[Dean Romig]

I brought my 8 year-old grandson Cam, to grouse camp in Vt. again this year and he really enjoyed every aspect of it, including the chores involved in keeping a tidy and clean camp. I can't describe the feeling I get when I know I'm instilling in him a way of life, a love of nature and love of hunting that I know nobody else in his family can provide him with.

Grouse numbers are still down and it's been four years now, but we found pockets of as many as six birds in a loose group. In areas where we had found numbers of grouse in the past none were to be found this year and the food sources appeared not to have changed at all. And, not that I'm a threat to the grouse population, I held fire on a few of them when they flushed (and I not so deliberately missed several shots) so I know they will be there next year.

I was shooting my 'new' 16 ga. 0-Frame lifter with 24" barrels (and no choke) and Cam was toting a mock-up gun I made for him from a .22 rifle stock and a make-shift barrel. He practices with it in his back yard in a very populated neighborhood and his Mum insists it have orange on it so that nobody gets the idea he is messing with a "real gun". It's too bad we have come to this. In a year or two he will be ready for his own shotgun but for now he needs more practice on where his muzzle is pointing. "Muzzle Up!!!" I must have said that to him twenty times or more in two days... But he'll learn. I'll make sure of it.

Now I need to get the granddaughters involved before they get too old to appreciate it.




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