Long Time Coming

I started the week up north in a new to me stripmine that yielded only one wild flush. Tuesday I tried a new covert near home that held several woodcock, but Emma was enable to handle them, bumping 2 birds and I flushed a third one. Not a good start to a new covert but it's one that I'll visit again. Wednesday proved to be a big day for us. It didn't start out that way. The first cover we hit was full of woodcock, too many for Emma to handle that early in the morning and she merrily bumped several birds in her excited state. We then moved to another cover that sometimes holds a woodcock or two. It consists of old wet fields growing back in crabapples and hawthorns.

Plenty of fruit for the wildlife.

Emma pointed one woodcock that ran out and flushed and I missed a long shot on it. Soon she pointed again and as I walked in a grouse flushed across in front of me. I focused on the bird, mounted Colette and dropped the right hammer, and the bird dropped to the ground stone dead. It was Emma's first grouse and I was ecstatic. She finished off her performance with a nice retrieve.

Posing is serious business.








Back at the truck, let me hold it one more time Dad.

Arriving home I had one tired puppy.