Hunting Alone

Last year, after our annual hunting camp, when I hunted grouse, I mostly hunted alone. This was due to a number of factors. First, I like hunting alone. I can set my own pace and hunt new cover. Secondly, while last year's hunting was good, the bird-finding part of the hunting was, at times, downright poor. The object is, after all, to find grouse and there aren't many people willing to go on a full-day march through the Devil's Claw, Thornapple and Tag Alder Bottoms if the prospect of seeing a grouse is dim. Finally, while Jake is a fine dog that I love dearly, it was not my perception that he was yet a great bird dog.

On a December Saturday, I found myself in middle Michigan with just Jake for company. The day was completely gray with a low ceiling and fuzzy fog-like clouds. An unseasonable violent snowstorm had dumped almost two feet of heavy wet snow some three days earlier. This had been followed by a warm spell and it was my hope that I would arrive at the magic moment after the snow had completely melted and the grouse, used to the security of the roosting snow, had their guard temporarily down.

It was not to be. The snow had melted into a dense, wet slab about eighteen inches thick with no appreciable crust. It was miserable walking as I closed the tailgate and set off into the woods.

I was in a patch of cover I had not hunted for a number of years. It runs east and west along a deep creek. The good cover is not wide and quickly turns into hardwood wastelands one hundred yards from the creek. Along the creek, however, are thick dogwood stands, blowdowns, tag alders and marsh grass.

It was in this cover years ago that my superstar had produced some twenty-five productive points for Steve and me on a mid-November day. It was in this very cover that a series of crisp relocations eventually resulted in an intense point in the middle of a field of marsh grass with head and nose at a downward angle, inches from the black band of a grouse tail feather. On Steve's close inspection, the tail feather appeared to indeed be attached to a grouse. We had been doing considerable shooting that day and had killed a number of birds. Just moments before, however, several grouse had escaped in this direction apparently unscathed. Steve reasonably assumed that we had killed one and a delayed reaction had taken the bird to this very spot to die. He reached for the bird, and we both watched as it exploded from the hummock and flew, with flared tail, in apparent slow motion, across the field without a shot being fired.

I trudged on behind Jake, getting into the rhythm, slogging my way through the snow watching him work, occasionally looking for grouse tracks and not finding any. On a dark, birdless, difficult day alone in the woods, if you are not careful, you will find yourself cataloging your regrets. Having plenty of those, I carefully turned my thoughts back to the cover, the memories of which belonged with the dog that had died that fall. Occasionally, I would come across a hillside or deadfall and could recreate the bird trapped there behind an immobile black-eared setter. I paused at the spot where once he stood staunchly, having stopped en route to retrieve one woodcock while we shot a second and then flushed a third that he was pointing.

As Jake and I marched on, still birdless, still hoping, now a good two and a half hours into the hunt, I thought how lucky it was that I had owned that big dog during a time when there were many grouse. I thought of how lucky I was that he was so good. While I believe I may have improved slightly as a dog trainer, my teaching style--for animals or children--has always been to give the command, then when disobeyed, repeat it loudly, and if disobedience continues, scream it at the top of your lungs. This has the remorseful consequence of reducing children to tears, while typically, dogs just simply continue to disobey.

Raz, my superstar, was disobedient when it suited him, which was most of the time. He was also overflowing with raw talent and plied that talent at a time when birds were plentiful. All I need do to conjure up tears is to think back to the day he died with a needle, with my hand on his head, thanking him for many, many years of hard and often brilliant work.

Jake and I finally came to some posting and rather than double back over the unproductive cover we had just been through, I decided to try to cross the water.

The creek had been dammed by what must have been a huge colony of very ambitious beavers. The admirable construction of sticks, mud, and brush extended some two hundred yards across to dry land and passable-looking cover on the other shore. It was here that I attempted a crossing.

Exactly halfway across, I broke through the first time, sinking thigh-deep into really cold water. The second, third, and fourth times through the dam were less a surprise but no less miserable. I had yet to learn the trick of duct-taping my Filsons to my waterproof boots (effectively creating waders) and so my feet and legs were now soaked. I was a good three hours from the truck.

I believe that by focusing, you can improve bird-finding. Both dogs and hunters become bored after extended periods without a flush. Concentration wanders. It begins to feel more like a walk than a hunt. I think even the best dogs simply turn off their noses under these circumstances. So it happened that some forty minutes later when we were approaching a corner where dogwood and marsh grass converged, Jake bumped the first bird of the day.

I stood there and watched as it flew away. I did not fire a shot. I have never had the willpower to honor the "don't shoot bumped birds" rule. This missed shot was simply a result of being on the same autopilot that probably caused Jake to run over the bird.

Moments later, he was on point. The bird flushed, flew hard, avoided a first shot and died with a second. I had the presence of mind to reload and when the second and third birds flushed I shot well and killed both.

Conscious of the weight and warmth resting on my kidneys, I headed towards the truck. In the next two hours, I did not see another bird.

I went home happy. In a moment of clarity, I realized that if I am fortunate enough to be hunting that same cover many years from now with a bird dog not yet born, I will not remember the burning thighs, the wet feet, or the many hours without even seeing a grouse track. It is unlikely I will remember the bumped bird. Instead, I will recall the intensity on a young white dog's face, the high style point, and the three birds he produced. RWOL

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