I have been enjoying the last few days doing some bird hunting on my time off befor it's back to the grind in Janurary.
Wednesday I combined a morning of work with an afternoon late season Grouse hunt. We found birds in the pines and tag alders but they were wary and wouldn't hold for a point. The closest we got was the sound of whirring wings as they departed for safer ground. As the Grouse wern't cooperating we chased some Quail that had been released for dog training and hunting purposes back in the late summer. The fact that there were survivors let alone a sustainable number of them was amazing to me. We found two coveys of a dozen or so birds each and I managed to scratch down four with a newly stocked CHE 20. On the last covey rise a double fell to the Parker
Yesterday and this morning it was out to The Haymarsh with a GH 16 0 frame damascuss. I call this gun "The Money Pitt" as I put a lot into it to bring her back up to all her potential for another 100 years. Four of us shot 17 birds yesterday and as we saw over 30 there should have been more. We had a young first year Setter with us and she busted birds on a fairly regular basis but they have to learn sometime. I went back out this am and scratched down a Rooster with Dave Miles but we got rained off. We hunted a couple of hours and saw three birds but most of all we got all the dogs out for a run. Gunner "The Old Duffer" did well and I was glad he got out for a hunt on the eve of his 13th year. I hope has has more to come in 2011 but I'm glad he went today.