Grouse at the truck when leaving..... I can't remember how many times that has happened to me. I think I have had the same experience at least 1 or 2 times EVERY season.

Funny how that happens... Dave and Danny and I hunted a sidehill and walked closely on either side of a lone apple at the edge of a grove of twenty-five year old pines. Really expected a grouse to be on the ground there, but there were none to be found so we moved on to sweep the rest of the hillside. Returning an hour and a half later with guns over our shoulders grasping the barrels we walked within twenty feet of that apple and this big brown grouse busts into the wide open leaving us standing there slack-jawed . . . well, maybe Dave uttered a nasty word or two :nono:

Yup..Thats exactly how it happened. I can still see that beautiful bird in my mind and I have relived the shot that never happened a thousand times..:banghead:

Our Grouse and woodcock season came in this past Sat., with the weather being so crappy didn't go for birds but took the 28 out Monday evening for a stroll after work,with My Brit. Chip, found a brace .

Good work Russ...God I love Britts. :bowdown:

Thanks Dave ;I really like my Britts also ,I have the mother of this dog ,she is 14 yrs.old and retired from the field about two seasons ago .She is a wonderful friend and one of the best bird finders I have ever hunted with , this Male is pretty good but not like mom ,He is well mannered and find birds but our Grouse have been down since I Whelped him and he just hasn't had the experience with them and when we do get into Grouse he has a tendency to move in too close and will bump the majority of them ,He is fantastic on Woodcock and very good on Pheasant ,I am confident he just hasn't had the opportunity to handle enough Grouse ,if he had I believe he would be good on them ,he has a super nose ,we just don't have enough Grouse !!

Russ,From talking to quite a few guys the grouse populations have been down everywhere.That makes it real hard to train a young dog as you know the only way to make em better is to show them more birds. I haven,t flushed or even seen a wookcock in two seasons. No splash no nothin. Well maybe this weekend...

Dave; I wish you luck on the Woodcock sightings ,I have hunted them since I was 12 years old , Other than Grouse ,my favorite but the last few years the Grouse are really hard to come by ! My buddies always thought I was nuts ,they wouldn't waste there time ,Maybe thats why I enjoy the company of my Britts , they seem to enjoy hunting the same things I do !!

Some would think this meager returns for many hours of slogging and bulldozing through the blackberry tangles, thornapple thickets, hillside scrub apples that tear at your clothing and any exposed flesh and they would be correct if we didn't have the memories that go along with a day like the one Jamie and I just spent in the Northeast Kingdom of Vt. The grouse were sparse this time. Last weekend was better but since then a team of ground-swatting meat hunters spent the week terrorizing the wild critters.
But Jamie and I had a great time. We blew some holes in the sky and chopped up some vegetation in a poor effort to bring down a few grouse but it was all to no avail - but what fun we had! A pa'tridge launched into a thunderous flush mere feet from my position in a grown up orchard and I let fly with my right barrel then, noticing the nonchalance with which he dodged my perfectly directed shot charge, I sent another load in his direction just to speed him up in order to present a challenging target for Jamie. Well, Jamie took the bait and sent two "hail Marys" of his own at that speedster. We laughed and laughed at ourselves over that despicable display of shooting prowess. Hey, if you can't laugh at yourself you don't have any right to laugh at anybody else's mistakes, right?

What I'm saying is that one little woodcock doesn't represent a poor day's hunt - in this case it represents the culmination of hours of good times, great memories and a sore and stiff body (which is my measure of a good time in the grouse woods).

This woodcock flushed in the last twenty feet of the last covert of the last hunt of the last day of a wonderfully successful weekend at grouse camp! :bigbye:

As an afterthought, this must have been a flight bird - easily identified by the protruding breastbone and rather scrawny amount of breast meat. A native bird, prior to migration, has much plumper breasts with the point of the breastbone deep between them . . . kinda reminds me of a girl I used to date :rolleyes:

"What I'm saying is that one little woodcock doesn't represent a poor day's hunt - in this case it represents the culmination of hours of good times, great memories and a sore and stiff body (which is my measure of a good time in the grouse woods." Dean Romig 10/25/09.

Words of a true bird hunter, you could not have said it any better.

Why..Did she have a long protruding beek..:duck:

Dave, glade to hear you and your son are having a great time in the woods. Special times for sure. cherish every minuet, to soon they grow up and move on. This is the first year I haven't been able to hunt with my son. The Marines have him in school in Georgia. I have had 2 great saturdays in the grouse woods, had a great time (including a report double on woodcock), but that special somthing is missing. He is coming home for Thanksgiving, Maybee I can steel him away from his girl friend for a little grouse hunting. Absolutly nothing better than watching your son grow and mature into a seasoned hunter and a favorite hunting partner.

Ben

Ben,

I spent nearly 20 years at sea in the Navy and Merchant Marine. When I came home there was no better friend than my father. We rode horses, fished, hunted, shot silouettes and now don't tell anyone, but we walked 18 t0 36 holes of golf four times a week. Be prepared for him to be just a little more interested in the girl this time home, but I would bet he will jump at the chance to hunt with you.

Kindest, Harry

Well guys...It was the last weekend in Vermont grouse camp.Dean,Deans brother-in-law Jamie,my son Danny and I had a great time. I finally connected with the first shot from my newly bought 20ga. Trojan on Saturday morning,Jamie got a nice Woodcock this morning and Dean(so I am told:rolleyes:) got a grouse after Danny and I left for home.

Heres a few more...Tampico..A magical place were lifetime memories are made...

couple more...

I know its hard to believe but Dean CAN COOK! Lower picture.. 20 gauge and 16 gauge Trojans. These low grade guns do great work too!

Great photos Dave, looks like you fellas had a good time... What are the dates on those headstones?

Best, Chris
_______________________________________
.

Dave,
Congratulations on the grouse and on breaking in that new gun the right way.:cheers: I couldn't help but notice the absence of a certain gun rack in the recent photos.:knowbetter:

Chris thanks..The stones were pretty much all from one family 1820,s to 1870,s mostly. Dean knows the family story better than I.

Larry... We came in from hunting and I turned my back for a minute and that Dean guy had put our guns in that rack again....Well you can just imagine the vocabulary that was uttered after that move....:eek:

Destry;

A Canadian quack-quack camp report is over due

Roger

Ben,Thank you for your comments.I hope you and your son can steal away for a few hours afield when he returns home for Thanksgiving.

Roger,

See my good news thread over in the hunting section.

DLH

The last day of my pa'tridge hunting forays for the season ended as memorably, yet not with the excited anticipation, as the first day. It was among the best upland seasons I can ever remember - not for the number of birds bagged and not so much for the numbers flushed for certainly the numbers are down. It was, instead for the memories made; the times we had - the countryside we tramped and admired, the covers we hunted, the shots we took at birds as well as the shots we took at each other - all in good fun... all in good cheer. The indoctrination of a fine young man, Danny Suponski, into a man's world playing a man's game with all the seriousness, determination, self sacrifice and self-abuse of knowing the job was done and done well - the job of grouse hunting and all that goes with it. Welcome to it Danny, Welcome!
Remember, a pa'tridge huntin' gentleman can rise a little later . . . but not THAT late :nono:

Here's to next year :bigbye:

Last picture taken on Sunday. I tried a dozen times last night to include this picture in the above past but just couldn't make it happen.

What kind of chickens are those?

Ole Clunker n Rog

Noble County Ohio Grouse Camp
 

Them wood chickens are sure gettin' scarce down this way.

The boys I know over in Canada that go to moose camp every year call them Road Chickens. You get away from civilization a bit and apparently they actually still exist in some numbers. They all carry a shotgun on their 4 wheelers and shoot them off the sides of the trails for camp meat.

Destry

P.S. to Fred: Where did you get that family photo of mine? I want it back!

I think I detect some good natured scarcasm here..And thats fine. If this thread seemed a little over powering I apologize to those offended.No matter what type of hunting we engage in its all good. I was just trying to share some wonderful times that my son and I spent with good friends. Again if this thread was perceived as a boast...it was not mean't to.:)

Dave,

You all give me hard time about my hat, and I in return, give you a hard time about this phantom grouse obsession. It's all different strokes for different folks, you chase after your passions and I'll chase after mine.

Apparently I'm A$$hole of the Week here on the BBS so everything I say is being taken the wrong way. Maybe I'll delete all my posts saying I'm gone forever them come back in three days and act like nothing happened. That seems to work for some......


Best Regards,
Destry aka The Alienator

Dave, No ap. called for . I really liked your entries; I have kids and grandkids too. Just a little fun for the thread. MH there's a fee for the pic(s).

Fred,

A fee???!!!! For a picture of my own family???!!!! That's my great great great grandpappy Cletus Q. Hoffard and his brothers Sirus and Obediah. They were all preachers of course, pillars of the community just like my whole family always has been.


Destry

Fred;
Too bad Robert Service is long gone as I think if he were alive there's a poem in that picture of your chicken camp.

Roger

In case anybody's interested, I came across this yesterday evening while doing a little light reading just before we departed "deer camp'.
I didn't actively search for this but sort of stumbled onto it in the same book where Dave read the "Last Day" by H. P. Sheldon of his son's last day bird hunting with his dad just before WW II broke out.
This is taken from a story by Nash Buckingham called Red Letter Days With Quail written by request of Noel Sheldon, H. P.'s son and was included in the 1947 book Great Hunting and Fishing Stories.

He begins -

Dear Noelly:*
My red-letter day on quail? The one incident high-lighting more than fifty years staring down shotgun ribs at exploding bevies? The one such day I'd prefer re-living? Lad, you almost sent me scurrying to Kodak-books and diaries out-dating the turn of the century. . .

*Noel Sheldon is Hal (Col. H. P.) Sheldon's son. In Nash Buckingham's Derrydale book "Ole Miss", a collection of unpublished stories, is one titled "Surrender to Youth". The Christmas before Mr. Buckingham had given young Noel his old ruck sack, skinning knife and several other "possibles" including a mess kit that had gone through two hot corners in WW I. "Surrender to Youth" tells the story of the ruck sack and Mr Buckingham's reasons for giving it to young Noel Sheldon.

"Noelly" is now full-grown, six feet two, 195 pounds and served in the Army Air Corps.-ed

Dean,

I am away from home today and am running on a shoddy memory. A story I like to reread by Nash Buckingham is "The Playhouse". A poigant tale of post Civil War quail hunting a posted farm with the owner and his grandson. Nash returns to the area post WW I. It is tough for me to read, but I love the story to much not to.

Roger,

Robert Service's "The Men That Don't Fit In" must have had me in mind.....

Harry

Thanks Harry, that is a wonderful story. I have read it a couple of times but not for several years now . . . in fact, I hadn't even remembered the title but definitely remember the story. Now I'm going to find it - I know I have it in my library somewhere - and bring it to deer camp to read in the evening.
Regards, Dean

Dean,

If you have a copy of "The Best of Nash Buckingham" you'll find it there...

Harry

Yes Harry, I have that book. I have been thinking that's where I read it so I'll bring that book with me.
Thanks, Dean