On a Fox Hunt in the Endless Mountains

[Cold Spring]

Yesterday I was out grouse hunting with my 20 bore Fox named "Vixen". She's been a lucky gun for me and while I'll occasionally use another bird gun I most always have to reach past her in the safe before grabbing a different one.

Our grouse numbers have declined greatly here in PA over the past years and filling the daily limit of two grouse is pretty tough. Especially when walk up hunting. I'm convinced that we hunters along with less trappers/more predators have culled the dumber ones over the decades and the present gene pool makes for increasingly skittish birds. And I'm not a believer in the WNV being a big factor. Taking one grouse can be a Red Letter Day. Yesterday I had two flushes, one with only glimpses behind a thick hemlock and the other a clean shot at a low driver.

Here's a collage of pics taken yesterday. We had heavy rains on Thursday and for my style of hunting wet leaves and new snow are best. Nowadays I try to hunt smarter and pretty much stick to traces of woods roads and RR beds; this is old coal mining and timbering country. We have a Springer "Nitro" and while he's excellent on pheasants his name says it all on hunting for our jumpy grouse. Y'all can get a look at some typical NE PA cover in the pics. This is almost all State Game Lands; very few bird hunters, no NT posters and no quads riding all over.

1. How I love these almost timeless mountains; I've hunted them for a long long time. Our cabin built when I was in my 20's is close by.
2. A deep woods beaver pond, a good spot for woodies
3-7. Several old woods roads I hunted yesterday
8. Witch Hazel "flowers" where I'll often find birds feeding
9. An old backwoods cabin, what stories it might tell
10. I walked up on 4 pointer. Archery season is open but he's not legal with only two on a side
11. Success!
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