Change of plans. It wasn't near as bad as I figured and it was clearing so I saddled up for another try. This time I actually hunted with a Parker and got 3 birds. I snowshoed over the hill into the same creek where I got 6 birds in a day last year and saw lots of tracks from the air yesterday. It worked. I had 16 flushes of about 12 birds. A few I flushed more than once. It was a warm day and seemed more like wading through wet concrete than snowshoeing by mid afternoon. I thought I hit one of a pair that sailed off and on the way out I flushed just one of them in the area where I thought they landed. Ha!, I thought, that bird was hit and is dead here in brush somewhere. I started looking and sure enough I actually spotted it, face down, a white bird in white snow and in dense brush from about 50ft away. What are the chances? I kicked his buddy up again also and knew he was hit but hot hard and I found him also. I used all old paper shells - a vintage #9 load from somewhere and green ribbed Remington Express and red Western Super-X. I love the old shells; why would anyone want to use anything else? That might be my last trip of the year as it's 45deg here and the snow is going fast. You can see that the bird on the left is starting to change to summer colors. The one on the right is likely YOY; small beak, just a touch of red around the eye. They sure are pretty. Strangely enough, as white as they are, that's how you spot them in the snow; they are whiter than just about any snow so you just look for anomalous white spots and once you tune your eyes you can actually spot them from at least 150yds away, sometimes further. You can see the contrast in my picture; they are much whiter than the snow beneath the shoes. For whatever reason also, they stink to high heaven compared to other grouse, and it's not a pleasant 'stink'. I'd suspect a decent dog could smell these things from a very long ways off. They have really cool little furry "yeti feet" too. Maybe that's what I need! I am so glad I got off my butt and went out again. I will have no trouble going to sleep tonight; a good workout on snow shoes is unlike any other form of exercise.
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