Grouse Hunting the U.P. of Michigan

[James Whittington]

Originally Posted by Eric Eis

What part of the U.P were you hunting. Rich Anderson (COB) just returned from the Western end of the UP he's been up there for over a month! He left yesterday and said there was two inches of snow.

We were hunting around Crystal Falls,snowed on us the first couple of days off and on with temps holding in the 30's but no accumulation.Grouse flushes were up from last year for us,but good shots were hard to get alot of the birds were holding around spruce,but we still managed to scratch some down every day.We flushed grouse in every cover we hunted except one this week.This was the first grouse hunt for my wife,and was an eye opening experience for her,she thought it would be more open like quail hunting.We saw deer and turkey daily and a couple of eagles.The leaves were beautiful when we arrived but many came down as the week progressed to make for better shooting.I got some good dog work out of my old dogs,and put a new 9 month old pup down a couple of times and got her some grouse contacts,I would of hunted her more but I lost her one time and had to run her down more than a mile away,thank goodness for the Garmin Alpha tracking collar.We did not find many Woodcock,this was my only disappointment as I was hoping to work the young dog on them.The wife has told everybody about her "adventure" and is already talking about the trip next year,all is good.

[Opening Day]

Originally Posted by james whittington

We were hunting around Crystal Falls,snowed on us the first couple of days off and on with temps holding in the 30's but no accumulation.Grouse flushes were up from last year for us,but good shots were hard to get alot of the birds were holding around spruce,but we still managed to scratch some down every day.We flushed grouse in every cover we hunted except one this week.This was the first grouse hunt for my wife,and was an eye opening experience for her,she thought it would be more open like quail hunting.We saw deer and turkey daily and a couple of eagles.The leaves were beautiful when we arrived but many came down as the week progressed to make for better shooting.I got some good dog work out of my old dogs,and put a new 9 month old pup down a couple of times and got her some grouse contacts,I would of hunted her more but I lost her one time and had to run her down more than a mile away,thank goodness for the Garmin Alpha tracking collar.We did not find many Woodcock,this was my only disappointment as I was hoping to work the young dog on them.The wife has told everybody about her "adventure" and is already talking about the trip next year,all is good.

Too bad you didn't post before you left, as you were right around the corner from Rich Anderson he is in Channing, and he's been up there for over a month, he also hunts GSP's

[C.O.B.]

Last year I lost Ike when he was only a year old in Amasa for several hours. It was the perfect storm of failures, the battery in the Dogtra E collar went dead, my hearing aid batteries went dead and the wind was blowing and it was snowing sideways. Ike is predominately white in coloring. To say it was a gut wrenching experience is an understatement. My mother in law was dying at the time and I pictured the call from home "Moms fading fast/mom died etc and you need to come home". My reply would have been "I can't I lost Ike". This year I had a GPS collar.
Driving a two track on a rainy day I found and English setter walking looking tired and disheveled. I stopped and she came right up to me like I was her long lost friend. She had a collar and a phone number but when I called the number was disconnected. I stopped at the nearby resort of Silver Lake and asked if anyone had reported a lost dog. I got a no then a yeas. I was given two numbers. The owner had lost her the night before and by the time he reached me he ad already headed to southern Michigan where he lived!!! He was 5 hours south of me. Someone did come later in the day for the dog.

[mobirdhunter]

I don't know of a worse, more helpless, feeling, than when you lose your dog.

So glad to read that these two incidents turned out well. Rich, I remember your situation from a prior post and it still haunts me.