I've been reading the threads of Harold, Shawn, and Dean with great interest. This precious time in our grouse woods and prairies is the focus of the entire year. Elaine and I are ending our first week in Cabin #6 in Northern Minnesota, our 34th year of coming here.
Like the weather Harold has experienced, we had gorgeous -- but too warm -- days to begin our trip. We have been finding birds when we hit the good cover, and the dogs, especially Aspen, who is going into his 3rd year, are having their chances.
We've been revisiting our tried and true coverts, but also searching out new spots this year. Some have proven to be keepers, while others have provided a good walk through poor cover. When I look at my shooting journal, I note that my flush counts reflect a good year, if my shooting skills don't reflect well on me. The first day I made some good shots and was feeling pretty smug, but Ole Mr. Grouse put me in my place pretty quickly. Such is grouse hunting.
When you've been coming to a place as long as we have, you can't help but reflect on the effects of time. On one particularly beautiful evening as we walked out of the woods, the time when your bones ache from the day's miles, but you're fulfilled with the splendor of the hunt, I thought about this place over the course of the 30-plus years we've been tramping its swamps and sand hills. The clean, balsam-scented air was the same, the aspen glowing in the afternoon sun were the same, as was the large rising Woodcock Moon. I was the thing that had changed, hopefully for the better in my appreciation of this place. Yes, I have some miles on me and can't bust the brush like I used to, but I think I appreciate things all the more for the years of experience. I know that others of you, long in the tooth as am I, will understand that the hunt is about so much more than shooting (in my case "at") birds.
Good hunting to all!
Key to the photos:
1. The first afternoon, hot, but gorgeous, suckered me into thinking I was a good shot. Here is my third bird (from my third shot) of the only hour we hunted this day, taken with my 26 inch 1904 vintage DH 16. I'm glad that Reggie and Randy have not discovered the delights of the Parker 26 inch barreled guns.
We'll break out another 1904 gun next week to see if we can blood it in good fashion. Stay tuned.
2. Elaine and I have some coverts we revisit just to see old friends, like this sentinel virgin pine. I wonder often what transpired for this regal tree to have been left by the loggers.
3. I like photos of points. What hunter owned by a pointing dog doesn't? Photos of points are hard to come by in the thick grouse woods, but this one seems to sum up much of the experience -- cover so thick it's hard to maneuver through it, much less get a shot off.
4. I often think of the gentleman -- and I know he must have been one -- who ordered this Parker back in 1904. I can't thank him enough.
5. The Huntmaster (Mistress?), Elaine, without whom none of this happens. She plots the course with her map reading (now done electronically -- when we can get a signal), and she is the best, darned "kennel boy" this side of the Mississippi (the source of which is not too terribly far from here). I am blessed to have the best hunting partner.
Back at Cabin #6 Somewhere in the Northwoods
Threaded Mode