Andrew Marshall Wayment's Blog, page 9

Cover Dogs: Makings of Great Quail Dogs

  

Grouse River Gretchen was 4 months old when she arrived to DIA from Pinkney MI.  My first impression was “Where’s the other half of my dog?”.   At 16 weeks she was scrawny…smallest setter puppy I’d ever seen.  She was a juvenile hellion on wheels around the house.  Several times I recall her jumping the furniture to go check out the cat.  She was a terror to her siblings…canine and human.  I was excited for the following September to roll around…to finally get her on wild birds.  We’d work in the yard throughout the summer and worked on her coming back when I called her. I swear she didn’t know who the heck I was until she was almost 2 years of age. I took Gretchen to eastern Montana that first year at the end of October. I can remember sitting on the tailgate of my hunting partner’s truck for an hour praying and hoping that she would return. Over the horizon she went. Eventually she did come back but it wasn’t until the following year that Gretchen made an amazing point on 4 Colorado scaled quail sitting in a yucca plant. I’ve been enamored with her ever since. Gretchen has become the best quail dog I’ve ever had…she learned from my Elhew pointer Geppetto and now she has certainly surpassed Gep’s training. She’s not perfect, but I love everything about Gretchen.

I’m not a field trialer but I appreciated all age dogs and wild bird cover dogs. Their offspring make for great bird dogs. I’m looking forward to this following year…I plan to get another cover dog setter to learn from Gretchen.

We’ve had a great last few weeks in Kansas and Colorado on wild birds. This has been one of the best quail seasons here since the early 2000’s. Here are a few more photos of our recent trips.

Setter Feathers…

Scaled Quail Country—Happy Holidays

Upland Ways

Here’s some of my favorite photos from scaled quail country that I’ve collected over the years.  Merry Christmas to all my family and friends out there in blogger land.

See ya on the prairie!

Setter Feathers…

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Counting Quail & Quail Dogs: A Photo Essay

This has been one of the best seasons on quail I’ve seen since the early 2000’s. Perfect weather conditions and good habitat are by far the most important factors in producing birds.  I love to chase scaled quail on the short grass, high plains of Colorado…it is by far my favorite type of bird hunting.  It’s taken me the better part of 17 years of study to figure out these birds and they have been worth the time and energy I’ve invested in their pursuit.

I have a few more trips planned for Kansas and father south to chase scaled quail. Hope you enjoy the photos.

See you on the prairie! Setter Feathers…

A Grouse Hunter’s Dream: Finding My Perfect Ithaca Double Gun

Here’s a link (click here) to Andy’s article Shotgun Life about finding the perfect grouse gun and his newly acquired Ithaca NID 20 bore.  Great read Andy!!

GROUSE THERAPEUTIC SESSION

Man, work has been stressful lately! Even if I go grouse hunting, I won’t be able to relax and enjoy myself. I hardly ever shoot well when I’m feeling anxious.  I argue to try to talk myself out of going hunting.

It’s Friday afternoon in November. Winter is coming and you won’t get to hunt grouse very much longer. Besides, a little hunting may do you some good. If you wait until everything is perfect in your life before you go hunting and fishing, you’ll never get out, I respond with authority.

“I’m going hunting!” I resolve firmly out loud.

A few inches of snow cover the valley floor as the dogs and I head to our home coverts. I listen to Carbon Leaf as the mouth of the canyon comes into view. Although there is not much snow yet, it feels like winter as the afternoon’s harsh light reflects off the pale snow. The scenery is a far cry from the halcyon days of October only weeks earlier, but I still love this canyon, its creek, and my grouse coverts, even in the bare November days. Just being here brings me comfort and my work-related stress lessens some.

After a short jaunt up the canyon, I pull the car up next to the gate, which blocks travel into a covert I call the Outhouse. I let Misty and Sunny out and they are excited as they know and love this place as much as I do.

I reach for the over and under instead of the side by side, open it, and stuff two shells into its chambers. With the recent anxiety, it feels good to have something familiar—something tried and true—in my hands.

I open the gate and the dogs and I enter our favorite covert into the narrow creek bottom with steep wooded hillsides along its length. The three inches of snow beneath my feet is dry and powdery, which makes for decent walking. The quakies, so full of color earlier, are now barren, and have that skeletal look to them. But for my dogs, the narrow draw feels solemn and lonely.

We pass the sage flat which has boiled with blues in the past and the giant service berry grove that straddles the creek bottom. In times past, we always seemed to find a blue or ruffed grouse here, but they are nowhere to be found. The desperate days of grouse hunting are clearly upon us, but it is still good to be out.

With the sharp angle of the sun, its rays are directly on my back and with the exertion of hiking up the two-track’s grade, I actually feel a little warm. The sunlight and the warmth do my psyche good.

We pass the covert’s namesake, the Outhouse, in the middle of nowhere. Its green door has fallen to the ground in recent years exposing its insides to the elements. At some time in the past, this was obviously a favorite camping space for someone, but Mother Nature is quickly reclaiming the area and all of the man-made improvements are slowly fading away. The grouse have taken note and the dogs and I usually find a ruffed grouse or two in the area. Only weeks earlier, Brother Shawn and I doubled on a grouse that was only thirty yards from the old outhouse. I reflect on that memory and many more over the years of grouse near the outhouse.

Once past the outhouse, the narrow canyon opens up and forks off in two different directions. The left-hand fork is steeper and leads up to a craggy peak that looks like an ancient, crumbling castle. We’ve found grouse up there in the past, but I decide to hunt the right fork which has been good to me over the years.

I follow the cattle trail through the tall sage in the bottom while Misty works the timbered hillside on the right. With her arthritis, old Sunny Girl struggles to just keep going. I feel sorry for her, but her love of hunting drives her on. The path through the sage steepens as it hugs the left side of the canyon. On our right is a big choke-cherry thicket bordering the creek bottom. Earlier this season, I missed many grouse in this area.

As I pass the end of the chokecherry grove, Misty is out of sight, but I can hear her bell. She is by the creek bottom. The calmness of the woods is broken by the thunder of wings coming from Misty’s direction. I locate the sound and see the grouse through a break in the trees and mark where it lands.

I know right where that bird went. I think I can get a shot, I think to myself excitedly. With the possibility of a shot and a bird, suddenly all of stress and anxiety from work fade away completely. I feel as if I am getting back to something that really matters.

Sunny and I make our way through the chokecherries to the edge of the steep creek bottom and, sure enough, I see the grouse sitting on a limb. The bird eyeballs me, and then flushes hard across the creek giving me a perfect straightaway shot. The ruff drops at my shot and Misty quickly brings it most of the way, but then drops it down in the snowy creek bottom. Sunny Girl, who has always been a great retriever, gets to the bird, picks it up in her mouth, but cannot make it back up the steep hill with her terrible arthritis. So I go to her. This is the only bird she has had in her mouth this whole season and I am happy for her. I take the bird from Sunny, an intermediate phase which is a mix between a brown and gray phase, and admire its beauty. The thought crosses my mind: This may be the last grouse Sunny ever retrieves. Heaven forbid!

Sunny’s only retrieve of 2015.

A handful of feathers. The intermediate phased bird.

The dogs and I hike up to the top of the canyon and move no more birds. Oh well, one is plenty. I am glad I came. As we make our way back past the same chokecherry thicket along the steep creek bank, I hear Misty’s bell go silent. I follow an old cattle trail through the thicket and spy what I had hoped for—Misty on a rock solid point looking downhill in the direction of the creek!

I slowly walk toward Misty, duck under the low lying branches, and catch a glimpse of the object of Misty’s point. I realize, however, that I am not in a good position to take a shot. So I bow under the branch and back track a few steps. The nervous bird has had enough and flushes noisily, quartering left to right. I miss with the first barrel, keep swinging, and slap the trigger again just as my view of the bird’s flight is covered up by a chokecherry bramble. To my utter amazement, the bird falls and tumbles into the snowy creek bottom.

“Alright Misty!” I holler in excitement as she retrieves the gorgeous gray-phased bird to hand. Judging by the bird’s location, I believe this same bird burned my biscuits numerous times this year. I am elated by our success.

A Ruger Red Label and Ruffed Grouse

 

Misty’s bird.

 

Though the season is still open, I decide to leave the remaining birds of the Outhouse alone until next year. Two birds is more than enough and the dogs and I begin the long trek back to the car.

As I walk down the trail with my Brittanies, I feel true gratitude for them, their efforts, my sacred coverts, and my life, even if my job gets stressful at times. To think that I almost let my stress and anxiety keep me from going grouse hunting now seems silly, for hunting and fishing actually help me to keep those things in check. This hunt helps me to realize that many of the things we stress over really don’t matter all that much in the long run. It’s amazing what chasing a feathery footed bird in unkempt places can do for your mental health. It’s good therapy!

This is good therapy!

Scaled Quail Photo Essay

Anyone that follows the Upland Ways knows of my affection for chasing scaled quail on the prairies specially in my home state of Colorado. The birds are here and with a little bit of effort, research and good bird dogs the birds can be found in decent numbers…at least enough to keep a couple guys walking and the dogs running with their choke-bore noses into the praire winds. The season has started out pretty good this year after an 8 to 10 year drought on the eastern plains. Here are some photos I took thus far in the season. Pull up a chair and stay awhile and thanks for your patronage! Merry Christmas and happy New Year! Setter Feathers… 

      

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

 

THE ROYAL FLUSH

One of my all-time favorite outdoor stories has to be “The Royal MacBob” by Robert F. Jones. The story begins with a description of a challenge from James Buchan’s 1925 novel, John Macnab, called the “Royal Macnab” which is to catch an Atlantic Salmon, shoot a red stag, and bag a brace of grouse, all in the same day.

In Jones’s story, he makes up his own sporting challenge or shooting a whitetail deer with his bow, catching a brook trout on his 1 weight fly rod, and shooting a brace of ruffed grouse, all in one day, which he achieves. Jones named it the “Royal MacBob.”

A few months ago, the Saturday afternoon was very hot for September, but I decided to take Misty, my American Brittany, for a few hours to the grouse woods anyway. We headed up to Grouseketeer Ridge, a high alpine covert, hoping to find a grouse or two in the shady areas along an abandoned logging road.

We hiked the road’s full length with nothing to show but a few grouse Misty bumped out of range. Because of the heat, we decided to head back down the way we came because it was more shady on this side of the mountain. Along the way, Misty got birdy, ran up an embankment aligning the road, and pointed into an chokecherry thicket. As I approached, a blue grouse flushed and gave me a close, crossing left to right shot, which I flubbed. While the bird zipped, downhill, I got to the second trigger a little slowly and the grouse made it to the safety of the cover below me. Despite my poor shooting, I had marked it down fairly well. After Misty and I relocated and flushed the bird, I again missed with both barrels. My shooting woes with my new Ithaca NID 20 gage continued.

Upon reaching the logging road, we again headed back down the trail toward the car. Within the next twenty yards, a blue grouse flushed on the uphill side of the road and I swung the NID, slapped the front trigger, and the bird tumbled into the brush below it. Finally, the monkey was off my back! Misty would not retrieve my bird because of the heat so I had to scramble up the hill to pick up the grouse.

Ithaca NID and blue grouse, American classics.

As I walked down the trail, a thought came to my mind: If I can take a ruffed grouse and catch a cutthroat with my tenkara rod today, this could be my own version of the Royal Macnab. That would sure be fun! With my shooting as of late, I figured pulling this off would be a long shot, no pun intended.

I continued to kick the idea around in my head as I drove down the canyon to one of my most productive coverts, which I call “the Outhouse,” not only because the narrow quakie-lined canyon has an actual outhouse about a half mile up the two track road that follows its length, but also because of my crappy shooting there in the past. For whatever reason, even though the canyon’s creek bottom is hammered by grazing cattle, it attracts both blue and ruffed grouse in impressive numbers. Despite the rough shape of the valley, the surrounding hillsides support thick trees and cover where the grouse flee for safety.

Misty and I hunted up the two track and Misty soon bumped a beautiful brown-phased ruffed grouse from a natural spring that had been trampled into oblivion by grazing cattle. Had I been quicker and closer I would have had a nice shot, but I passed as the bird rocketed into the thick timbered hillside. I decided not to pursue the grouse because I didn’t believe I would get a good shot in the thicket.

Misty and I continued up the two-track toward the old outhouse and Misty circled around some thick chokecherry trees lining the creek bottom and flushed a ruffed grouse right at me. After the grouse blasted past me, I shot at it through the timber, but it juked to the left and my shot went astray. The bird then lit in a nearby tree at about eye level.

I quickly reloaded and hiked off the road and to the tree where the ruff nervously gawked at me. I searched briefly for a stick or rock to throw to dislodge the bird, but, at that very moment, the grouse flushed back across the road and creek. I swung on the quartering bird and it dropped in an opening near the outhouse. Misty rushed downhill and retrieved the grouse to me. What started as a hot day with low expectations suddenly became a sizzling, red-letter day.

Every grouse taken on the wing is a trophy, especially with an NID.

Though there was much more productive cover ahead, I decided to call it good.   Suddenly, catching a cutthroat with my tenkara rod never seemed so important. I really wanted to accomplish my own Royal Macnab—so to speak—but what to call it? Since I had met my goal of taking a ruffed grouse in the Outhouse, the feat kind of named itself: The Royal Flush. A big smile crossed my face as I thought of its puerile underpinnings.

When we made it back to the car, the sun was still hot and high overhead. The surrounding mountainous canyon has a tiny creek running its length that you can step across at most locations. I call it “Trickle Creek,” though that is not its real name. Despite its diminutive size, it holds numerous Yellowstone Cutthroat. In the fall, however, the creek is very low and clear and the fish are extremely spooky. With the bright lighting conditions, I realized that the task at hand would be tough.

I drove about three miles down the dirt road to where the canyon narrows between jagged cliffs. At this place, the creek is forced by the road up against the cliffside and holds some usually productive pocket water in the shade. I thought for sure I would catch a fish or two in the rocky runs and plunge pools, but did not move a single fish with my tenkara rod rigged with a Red-butted Renegade.

At this point it was 4:45 p.m. and I didn’t have a lot of time because my wife, Kristin, had given me an ultimatum to be on the road by 5:30 p.m. I thought to myself: Should I head home or give it one more try? Answering my own question, I responded, “Don’t give up just yet. You’ve got plenty of time.”

I then collapsed the tenkara rod, jumped in my car and headed back up road to some other holes that have been productive over the years. After trying one spot unsuccessfully, I drove up another quarter mile and parked. By this time it was 5:10 p.m. I quickly crossed a barbed-wire fence, extended the rod again, and bushwacked to a shaded area on the creek.

After crossing the creek, I fished a usually productive bend—still no bites. As I worked upstream, I cast to a fishy looking riffle and a cutty rose to the Renegade and sucked it in. I struck and drove the hook home. The little cutty was no match for the 12 foot tenkara rod and I quickly brought the little, golden beauty to hand. I was thrilled to accomplish the Royal Flush. With a few minutes left, I continued fishing, caught two more cutthroat in the creek’s skinny, clear water, and was on the road by 5:20 p.m. Mission accomplished!

Beautiful Yellowstone Cutthroat.

Beautiful Cutty with a Badger Tenkara rod.

Undoubtedly, feats like this are fun which is reason enough to try them. However, there are other compelling reasons to set such goals. While some may do them for the bragging rights, to me it is more about knowing your coverts and streams well enough to utilize them successfully—even when conditions are less than ideal. Another reason is the sweet memories they create. Accomplishments like this will keep you smiling for years to come.

The Royal Flush

PARTNERS

Every bird hunter dreams of the perfect trifecta: A dog that regularly finds, points, and retrieves his birds, a shotgun that shoots where you look, and a hunter that makes good on the shot at the chaotic flush. Unfortunately, as ever gunner knows, it doesn’t always work this way. Sometimes it takes time for all these symbiotic parts to come together, but when it does it is sweet.

I came into this hunting season with high hopes. My Brittany Misty had finished last hunting season strong, finding, pointing, and retrieving numerous ruffed grouse. Last spring, I also purchased a classic Ithaca NID 20 Gauge shotgun originally built in 1927. This side by side was advertised as “a Grouse Hunter’s Dream,” which I couldn’t pass up. From March to the season opener, I dreamed of carrying this double gun while following Misty in the grouse woods. Admittedly, however, I had a little concern about trying to learn to shoot a two-trigger gun.

The forest grouse (i.e. dusky, ruffed, and Franklin) season in Idaho opens on August 30th, but I couldn’t make it out until the day after the opener. I took off from work Monday at noon and met up with a friend, Scott Johnson, his son, Brigham, and Brigham’s friend Alex . We headed southeast to a mountainous covert I call, “Grouseketeer Ridge.” This covert consists of an abandoned logging road cut across the side of a steep mountain flanked by Douglas Firs, Quaking Aspens, Mountain Ash, and some Choke Cherries. Blue grouse love the upper and lower edges of the logging road and we sometimes find a few ruffed grouse along its reaches.

Grouseketeer opening day.

It did not take long for us to get into grouse and Alex soon shot his very first grouse. Misty, my Brittany, and I then walked up the logging road to where it forks and we took the road to the left. We slowly walked the edge and pitched rocks into the Mountain Ash hoping to flush a grouse or two along the way. About fifty yards up the road, I stopped above a Mountain Ash tree with its bright orange fruit and a grouse flushed below me and flew straightaway downhill through the timber, which is one of my favorite shots. I raised the NID and, although I watched a few feathers drifting, the grouse did not go down at my shot. I tried to tug the front trigger again, which obviously wouldn’t work on a two-trigger gun. I call such missed opportunities “groaners” for obvious reasons.

The view from Grouseketeer Ridge.

I had a few more difficult shot opportunities that afternoon with the same result—never getting off the second shot. Although I loved being in the grouse woods again, I was a little frustrated with my ineptitude with this new gun. A shooting slump was not how I wanted to start off my hunting season.

Scott checks out Brigham’s blue grouse from opening day.

I hunted alone with Misty on the Friday and Saturday before Labor Day. Misty located numerous grouse both days and I had a few shots at those she did not bump, but, in the thick cover, it was often difficult to see them, let alone get off a shot. And my struggles with the dual triggers continued. Saturday morning, I whiffed an easy quartering shot at a ruffed grouse in thick timber. After missing, I again tried to pull the front trigger to no avail. Needless to say, I felt extremely disappointed at that moment. To top it off, I noticed that the stock of the NID was loose and rattling.

On Sunday, I took a break from hunting and invited a good friend, Cliff Warmoth and his family, over for dinner. As we visited, I told Cliff—who does some gunsmithing—about the rattle of the NID’s stock. He generously offered to see if he could fix it and we drove over to his house. In his garage, Cliff took the gun apart and tightened each of the screws so that the wood held tightly to the receiver.

As I told Cliff about my shooting woes, he said, “Andy, with this classic shotgun, you are taking your hunting to the next level. Just as you and Misty are hunting partners, you and that gun will become partners. Just give it some time.” Cliff’s encouraging words gave me a new determination to learn how to shoot this classic two-trigger gun.

The following morning, Labor Day, Scott Johnson and his sons, Brigham and Wyatt, joined me for another grouse hunt. With the volume of birds on Grouseketeer Ridge, we again opted to hunt this covert first. To our delight, it was loaded with birds. Not five minutes from the truck, I missed one bird that Misty pointed which flew up to a nearby pine tree. Near a place where the logging road forks Misty struck a stellar point on the steep embankment above the logging road. As Brigham and I approached her position, three grouse sparked out of a Mountain Ash thicket above us. Brigham and I raised our guns and Brigham dropped a grouse in front of us. I, on the other hand, could not get off a shot because I had forgotten to reload. I was happy for Brigham, but bummed about another missed opportunity.

After unsuccessfully hunting the left fork for a minute, we then took the right fork which leads through some idyllic, old growth Douglas firs. A blue grouse soon flushed wild from the road without presenting a shot. As we hiked up farther, another blue flushed and crossed the road. I swung the little gun and tugged the front trigger just before the grouse reached a big pine tree near the downhill side of the road. Sure that I’d hit the bird, I watched for the bird to fall and, when it didn’t, asked out loud lamely, “Did I hit that bird?”

As we walked up to the tree in which the grouse lit, the bird surprisingly fell twenty feet into the brushy, log choked woods below us. We scoured the area and a clearly wounded blue grouse attempted to flush, but did not get far with its broken wing. “Fetch! Get the bird Misty!” I commanded.

Misty pursued the grouse in the thick, brushy cover and, each time she got close, it tried to flush to elude her. In the meantime, Brigham located a covey of ruffed grouse nearby and shot two of them. In the chaos of the moment, I lost track of the blue grouse and believed it was hiding in the hellacious cover below us.

Scott Johnson then said to me, “Let’s get Brigham’s birds in the bag and then I’ll help you find yours.”

“I’m not sure that we are going to find it. Mine is probably long gone,” I lamented.

We located Brigham’s second bird under a nearly impenetrable stack of three downed trees surrounded by thick snowberry bushes.

After bringing Brigham’s birds to hand, I then hiked down the steep hillside to where a huge downed tree blocked my progress. Misty and I skirted around the exposed roots of the big tree on its left. To my surprise, Misty quickly found the winged blue grouse below the downed tree sitting near the base of a big live Douglas fir with gnarly, mostly needleless lower branches. When Misty approached the grouse, it ran, but she soon caught up and pinned it until I could get to her.

“Good girl Misty!” I praised. I was so pleased to bring this grouse to hand with the help of my canine partner.

Without Misty, I would not have found this grouse.

Blue grouse and the NID.

No doubt, it had been a tough start to the grouse-hunting season, which made this first bird with my new double gun that much sweeter. From this experience, I have realized that sometimes the good things in life, like a classic shotgun with double triggers, take some time to learn and appreciate.   Misty, the NID, and I still have a long way to go, but we are on our way to becoming first-rate partners.

My partners: Misty and NID.

Upland & Downstream Field Collars

A few weeks ago I was pouring through the September/October (2015) issue of the Shooting Sportsman magazine getting mentally psyched for my annual trek west to Idaho to bird hunt with my best friend and hunting partner…my brother Andy. I stumbled on a review by David Draper about dog collars for the hardcore bird hunter…darn! they had me…that were well constructed and durable made with American materials. The most intriguing quality to their collars was the brass snap that keeps the tail end of the collar from bending back. While holding the article in my hand, I glanced at Gretchen’s leather collar and the tail end was bent so far backwards that it was slapping her in the face. Bingo! I had to have a couple of these Upland & Downstream collars.

I ordered The Countryside with the orange American Duck Wax Cotton, American bridle leather and their patent-pending tail-snap design. They have excellent customer service. Jessica contacted me via email to have me get an accurate neck size on Gretchen and Danny so the brass name plates could be properly centered. It arrived two days later via USPS Priority mail.

Mr. Draper’s review was legit…these are the best upland bird dog collars I’ve ever owned!

The founders of Upland & Downstream obviously have a passion for sporting dogs and the uplands. They wanted to use good quality American material to create a collar that was safer for pets and have a touch of class and elegant style…they have certainly accomplished this goal.

I’m sold…I love these collars. Please visit their website at www.uplandanddownstream.com



Setter Feathers…see you on the Colorado prairies!

GROUSIN’ AROUND

The very height of creation.

Well, the grouse hunting season is in full swing for me here in Idaho and I am loving life (except when work gets in the way of my grouse hunting!).

I’ve been busy writing and wanted to share a few things with the followers of the blog.  My friend Giuseppi Papandrea has a great grouse hunting blog over at www.thegrousefather.com and asked me to contribute a story about my worst misses on grouse.   I told him that was like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack because I miss so much, but then I remember one particular shameful exhibition of ineptitude.  Here is the link if you need a little comical relief: GROANERS.   

Misty in the grouse woods.

Be sure and join the Grouse Mob over at The Grousefather Blog.  Should be a fun blog to follow for all us grousers!

Also, I just had another article published in the Ruffed Grouse Society Magazine, entitled “The Heartbeat of the Woods” which I am super excited about.  In my opinion, the RGS magazine is one of the finest bird hunting magazines out there.

My friend, Ross Young’s great artwork adorns both the cover and accompanies my article.  What an honor to work with such a great artist and all around good guy!  Shawn and I will be hunting sharptails with Ross in just a few weeks.

For those of you interested in reading my article, you can review the whole article in the preview of the magazine at the following link: THE HEARTBEAT OF THE WOODS

I hope to have some other fun articles appearing in other magazines in the near future.  I’ll keep you all posted.

Have a good and safe hunting season.  Remember the tug is the drug and the flush is the rush!!!