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Gracie Earns Her Keep Yet Again
Unread 10-04-2022, 02:12 PM   #1
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Dean Romig
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Default Gracie Earns Her Keep Yet Again

We’re in Vermont’s NEK again but going back home today.
Birds are scarce and that’s to be expected for woodcock but grouse numbers appear to continue on their downward spiral. In six hours of hunting some of our very favorite and formerly very productive covers we only had four, possibly five flushes. And one woodcock Sunday, one of the biggest I’ve ever seen, flushed twenty-five yards from me while Gracie was twenty-five yards on the other side of me… missed her with both barrels

But yesterday Gracie slammed into a classic point beneath an ancient split trunk apple tree. I walked in and the bird, a big cock grouse flushed and flew between the trunks and was almost behind the left trunk when I fired, barking the apple tree and shattering some branches. I didn’t see the grouse emerge so I hurried to the area where I thought it would have gone down. We combed an area of a 40-yard diameter… zip, nada, zilch!

I called off the search and headed back uphill. Some fifty yards away, well away from the area I expected to find it, Gracie gave chase and pounced on my grouse as it was making a hasty getaway with a broken right wing.

Gracie saved the day for sure. It was the only shot I took that day.



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"I'm a Setter man.
Not because I think they're better than the other breeds,
but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me, a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture."

George King, "That's Ruff", 2010 - a timeless classic.
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