Storm of 2010

Friday Feb. 5. The snow started falling lightly about noon. Coming from the south with lots of moisture the weathermen were calling for a big one. By Saturday morning we know just how big.

Janet's not built for this kind of a snowfall :).

I had managed to plow around midnight on Fri. but by Sat. morning I know the old Ford couldn't cope with this snow. Janet and my tracks as we waded out Sat. morning to take care of my elderly mother.

Sat. evening the cavalry arrived. Jim-B0b with his Kabota and bucket slowly cleared the lane.

Emma enjoying the snow.

After Jim-Bob cleared part of the lane Janet helped out with the old Ford "Chalmer".

The guineas were happy to have a path to run on.

By Sunday evening the lane was cleared nicely and all was well. We ended the storm with 23 inches. Luckily no wind, the power stayed on and we survived another winter storm here in our Allegheny mountains.

Hattie's afternoon

Left work early on Thursday to give Hattie one last chance to find a grouse this hunting season. We went to my Thomas trail cover where last year she gave me a nice point that resulted in a shot bird. The snow lay on portions of the trail as we started in.

Along the side of this ridge I hear Hattie's beeper collar go on point. The deer trail I was following went above her and I stayed on it as the path of least resistance. As she came into view I saw that she was pointing down the slope and as I began to work my way down the grouse lifted below her and was gone without a shot.

Later we worked an area of heavy barberry cover with no success.

So ended Hattie's 2009-10 hunting season. She had done her part but as so often happens luck was not on my side today and the grouse lived to perhaps give me sport next year.

New Years Day Hunt

My nephew Jim-Bob and I decided to hunt our Mckee's Gap cover on this the first day of 2010. The weather has been less than ideal since before Christmas and it was our first hunt together in Pa.'s second season. 4 to 5 inches of snow made for slow going up the old logging road.

Emma was just happy to be out and about.
After about an hour Jim-Bob's setter Zeke went on point below us on the mountain. Emma backed him nicely and Jim slid down the slope toward them, but the grouse flushed before he could get in position for a shot. Here's Jim-Bob struggling back up the mountain.

We had several wild flushes but couldn't find any more birds to hold for the dogs, so we worked out way down off the mountain with the knowledge that the birds would be there for us next time we felt up to a Mckee's Gap hunt.

The Forgotten Past

Recently I've been spending the cold winter evenings looking at several hundred old photographs and postcards given to me by my Dad. As my Mom slips further away with Alzheimer's Dad has been going through the house cleaning out cupboards and closets that were at one time my Mom's domain. From the maternal side of my family a few of the photo's are written on the back as to who the person or persons are in them but most are blank. Lost in the past are people, relatives or their friends, a part of me that I'll never know. Here are some of the hunting photo's that sadly have no information on them. They show that I came from a rabbit hunting family. That comes as no surprise as I dreamed of hunting rabbits with beagles from my early childhood, getting my first beagle when in my early teens and hunting them exclusively up until my mid-thirty's when grouse and woodcock lured my away from my roots. On the rare occasion that I happen upon a beagle hot on a track in my wanderings I always stop and reminisce about my youth, of my wanderings through fields and woodlots following a hard hunting beagle of two, of standing and listening to the chase wondering if I had chosen a good spot to intercept the rabbit as it ran it circle, of trudging home with a rabbit or two pulling my hunting coat down my back with a beagle or two pulling on the leash wanting desperately to start just one more chase. Enjoy the looks of satisfaction on the faces of these hunters after a good days hunt and the looks of pride as they posed with their dogs.

And please date and label your photographs of your hunts so that years from now someone can say " This is my great-grandfather with one of his favorite hunting dogs" instead of having to wonder like I am as to who these hunters were and what part of my past do they fit into.

Foggy Big Savage Mountain hunt

I headed down to Big Savage Mountain just above the Maryland line for a hunt with Copper. In the nearly 30 years that I have known this cover it has changed little. Much of this cover was at one time a high mountain farm. Old stone fence rows and scattered orchards are the only reminders of the hard work done by long gone farmers eking out a living in this wild land. Grape vines, bittersweet, multi-flora rose, autumn olive, green briers and treetops broken off by ice storms and high winds make up much of the cover.
As I worked my way up the old logging road toward the top the fog became thicker.

Copper appearing out of the fog.

The old bones of a farm house. Once alive with a man and a woman and probably a litter of children, now slowly pasting time alone and empty with only its memories to fill its decaying rooms.

A bear marking its territory. These claw marks were 6 feet high.

No birds were carried off the mountain on this trip although I missed a wild flush and Copper found several, she just could not get them to hold for a point, but it was enough to know that the birds and the cover are still there waiting for the next time I decide to tackle Big Savage Mountain.

This weeks wanderings

Here are some pictures from this weeks wanderings. I had high hopes in getting Emma into the woodcock flights on this the last week of Pa.'s woodcock season, but my woodcock covers have been bare. The native birds seem to have flown south even though the weather remains warm. The flight birds from up north are nowhere to be found. Have they already slipped through? Are they still holding up north waiting for colder weather to push them southward? Such is the mystery of the woodcock.

On Monday while hunting a woodcock cover Emma pushed out a pheasant with a broken-wing. After a chase through some thick pines she made a nice retrieve.

On Tuesday while hunting a cover in Centre co. I took a shot at a wild flushed grouse (the only bird of the day) and broke a wing. Emma did her part and make another nice retrieve.
The Grulla and the grouse. Emma was a little hard on the grouse's tail so no fan picture.

After the hunt Emma waits to have the ticks combed out.

On Wednesday while Emma was nursing a sore paw, I took Copper to northern Cambria co. to hunt some nice aspen cover I had discovered in the spring. Midway through the hunt she locked up on a nice high-headed point. As I walked in a grouse flushed some 30 feet above and behind her. She remained rock-solid on point so I circled around in front of her and moved in. I could see her eyes searching the ground for the bird she was so sure was there. Suddenly a woodcock flushed between us spirling up in the textbook corkscrew flight. I pulled the front trigger then the back and made a textbook miss with both barrels :( .

Copper after the hunt waiting to be combed out. The ticks this year have been horrible.

On Thursday I hunted Emma in a series of nice thick clearcuts in Blair co. I walked into a large woodcock at the start of the hunt and later Emma flash-pointed a grouse in a spruce tree that flushed without a shot and that was the only action we had there. We then drove to the top of Snake Spring mountain to a cover that I have memories of a wonderful hunt some years ago with Hattie that resulted in a nice point, shot, and retrieve on a grouse. I walked out a well used logging road for 1/2 hour and then took this faint logging trail up toward the top.

The cover is steep, rocky and littered with grape tangles and blown down tree tops.

Emma hunting the steep cover. We moved 3 grouse for no shots in the rocky terrain.

Emma drinking in scent from below.

A view from near the top of the mountain.

Today I'll spend my time in my local woodcock covers in a last minute attempt to find the elusive woodcock.

The Roaring Plains

I made the long drive back into the Roaring Plains of West Virginia for the first time in several years. Other covers closer home had kept me satisfied for awhile, but the call for a wilder type of hunt led me back to these high mountain haunts. The birds were there, but as usual they used the thick spruce-rhododendron cover to make good on their escape route and although Hattie has several productive points I was never able to get off a shot. Hope you enjoy the following pictures of my adventure. The pipeline is the path to the top of the plateau. Pushed through in the early 70's, it prevented this area from becoming a wilderness area. So while the Dolly Sods wilderness area gets overrun by backpackers looking for the wilderness experience this 20 some squaremile area, which is just as wild except for the long pipeline scar running through it, gets few visitors.

A view of the pipeline on top stretching eastward.

The mountain holly were a bright red against the green spruce background.

A windswept hawthorn, a living testament of the harsh weather that rules this land.

Springs abound in this high mountain plateau.

Hattie working through some open cover.

The walk back to the truck.

Hattie at the end of the hunt.