Grouse Covert Hunting Pays Grouse Hunter Off Later

When I was a newlywed in 1978, my father in law introduced me to small game hunting. He was a North Country vet living on a going-back dairy farm off Route 30 just north of Malone. His youth – during the Great Depression – and later his work for struggling small dairy farmers never left him much time or money for training bird dogs. But the North Country had a great abundance of snowshoe hares then – his buddies called them white rabbits – and Doc just loved to hear beagle music as his hounds ran through the cedar swamps, birch clumps and pine patches just behind the barn.

I flushed more grouse by accident back then and there than I do now on purpose in western New York’s Southern Tier. Maybe it’s because Doc’s land was my formative hunting ground, or maybe it’s simply that I saw a lot of birds erupt from that sort of landscape. For whatever reasons, that habitat has remained my personal vision of what proper grouse cover looks like.

Thirty years and 400 miles to the south and west later, early successional forests are not common on public land hereabouts. In fact, they're damned scarce. Imagine my delight, then, when I recently followed up some scouting leads and discovered a place that looks “just right.” I flushed a bird there on my initial visit, and got a shot at one on the next. By concentrating on this particular parcel, I’m finally hunting grouse instead of grouse coverts. And it paid off just the other day.

We weren't 10 minutes out of the car when Gordie, a flushing spaniel, began working ground scent on the edge of a dry creek bed. I could see his enthusiasm ratcheting up, and, happily succumbing to optimism, I took a set-up step with my left foot in the direction in which the dog was working. With incredible timing, the pup flushed the bird not a dozen yards in front of me, and I had a rather easy shot for the 20 gauge L. L. Bean “Uplander” from B. Rizzini. The retrieve was short and sweet, and before there was any sweat in my hatband, Gordie had his first-ever local grouse.

Gordie Already Eager For His Next Cast

In the remainder of the 2 hours we hunted there, Gordie flushed two more grouse and three woodcock. I had good shots at only one of each. I’m still not sure whether to be happy that I grabbed a good shotshell for that first grouse, or angry that the rest of the box was so obviously defective. Since I’ll be getting back there a time or two before the deer hunters take over in November, I guess it’s OK that I left some birds for seed.