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!
