This Weeks Wanderings

Got out Wednesday with Copper. She found woodcock in the Warrior Ridge cover. Sadly at 7 1/2 years old her hips won't let her hunt more than an hour or so and the next day she was stiff and in pain.

On Thursday Hattie got the call and we hunted the Milligan's Cove cover. In an hour she had 3 solid points and proved again that she will be the dog that all future dogs are compared to.

Not a good pic but this is a woodcock that walked back and forth in front of Hattie while she held a rock solid point.

Sunday was Emma's turn. We tried the Prince's cover first with her bumping a grouse and no woodcock found. Next we tried the Wopsy cover and I saw her bump a woodcock. Finally we went to the Rifle Range cover. After bumping a woodcock she went on point along the logging trail. She held while I took a pic and walked beside her and took another. Then I walked off the trail and flushed a woodcock that flew over my shoulder. Finally a solid point and some thing to smile about.

Disappointing Weekend

Got out this weekend for some woodcock chasing, sadly that's what it amounted to. We hunted some classic cover on Saturday with Emma bumping one and me flushing one.

On Sunday we found them.

Ugly cover to a tree hugger beautiful to a woodcock hunter.

Emma tore up the cover looking for birds.

You comin' Dad?

Not your typical plodding Ryman.

The disappointing part of the weekend was she bumped 5 or 6 birds that I saw
and only held her couple points for a few seconds and then rushed in and flushed the bird. As she approaches her fourth birthday it's becoming painfully clear that she may never make it as a birddog. I've given her as many opportunities as I could in the last four years but the "light" just hasn't come on. I'll hunt her hard this fall but will begin to plan on a new pup perhaps for the spring of 2012. Not to worry, Emma will have a good home for the rest of her life cause she's part of the family, but as I watch my number of hunting seasons start to lessen I yearn for a solid pointing dog to walk up to and experience the thrill of the flush before my hunting days are over.

As always I look for anything unusual to take a pic of. Here's a nice fungi of a color I've never seen before.

At first I thought spike buck, but the "horns" seem to be attached to the skull more like a true horn than an antler that is shed every year. Any ideas ???

Hope to get the old dogs out next weekend for some solid points before the woodcock begin to nest.

One Last Chance

Today was the last day of the grouse season here in the Alleghenys. The weathermen were calling for wind and temps in the single digits all day, but as it sometimes happens they missed and by 1:00 the temp had climbed to 20 degrees with a bluebird sky and no wind. I took Emma and hunted the land bordering the Back 40 that had been cut over several years ago. Jim-Bob my nephew had heard grouse drumming in this area this spring and had seen some grouse while putting up a trail cam this fall.

After hunting one side of the cover with no results we circled around along the back side and Emma went on point at this tangle. As I made my way up the slope a grouse rocketed out straight away and into the sun. Elin leapt to my shoulder and I dropped one hammer and then the other..........I wish I could say that the grouse folded but it wasn't to be and I watched it fly away unscathed. I could blame the sun in my eyes or the cataract on my shooting eye that I will have removed next month for the miss but it was no doubt my lack of coordination that gave the grouse the edge it needed to survive another day.

Back at the truck a tired , bloody, but happy Emma poses with Elin.

So ends the 2010-2011 grouse season here in my Alleghenys. No grouse fell to my shots this year, the first time this has happened since I started grouse hunting back in the mid-80's. I should, I guess, be disappointed but as I look back at the past season I smile at the time spent carrying a gun and following a questing setter through these Allegheny Mountains that I love and know that I'll send the next 8 or 9 months dreaming about next season and the days I'll spend wandering through my coverts with my dog and my gun.

A winter walk with Jim-Bob

My nephew Jim-Bob had some rare free time today so we headed into the nearby mountains with the dogs in hopes of finding a grouse. Our destination was a large clearcut that had recently had its deerproof fence removed. With a couple of inches of snow on the ground we could get a clear picture of what wildlife was out and about. We found several sets of grouse tracks with one ending with a set of wing prints in the snow.The cover looked promising, a tangle of briers, saplings and mountain laurel.

Jim-Bob's boy Zeke questing the cover.


Emma on her usual fly-by.

Sadly like my other late season hunts this year we moved no birds. One more Saturday and the season ends for another year.

The Squatter's Cover

A pulled muscle in my back kept me out of my coverts for several days, but feeling a little better I headed for the hugh, briery, steep Squatter's cover.

This cover has years ahead of it before it matures out of being good grouse cover.The basic for the name. The local forester told me a man had to be removed by the state police from this "house" on recently acquired state game lands.

Emma working along a small spring seep. We moved 2 grouse with no points today in about 2 hours before a cold drizzle drove us to the truck.

Looking tired, wet and torn from the briers, Emma will be raring to go tomorrow and so will I..

My last two trips afield have been as quiet as my first. Last Friday Emma and I hunted the Oregon Rd covers. Nice looking cover void of birds.

Perhaps the work of a bored logger making a nice chair for deer season???
Their teasing us :(.

Monday we headed due south close to the Mason-Dixon line to hunt some clearcuts that had the deer fences recently removed.

Not even any tracks here.





Swung by an old cemetery that I hadn't visited for a few years. Most of the stones are fading fast with many just small markers perhaps of infants.

Nancy Collins lived a remarkably long life in these unforgiving ridges.

At first I thought fox tracks but the way they traveled over quite a number of fallen logs made me think that they may have been made by a fisher, whose numbers are growing quickly in my area. Just what the grouse need another predator.

Why a bear would be out roaming around now I don't know , but they were just hours old. That's Emma's track on the right.

Emma and I are heading out again today, hoping that Diana the hunting goddess will eventually smile upon us.

A Cold Quiet Day

Emma and I entered one of my southeastern covers around 10:00 with the temp hovering at 21 degrees. Many of the clearcuts on state forest land are surrounded by an 8 foot tall fence to keep the deer out while the young saplings have a chance to grow. The fence had recently been taken down around this cut and we hunted the edge following a trail that encircled the cut with Emma hunting in the thick saplings with occasional circles through laurel thickets and downed logs scattered in the open woods. One log begged to be a backdrop for an Elin photo. About an hour later we were back at the truck without seeing or hearing any sign of a grouse.We traveled down the forest road to another more mature cut where several springs ago my nephew and I had moved 6 grouse on a training run. An old stone wall along the lower edge of the cut made a nice trail to follow.

Emma stopping in to offer encouragement before continuing her quest.

Suddenly there they were. Sign that we were not alone on this mountainside.

The tracks led up into this tangle of rock and saplings and although we hunted with renewed vigor the bird had vanished.

A snow squall swept in as we struggled back up the mountain toward the truck. Soon Elin's barrels were covered with a coating of snow and I wondered how many times in the last 97 years in her native Swedish covers she had been carried through weather just like this and I had to smile at myself for having such thoughts as my mind wandered just as my feet wandered slowly back to the warmth of the truck.