Tune-Up for the Big Dance

Fall has come on much too fast for me this year. Work and my elderly parents have kept me busy with little time to plan for the up-coming hunting season. I had an hour or so free this morning so I took Emma and headed for the Warrior Ridge covert. Not very big, only about an hour hunt, it's as reliable as a woodcock covert can be.

Soon after entering the cover Emma's beeper went to point mode. I desperately waded through multi-flora rose, goldenrod, and saplings to get to the point but it flushed before I could catch sight of Emma, so don't know if she bumped it or my thrashing around scared it into flight.
Later I saw two different woodcock rise from the area that Emma was hunting and I walked into one for a flush.

White wash on damp leaf pack, that's what gets a woodcock hunters blood pumping.

Emma tearing up the woods. So much for the plodding Ryman setter stereotype.

Something smells good.

One happy dog doing what she loves to do, hunt.

My season starts Saturday so it was nice to see some birds. I'll be hunting with a new set of hearing aids this year. My old "behind the ear" hearing aids were turned up to the max and still I was having trouble hearing so now have moved on to the "in the canal" hearing aids. Much more powerful I heard the woodcock twittering flight when they flushed this morning ,that's a sound I haven't hear for several years. It brought a smile to my face.