Another Hunt at the Brady-Muth Coverts

On Wednesday Emma and I went north to hunt the Brady & Muth coverts that I had started the season with. Just as we left the truck at the Brady Covert Emma bumped a group of three grouse almost exactly where she bumped a group of three last year.....not the way I like to start a hunt. We hunted the nice looking cover but couldn't find anymore birds.

 

At the end of the cover we walked through an open area to a small strip of cover that looked good from the distance.  A scattering of aspen and a gas well road with some nice looking cover along it. I flushed a grouse along the road and saw a woodcock flush in front of Emma on a sparely covered bank. I couldn't tell if she had bumped it or if it had just flushed wild but our luck was staying poor as we trudged back to the truck and on to the Muth Covert.

 

I discovered the Muth Covert last year. It's a beautiful cover and from the first it captured my heart.

 

It's always given Emma and I a chance at a few woodcock and even a grouse or two but I've always failed in my attempts to carry a bird out of this special place.  On our first pass along the bottom of the covert Emma had a strong point but it proved to be only splash from a departed bird. We came to open timber, swung up and started back through the top of the cover. Soon in the distance I heard Emma's beeper and I hurried through the aspen & goldenrod wanting desperately for a chance at a bird. I found her on a beautiful point (aren't they all) and trampled in the goldenrod trying to flush the bird. When the flush came the bird was behind me and I turned and fired missing with the right barrel but then dropping the left hammer and seeing the bird fall.  The Muth Covert had finally given me a bird.

 

 

 

We pushed through the cover to the truck without finding another bird, but as Emma and I sat on the tailgate, enjoying a sandwich we both wore a grin on our faces thinking about the lovely Muth Covert and the wonderful experience we had shared there.