A Memorable Hunt

[Dean Romig]

Once again I brought my grandson, Cam, 8, to "Grouse Camp" in Vermont with me last weekend and he had a wonderful time with Grampy and Uncle Jamie, my brother in law. Cam is quickly learning firearms safety, camp etiquitte, pitching in with chores, and woodlore from Jamie and myself.
Cam is very good about staying behind the line of fire when we are in the woods after grouse with only an occasional reminder from one of us. And he pays close attention to situate himself equally distant between Jamie and me and he has been solely responsible for the flushing of more than a few grouse.
We had hunted the "Switzer Place" for about an hour or a bit more and had twelve flushes but the place is growing up so thick with spruce and white pine on an old hillside orchard that we only saw a few of them and were only able to take a shot or two at birds we only had brief glimpses of. I swore I nailed one but Cam said, "No way Grampy, what you hit was that tree!" I searched and searched and Cam pretended to help but in the end I had to admit that he was right.
We were on the return leg and Jamie and Cam were walking side by side along the old camp road to Switzer's camp and I took a little detour through a promising little patch of cover when a big mature cock grouse flushed right in front of me at about twenty yards. "Admiral Perry's Gun" snapped to my shoulder seemingly all by itself and I fired the "open" barrel. The grouse thumped right smack in the middle of the road but picked himself right up and attempted to scramble into dense cover on the other side of the road. Jamie hollered "Get him Cam - run and get him!" Cam sprinted to the rapidly disappearing grouse as Jamie again yelled, "Grab him Cam - Grab him quick!" Cam did just as he was told but being afraid he might get clawed or pecked he grabbed at the rear of the bird. He came up with a handful of tail feathers. I was sprinting to get in on the action and I hollered, "Grab his head Cam!" and Cam came up with another handful of tail feathers. By this time we were all laughing pretty hard and I'm surprised we were able to get that grouse at all but finally I grabbed him around the wings and body.

What a hoot that was !! I'm sure Cam will remember that hunt for a long time to come.



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