RUFFIN’ IT WITH MISTY
RUFFIN’ IT WITH MISTY
It’s hard to believe, but we are nearing the end of my Brittany, Misty Morning Sunrise’s (“Misty”), third hunting season. Although things started out a bit shaky because of Misty’s intense personality, she has turned into quite the bird dog and also a good companion in the field, which is every bit as—if not more—important to me.
As I reflect on her already impressive career, I think my favorite memories with Misty are hunting ruffed grouse together. For whatever reason, Misty just seems to get ruffed grouse hunting. For this post, I thought it would be fun to share a few snapshots of ruffin’ it with Misty during her first three seasons.
2010, FIRST SEASON
It’s late October and my brothers, Shawn and Robbie, and my son, Tommy and his friend, Mason, and I are pushing through a covert we call “Grouse Springs” because we always seem to find the grouse close to the natural springs on the edge of the big quaking aspen- filled draw. The dogs get ahead of us and Sunny Girl locates and flushes a ruffed grouse into a tree. Sunny then does something I’ve never heard before; she barks in high-pitched excitement—like a Golden Retriever—at the treed grouse until I can get into position.
I finally see the object of her excitement in a small quakie, a ruffie with its crest raised in alarm. I holler at the bird and walk toward it briskly and it flushes hard into the thick cover. I snap a shot at the grouse as it tops out of the trees, but I don’t see the bird go down. I think to myself: I think I was on that bird.
Robbie, Shawn, and the boys continue to push up to the top of the draw. I decide to take the dogs and see if we can find that grouse. We follow the line the bird took. The going is tough in the thick cover, even with the leaves down, and I have to get on my hands and knees to get through one gnarly section. When we reach a small opening, I hear the thunder of wings, but the bird only gets a few feet off the ground as its wing is broken. That’s Misty’s cue and she chases down the running grouse and brings it to hand: “Alright Misty!” I praise. It is one of my proudest moments of her to date.
Misty’s bird.
A fine brace of gray-phased ruffs from Grouse Springs.
****
It’s the beginning of November and I am not ready to hang up the hunting vest yet as it has been the best season I have had in years, which has a lot to do with Misty. Besides, this Saturday morning is blue bird beautiful. I decide to take the dogs to the “Royal Macnab,” my favorite covert in the world.
Since the sharptail season is now closed in Idaho, we are looking for ruffed grouse in the trees above the rolling CRP fields. We walk along a two track road, with thick quakies on either side. The cover reminds me of many of the New England coverts I have read about in so many books and fittingly, the fall colors are in full force.
In the midst of my revelry, Misty wanders off to my right into a thick tangle and goes on point, with Sunny Girl backing. There is no doubt in my mind that she has a bird. While my heart pounds in my chest, a bird rips up through the cover and I promptly miss it twice.
More determined than ever, I mark the bird down and go right to the spot it landed and it flushes again, with the same result. The bird’s flight is farther this time, but I think I know generally where it is. We get over to the site and I’m walking on egg shells as I know the bird will erupt any second. The dogs and I are pushing through sage and bitter brush near a grove a quakies and the bird gets up in the wide open. I blow two more holes in the sky and the bird is gone.
Later that day, I post on the Upland Equations’ wall on Facebook, “Grouse 6, me 0. I got my butt kicked today in the grouse woods!”
2011, SECOND SEASON
The Winter of 2010 and 2011 had been a harsh one. The snow in the high country did not leave until early June of 2011. The long winter had taken its toll on the grouse populations. The dogs and I struggled to find many birds on opening day.
Notwithstanding, hunting is an exercise in optimism and I decide to take off the Friday of opening week to try and find some darn grouse. We hunt Grouseketeer Ridge and see nothing. To paraphrase Benjamin Winiford Payne, from the movie, Major Payne, I jokingly state out loud: ”There gotta be some bird need a lil’ killin’.” So we head over to Grouse Springs.
Grouse Springs has been so consistent over the years so I still feel hopeful. However, despite a good once over, we find no grouse in the draw where the spring flows. We hike all the way to the top of Sunrise Ridge and locate no blues up top. So we head downhill to quakie draw that runs parallel to Grouse Springs, a covert, I call, “Grouse Alley.” This is our final push for the day.
Since it’s early September, the trees are dressed in full, green foliage and the cover is thick. Not to mention that it is getting hot. As we make our way down a narrow game trail, an alley of sorts, the dogs and I enter into a small brushy opening that just screams of grouse. Sunny and Misty, the old-timer and the pup, begin to work scent in unison giving me only a moment’s warning. As they zero in on the scent’s source, a grouse flushes hard through the opening giving only a split second for a shot. I swing as hard as I can and actually shoot through some thick green leaves. The next thing I hear is the threnody of the bird’s last wing beats on the forest floor. Sunny Girl brings the bird to hand. I am thrilled to the core.
First and only bird of September.
I love this picture because you can seen the intensity in Misty’s eyes.
This was our only bird for the whole month of September.
****
Despite a rough start, hunting improves in October, especially during our annual week of hunting in the Idaho uplands. Shawn and I are ecstatic about how the hunting has been. Man, I love Idaho!
While I love to hunt, quail, Huns, and sharptails, the birds of my heart are Ruffs and Blues. So it is only fitting, that we end the week in one of my best ruffed grouse coverts, Grouse Alley, where I took my first bird of the year in September.
For years, Shawn, who lives in Colorado where you can’t hunt ruffed grouse, has wanted to take a ruffie over a point, but just can’t seem to get it to all come together when he is in Idaho. As we walk through Grouse Alley, his little tri-color setter, Grouse River Gretchen, does what she was bred to do, and finds a points a bird, which flushes straightaway. Brother Shawn snaps a shot through the cover and the bird comes down.
When the bird is brought to hand, Shawn exclaims, “Andy, this is a red-phased grouse!”
Brother Shawn and his red-phased ruff from Grouse Alley.
I respond, “They are pretty rare in this covert. The majority of the grouse here are gray.”
We continue to push down the alley and the dogs are working the cover well. Only fifty yards from where Shawn took his grouse, Misty, no longer a puppy, crosses in front of me and strikes a beautiful point, which all bird hunters live for.
“Brother, Misty is on point!” I exclaim.
At the sound of my voice, the bird thunders right to left and I swing hard and throw a shot ahead of the gray blur. With the thick cover, I do not see the bird hit the ground, but Shawn does.
“Good shot, Andy!” He compliments.
I am so proud of Misty that I hoop and holler, “Yeah Misty!” What a way to end the week in the Idaho uplands! It felt as if the dogs and I had come round full circle.
Two distinct ruffs from Grouse Alley.
2012, THIRD SEASON
It rained hard Friday night, but I don’t want to miss out on any hunting this opening weekend. My son, Tommy, agrees to come with me this Saturday morning. Fortunately for us, the sun decides to show its faces and warm things up some, but everything is still soaked and we get a little wet too. We hunt the windy ridges in search of blue grouse and find a few, one of which we take and Misty retrieves.
After a long and fruitless walk on Hope Hill, Tommy is ready to call it a day. But a diehard grouse hunter is never ready to call it quits. So I keep my eyes peeled as we head down the dirt road towards home. As we drive, I notice a ruffed grouse sitting on a bare spot beneath a big pine tree, where it is trying to get dry and warm from the wet night. There’s my Roadside Revelation!
“Tommy, I just saw a bird!” I stated excitedly, “I’m going after it, okay?”
“Okay, but I’m going to stay here and play on my pad.” Tom responds. Kids and their dang technology!
I pull over and climb the barbed-wire fence and hike towards where I saw the grouse. As Misty and I work through the trees, however, we don’t see the bird. I am about to turn back, but then think: I know what I saw. There was a grouse somewhere in here. So I stay the course. Ten feet further, I spy the grouse hunched beneath a pine bough, right where I first saw him. I knew I saw a grouse! I call Misty over to me and point towards the bird and command, “Get the bird!”
Misty makes her way toward the bird and it gets up and runs back the direction we came in. I realize that if I am to get a shot, I need to relocate, so I quickly back track down the game trail I came in on hoping to see the bird when it gets up. Misty flushes the grouse perfectly right in front of me. I throw a shot ahead as it crosses in front of me and the bird drops. Misty and I have our first ruffed grouse of the year and I couldn’t be happier.
Our first ruff of 2012. Without Misty, it would not have happened.
*****
Like I said, Misty has turned into a heck of a good bird dog and, to my good fortune, she excels on the wily ruffed grouse. I look forward to our future days together in the grouse woods. There is nowhere I’d rather be than ruffin’ it with Misty.
Hunting buddies. Man, I love that dog!
