Leaves
It may not seem like it the last few days, especially with the unseasonably hot weather that we've had to put up with, but there are some subtle changes occurring in the grouse woods right now. The impenetrable canopy of leaves that we always deal with during the early part of the grouse and woodcock seasons in New Hampshire and Vermont is slowly coming apart. Yesterday and today, some of the leaves that served as a screen for escaping birds came down, perhaps from the gentle breeze that was blowing through, or maybe from the extraordinarily dry conditions of late.
Don't get me wrong ... we're a long way from "stick season", when all of the leaves are off the trees, but there has been a bit of improvement just from what it looked like out there earlier in the week. It will get better this weekend too, as a big front comes through tomorrow, bringing lots of rain, followed by gusty winds on Sunday. Things should look plenty different for us grouse hunters next week.
While the rain might not be pleasant to hunt in, it should improve the hunting dramatically. First, the scenting conditions for the dogs should be much better, as they have sometimes had trouble getting good scent to work with from the birds. Just as important, it has been incredibly noisy out there as we go through the woods - birds can hear us coming from a mile away, and I'm sure there's been a few that have slipped out silently from us before we could get to them. The rain should rectify this situation.
Once the front passes through, cooler temperatures will be following behind it (upper 30's Sunday night) for all of next week, with temps reaching in to the 50's most days. This cool down should force the grouse to feed heavily to stay warm, moving around in their search to keep their furnaces going, and consequently spreading intoxicating scent for the dogs to find. That's how it should go, anyway, so next week will be the big test of my theory ...
As for the birds, the more walking you can do, the better. There's a lot of hiding spots for grouse to hold in at the moment, so checking every likely looking piece of cover is my recommendation. There's no substitute for good boot leather, so keep walking until birds are found. Our grouse sightings have been good some days and subpar on others to this point in the season, but hopefully that straightens out next week.
We have been finding woodcock regularly, and in a couple of instances we have gotten in to what had to be flight covers. Moist areas, usually on hillsides that contained a good amount of birds in a relatively small space. One such spot in New Hampshire had at least a dozen timberdoodles, in an area that was less than a hundred yards. In Vermont, Rocky and I encountered eight woodcock in a small wet area beside a beaver pond - he pointed and then pounced at the first one, and then proceeded to bump a few of the others. It was overload for the pup, but we'll keep working at it.
Stay dry and warm, everyone. More updates to come ...
While the rain might not be pleasant to hunt in, it should improve the hunting dramatically. First, the scenting conditions for the dogs should be much better, as they have sometimes had trouble getting good scent to work with from the birds. Just as important, it has been incredibly noisy out there as we go through the woods - birds can hear us coming from a mile away, and I'm sure there's been a few that have slipped out silently from us before we could get to them. The rain should rectify this situation.
Once the front passes through, cooler temperatures will be following behind it (upper 30's Sunday night) for all of next week, with temps reaching in to the 50's most days. This cool down should force the grouse to feed heavily to stay warm, moving around in their search to keep their furnaces going, and consequently spreading intoxicating scent for the dogs to find. That's how it should go, anyway, so next week will be the big test of my theory ...
As for the birds, the more walking you can do, the better. There's a lot of hiding spots for grouse to hold in at the moment, so checking every likely looking piece of cover is my recommendation. There's no substitute for good boot leather, so keep walking until birds are found. Our grouse sightings have been good some days and subpar on others to this point in the season, but hopefully that straightens out next week.
We have been finding woodcock regularly, and in a couple of instances we have gotten in to what had to be flight covers. Moist areas, usually on hillsides that contained a good amount of birds in a relatively small space. One such spot in New Hampshire had at least a dozen timberdoodles, in an area that was less than a hundred yards. In Vermont, Rocky and I encountered eight woodcock in a small wet area beside a beaver pond - he pointed and then pounced at the first one, and then proceeded to bump a few of the others. It was overload for the pup, but we'll keep working at it.
Stay dry and warm, everyone. More updates to come ...
