1st day outing with Jim-Bob

My nephew Jim and I headed to the Shawnee covert for a short afternoon hunt today, the 1st day of the grouse and woodcock season here in Pa. Today was also the 1st day of a week long muzzleloader-doe only season so that limited our places to hunt. The hot dry weather made the leaves sound like cornflakes as we walked into the cover and didn't raise our hopes of finding any woodcock here today. Never the less it felt good carrying Colette the little 16 ga. Belgium hammergun through some beautiful-looking woodcock cover.

We were 3/4 of the way through the covert before Zeke's beeper finally went on point mode. Jim made it to the point first and I heard a single shot from his 12 ga. over and under. When I finally reached the scene of the point Jim was walking in circles encouraging the dogs to "find the bird". We searched thoroughly but couldn't find the woodcock even though Jim was sure as to where it had fallen. We even looked in the hawthorns to be sure it didn't get "hung up" in its fall. The dogs began to widen their circles and I began to get that sickening feeling that the bird was lost. Then Jim found some feathers on the ground and we searched with renewed vigor. Finally Jim looked up again and there in the top of the tallest hawthorn was his bird.

After much tree shaking the woodcock was in his hand and the dogs were shown their trophy.

We soon came to the woods road that would lead us back to the truck and we walked out with Jim's one woodcock, not much to some people but we were happy with a solid point, a good shot, and a bird that was nearly not found.