Rainy Day Hunting
Weather plays a massive role in whether a grouse hunt will be successful or not. Too hot, too much wind, not enough wind, too dry, whatever it is, there's a bunch of factors that can combine to confound a successful hunt. Today's weather had dire warnings of major rain coming, and we knew that we had a narrow window to get our hunt in. Fortunately, we were able to hunt until 2 PM today, and it turned out to be a great day for us. We were eventually wet, but we had a lot of action, thanks to Rosie's efforts and favorable weather.
She brought plenty of energy, right out of the gate today, and it didn't take her long to begin pointing birds, as she nailed her first six in a row - five grouse and a woodcock. None of them were brought to the bag, but there were a couple of good chances for Jon and Tom. The lead was flying at least, so they were giving it their best effort. We would encounter a total of ten grouse and that lone woodcock in the first cover, so it was a very good beginning to our day.
She brought plenty of energy, right out of the gate today, and it didn't take her long to begin pointing birds, as she nailed her first six in a row - five grouse and a woodcock. None of them were brought to the bag, but there were a couple of good chances for Jon and Tom. The lead was flying at least, so they were giving it their best effort. We would encounter a total of ten grouse and that lone woodcock in the first cover, so it was a very good beginning to our day.
Rosie had another solid outing today. She's made great strides this year in becoming a grouse and woodcock hunter.
Still, the bad weather was moving in, and the rain was starting to intensify a bit. By the time we moved to our second location, it was getting breezy and colder as well, but that didn't seem to bother Rosie. We moved four grouse, one at a time, off of a field edge, gorging themselves with high bush cranberries prior to the bad weather coming in. She then pointed a pair of grouse, one of which made a mistake of flying across the opening ahead of us. Tom made a nice swing and shot, bringing down the fleeing grouse, and we were on the board.
Then Rosie turned her attention to the woodcock that were at hand, and she was a machine, pointing a number of woodcock. While quite a few of them obliged Rosie's points, two of them fell to the guns, one each for Jon and Tom. The really amazing part of the day were Rosie's retrieves on both birds, further illustrating the great conservation tool that well trained birds dogs can be.
On the first one, Jon took a shot through thick cover, and all we saw go down was a mess of leaves and a few branches. Rosie took off after the shot, in the direction of the bird, and Jon and I commenced to discuss the shot taken and the likelihood of his shot actually being true. Lo and behold, here comes Rosie after a few minutes of searching, with the bird in her mouth, bringing it proudly back to us. It was great to see that, and Jon was on the board.
Not to be outdone, Tom made a good shot on another woodcock and we all saw it fall from the sky, near a sizable area of standing water and heavy brush. With myself and Tom actually in the thick of the cover and unable to mark the downed bird, it was difficult to determine exactly where the bird went down. We searched for five to ten minutes, with nothing located - Rosie was "birdy" in a couple of spots, but not enough to recover the bird. There was also the possibility of the bird having landed in the standing water, and us not being able to retrieve it at all.
Plenty of woodcock splash around where we were today. My clients shot a male and a female. We had only been shooting females recently, and the males typically bring up the rear of the migration. Hopefully we have a couple more weeks left of passing woodcock.
Rosie moved on to go on point again nearby, and not wanting to ignore a dog on point, we went to locate her. Ten minutes later, we came back to search for the bird, not wanting to leave a wounded bird behind. Suddenly, Rosie started rooting around in the vegetation beside the water hole, very excited. That's when I could see the woodcock, very much alive but wounded (winged), tucked under an overhang on the edge of the standing water. She pulled it out and we had our second timberdoodle of this rainy day.
Another great session for Rosie and for my clients as well. It looks like we will have good weather tomorrow, and then perhaps some rain on Friday and Saturday. Hopefully it doesn't rain as hard as it did today ...
Another great session for Rosie and for my clients as well. It looks like we will have good weather tomorrow, and then perhaps some rain on Friday and Saturday. Hopefully it doesn't rain as hard as it did today ...
