and was doing everything right but we got no points and no flushes in a two hour hunt. They must have stayed in the trees all day. Along about 4:30 the skies opened up and we were almost a mile from the truck. We called it quits at that point.

We’ll see what today brings...

This is the camp (built in ‘54) in the old days around ‘83 I think. The stone house in the background was built in the late 70’s and the new camp in the second picture we started building in ‘96.

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[JACK MURPHY JR]

Dean what town are you in. We have a camp in North Concord VT. We are about 8 miles below Victory Basin W.L.M.A.

[Dean Romig]

We’re about 20 miles west of you in North Danville.





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[JACK MURPHY JR]

We are very close to each other. We should get together for a hunt. I’d like that.

[Craig Larter]

Good luck Dean. I'm off to tug hill tomorrow with my son to hunt grouse and woodcock with Nellie and Roxie. Wishing you luck!

[Dean Romig]

Good Luck to you too Craig.





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[Dean Romig]

We are very close to each other. We should get together for a hunt. I’d like that.

That would work.

We haven’t seen many grouse yesterday and today... 12 flushes but we worked our butts off for them. Most were in the trees because of the wet conditions. Gracie made one fantastic point and when I walked in on it the bird was behind a screen of brush and thick saplings. I shot where I thought it should have been but Gracioe told me I missed. Same thing with the woodcock shepointed this morning.. :crying:





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[charlie cleveland]

nice camp dean I really like this camp design...charlie

[Dean Romig]

Thanks Charlie!

Yesterday was a comedy of errors mixed with heavy brush and foliage obscuring shots.
Gracie did exceptionally well and made some great points but I seemed always to be in the wrong position. We had 12 grouse flushes, only 2 of which I could see and only got a shot at one of them. Two woodcock points, one of which flew into my face and at about four feet from my face it dropped steeply and flew off behind a screen of low hanging pine boughs. I took a shot but Gracie said I missed that one too...

We’ll see what today brings.

The Canada geese are coming over pretty regularly now. We hear their beautiful calls thinly piercing the stillness of the woods. We watched them go over yesterday at elevations measured in thousands of feet only barely visible, some flocks above the clouds. Winter’s coming folks!





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[Craig Larter]

Dean you are making bird contact so you will connect soon. My son and I had 7 woodcock flushes yesterday three shot but heavy leaf cover resulted in no birds down. Still a beautiful day. Our Labs did well.Good luck. Craig

[Dean Romig]

This popped up on FB today. The first year I brought Cam to grouse camp... he was 7.


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[Marty Kohler]

How very fast the time goes....

Great memories for both of you...

[Dean Romig]

Today, 10/17/2020, it started snowing in the wee hours of the morning and now with daylight coming I see we have some accumulation and it’s still coming down. Should be interesting hunting today... but it’s a wet snow falling on already wet covers from a day of heavy rains yesterday.
Grace and I hunted for almost an hour yesterday morning and put up 5 grouse and 2 woodcock. I blew it on a big cock grouse that lifted off the ground almost as if he didn’t want to fly. He wheeled left at ablot 20 yards and was a beautiful brown phase and I put the bead on his beak but couldn’t pull the trigger... not that I didn’t want to- I think I didn’t push the safety far enough....
But he flitted back down under a cluster of spruces only about 25 yards from where he flushed.
“This is going to be easy.” I thought to myself, so I sent Grace in to locate him and he burst out the far side about 30 yards from me in a hard right to left. I fired just as he disappeared behind a spruce bough and I could see my shot pattern chop through the greenery. “Dead bird!” I hollered to Grace. After 5 minutes of scouring the area she declared me a liar.

So... we’ll see what today brings... it’s lighter out now at 7:12 and it’s still snowing.

We have about 30 turkeys in the field about 400 yards in front of camp. They roosted in the adjacent pines and just now flew down.

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[Dean Romig]

It turned into a magnificent fall day abour 45 degrees and bright sun. A little breezy for good grouse hunting as they are a little jumpy on windy days.
The first hour produced no points, no flushes, and no action at all. But as the covers dried out we got into some action. Gracie pointed then flushed a big brown cock grouse and I cartwheeled him and he disappeared behind some cedar greenery. Jamie was on the other side and, honestly, the bird came busting out the other side. He shot but didn’t connect. We never saw that bird again. More points, more flushes and more shots fired. I said to Jamie that we should be ashamed of ourselves... until...
Gracie went on point about 10 yards from me. I thought it would be a woodcock but it wasn’t. I released Gracie for the flush and up flew this nice little hen partridge. It was a classic station 8 low house and with one shot with my little 28 gauge prom queen I took its head clean off.
I LMAO long and loud.


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[Daniel Carter]

Well done, I can never remember to let that shot go and turn around and try it going away. If i ever do it will disappear into a spruce stand i forgot was behind me. Give Gracie a pat on the head for me.

[Dean Romig]

Turkeys flew down again this morning at sunrise.

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[Fred Slyfield]

Beautiful good luck

[Marty Kohler]

Thanks for sharing, Dean

[charlie cleveland]

sounds like you are having some good hunts.....turkey season will come before you know it....charlie

[Mills Morrison]

Harry, Sherwood and I are booked for an early morning quail hunt this Saturday at Brays Island. This will be Harry's intro to quail hunting and is a training hunt more than anything

[charlie cleveland]

keep us posted on this hunt harry should learn a lot on this hunt....charlie

[Dean Romig]

Jamie, Gracie and I will be headed back up to grouse camp Thursday evening for the weekend. I hope to have more pictures and short stories to post to my thread soon.





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[charlie cleveland]

all I got to report is I got my grass mowed....what a bummer....charlie

[Dean Romig]

We got back up to grouse camp this morning about 9:30, unpacked and were out hunting by 10:30.
We were hoping the woodcock flights had dropped in since last Sunday evening when we went home... and they had!

Ten minutes into the tangled Gracie came on point. I stepped in and a woodcock popped into the air skimming over the tops of the bushes and small saplings. I dropped him neatly and Gracie made a bee line to him. She picked him up but put him right down again and ran straight to me then back to the bird and stood over him. She’ll retrieve a grouse with no hesitation.
So back to hunting. A minute later four grouse flushed unseen behind a screen of young spruces... never a shot was fired.

Within fifteen minutes I was on the rim of a bowl of low brush and scrubapple trees. The exact area where Phil Carr put up a woodcock and couldn’t get a clear shot at it. Jamie was below me and it seemed most of the woodcock were high where Gracie and I were working. Gracie pointed again. Two woodcock flushed - a huge female I presume and a much smaller male. I shot twice at the male as I couldn’t get a clear shot at the larger bird... no score.

Anyway, we hunted for another hour or so and had fifteen woodcock flushes in all and eight grouse flushes. The grouse flushed too far out for a fair shot so we passed on all of them. But we sure burned some powder on those woodcock though.

In the first picture Gracie is pointing a woodcock... which I missed.

Gracie chose Jamie as a nap mate.

Tomorrow’s another day.

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[Daniel Carter]

Went to Maine Wed. with both sons and granddaughter who is here from S.C. She brought luck with her in that it was raining when we got there and went exploring and found 2 new grouse covers we will not be able to hunt all of it in a week.
Stopped raining and we ran into 2 family groups right off and all but i had plenty of missing(they were flushing wild) and i was in the wrong place as usual.
The fog settled in on the mountain so we headed back to our longtime woodcock cover and flushed 10 with a lot of cartridge emptying and 1 each taken.
A grand day for the birds but also for the companions. Good luck Dean

[Reggie Bishop]

I sure like that little 28 Dean! It looks to have a long LOP? My lanky frame likes a long LOP but it’s hard to find nice originals that way.

[charlie cleveland]

time to trade that gun off dean with all that missing....ha.....charlie

[Dean Romig]

If it had double triggers Reggie it would have a 14 3/4” LOP.





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[Dean Romig]

time to trade that gun off dean with all that missing....ha.....charlie

It ain’t the bow Charlie, it’s the Indian.




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[Harold Lee Pickens]

Dean, the weather here has been terrible. Heavy wet snow every other day. I'd rather have rain. Avg high is normally 50 this time of year, but has not gotten out of the mid 30s. No change in sight. Ran into Kenny Graft during yesterday's white out. Stopped at COBs cabin today. But he wasn't there. Have pretty much lived in wax cotton and rubber boots, more weather coming in.

[Dean Romig]

But are you shooting at birds Harold? That’s all that’s really important isn’t it?





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