Late Season Wanderings

 

Emma and I have been out several times since my last posting. Although no shots were fired I have moved several grouse, just enough to keep me hoping for a point and chance to shoot. A couple of pics of the Perrin Rd covert. I try to hunt this cover once a year for a number of years now, and in it's younger years it looked to be great cover but I've never moved a grouse in it.  Why I don't know. It's starting to thin out now and I'll probably cross it off my list of coverts.

These next pics are of a new covert that I just found this year. Christened the Heifer Lick covert for the trail that runs through it. It's another cover that looks promising. On our second visit Emma whet on point. I walked in with hammers back and heart pounding only to flush a rabbit :(.  I had to laugh out loud after my nerves calmed down and couldn't bring myself to blame Emma for she hasn't smelled much bird scent lately.

This is the Bennett Cemetery covert, another new cover. I moved two birds, one from under a dead multiflora rosebush and one out of a tree. I was surprised by the large amount of aspen trees in this cover. It's completely surrounded by large white pines and in all the years that I've hunted in this area I've never noticed aspen trees growing here.

Last Thursday the forecast was for bitter temps for Fri & Sat. We had some snow showers in the morning but at noon when I looked at the radar on the Weather Channel it showed a break in the snow for several hours, so Emma and I headed out. We went this time to my Ragged Mt. covert, a fairly young clearcut encircled with deer fence with a gate that you could gain access through. We didn't move any birds maybe the cover is just a little too young yet or maybe because the cover is so thick with briers that you can't hunt much of it yet.

 The snow kept falling steadily was we hunted...........so much for radar :).

Back at the truck Emma shows just how wicked this cover is with it's greenbrier tangles and blackberry thickets.

A bit of Farnam's Wonder Dust and I had the torn ear's bleeding under control. As I headed home it appeared that I was the only person out in these mountains on this cold blustery day and I felt sorry for all the people who had missed the opportunity to be out and about in this wintery wonderland.