The Woolridge Covert

On Thursday Emma and I headed 2 hours north to investigate a new covert. It's a state gamelands that had an aspen cut done several years ago. A reclaimed stripmine  with fields on one side of the access road and pines on the other.  As I drove deeper in the the gamelands movement ahead of me in the fields proved to be elk heading for the pine cover. Six bull elk crossed the road. The pics aren't too good as I had to take them through my windshield with the little point and shoot camera's telescope lens extended at full length. A special treat to see in the wilds of Pa.

I didn't see the aspen cut so I pulled over at a blocked road and decided to hunt back it and see where it led.

 

 

It led me to the type of cover that I've been finding woodcock in on these reclaimed stripmines. Cover that I once would not have hunted but now know better.

 

About 1/2 hour into the hunt Emma's beeper went off and I found her pointing in open cover. The woodcock gave me an easy shot and I dropped it with the right barrel.

 

The next two 'cock proved to be runners who flushed out ahead of Emma before I could get into position for a shot. The fourth woodcock Emma pointed was in armpit high goldenrod with just a couple of scraggly locust trees one of which the cock used perfectly to dodge both of my shots. By now we were back close to the truck so I drove out the road farther and reached a Y in the road that led us to the aspen cut.

 

Surrounded on three sides by fields obviously stocked full of pheasants by the number of hunters I could see I made several passes through the cut but didn't find any woodcock there.  Being a solidary woodcock hunter the barrage of shooting was making me nervous so Emma and I decided to call it a day with the memories of the bull elk and the woodcock that we did find fresh in our minds. On the drive out I passed a young hunter with an autoloader groundswatting a pheasant and thought that although we could both be called hunters what different hunters we were.