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#13 | ||||||
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McQuarrie is my favorite outdoor writer by far!
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"Striving to become the man my dog thinks I am" |
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The Following User Says Thank You to John Dallas For Your Post: |
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#14 | ||||||
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some days I call the grouse and woodcock around here "houdini" birds. Today I was so excited to get to run cash around 2 p.m. that I forgot my hand held g.p.s. I didn't realize it until I started to let cash out of car. I put him back in, drove to a long straight 2 track area and just let him quarter back and forth across the 2 track. 5 minutes in his bell quit, luckily I remembered the general area the bell quit. 3 minutes later I found him and a woodcock flushed, another houdini flush into the thickest stuff you can imagine. Cash had 4 points, one he stayed on point for 15 minutes until I found him, another houdini woodcock. I won't do that again, I will go back and get my handheld. I tried to keep him within 20 yards, every time he ranged out a little further, he seemed to go on point. Now I know what it must of been like many years ago before all the beepers and hand helds. My buddies are not finding many woodcock, so both guys I talked to today both were quite happy about cash finding woodcock.
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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Ed Norman For Your Post: |
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All I use on Grace is a bell. Sure, she goes out a bit too far into the thick stuff from time to time but the bell tells me where she is or was when the bell went silent.
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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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The Following User Says Thank You to Dean Romig For Your Post: |
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I have posted numerous times in the past (when I had a good English setter) about the use of bells vs. electronic "beeper" collars. I hate the damned things! They remind me of a trash truck backing up in the woods! The bell is sweet music by comparison and if nothing else it teaches you to really pay attention and listen in the woods.
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The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Kevin McCormack For Your Post: |
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#17 | ||||||
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Great pics, Garry. Thanks.
Is that sentinel pine really virgin growth? If it is it must be existing in some really poor soil. Best, Stan |
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#18 | |||||||
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Coincidently, there is a spot not too far from where we stay, call the Lost Forty, where there is a small contiguous stand of virgin pine. It seems that through some error by surveyors, the land was never plotted for harvest, and so was never logged. It's a really unique area (https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/chip...a/?recid=26672), a kind of time capsule for what the forest looked like before the loggers took all the pine back in the 19th Century. If you're thinking that pine does not look very large, the picture does not do it justice. These are massive trees. As a tree farmer, I'm always drawn to trees wherever we hunt, and we always photograph them when we come across them. If we make it to the Lost Forty area again this year, we'll snap a few photos and post them. Here's a virgin pine that has died not too long ago. Again, I'm not sure the photo captures its size well, but you get some idea of what these behemoths looked like when the loggers arrived.
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"Doubtless the good Lord could have made a better game bird than bobwhite, and better country to hunt him in...but equally doubtless, he never did." -- Guy de la Valdene (from A Handful of Feathers ) "'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy) |
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The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Garry L Gordon For Your Post: |
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#19 | ||||||
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We got a late start yesterday, and found a new-to-us spot that looks to have potential. The wind blew a gale, making it hard to track the dogs, and making the birds hunker down. Aspen had several grouse points, but we had no chances from those. He did find one, lone woodcock, and the CHE did its job. I forgot to mention that this gun is an 0 frame 16, and it weighs right at 6 lbs. (in perfect agreement with the research letter). It's about a pound lighter than the DH (and has two inches more on the barrels). At this stage of our trip, it's nice to carry a bit less weight. We are all dragging at this point, and will take a "rain day" off today.
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"Doubtless the good Lord could have made a better game bird than bobwhite, and better country to hunt him in...but equally doubtless, he never did." -- Guy de la Valdene (from A Handful of Feathers ) "'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy) |
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The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to Garry L Gordon For Your Post: |
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#20 | ||||||
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If I were a woodcock... or even a grouse for that matter, That is the gun I would love to fold to and pose with!!
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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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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Dean Romig For Your Post: |
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