There Were Grouse Everywhere

Sometimes you zig and the grouse zag.  It's like that movie from the 60s "The Endless Summer" -- every time they would get to a new beach that was supposed to have super surf the ocean would be like a mill pond and some local would say you should have been here yesterday (or last week).  That's the way it can often be with grouse.  It's hard to anticipate where they are going to be when.  But you should have been here today.  This morning we moved 58 grouse and 5 woodcock.  Tony got so excited on one mega-brood (might have been two together) that he fired three times as grouse got up in waves of four or five.  He claimed a real count of fifteen grouse in that one bunch.  We had multiple other broods as well as a number of singles.  Every dog we ran had grouse work and four had woodcock as well.

In the first brace both Trip and Bertha had finds on broods and then Trip had two woodcock finds back near the truck.  Bertha also had a single grouse just before we picked up.  Then LJ and Trash ran in the Bad Back Cover (So named because a couple of years ago during the season I took Jack in there and Tony's back was so bad he stood by the truck.  It turned out to be like a driven shoot with me flushing a bunch grouse in front of Jack and sending them out over the Landing where Tony fired away but was in so much pain that he couldn't swing right -- at least thats' what he claimed -- and the birds flew passed unharmed.) Trash went up and had a woodcock and then multiple grouse finds.  LJ went low and had a pair of grouse on one find and two other grouse finds on singles.

Then along the road we had a brood and let Trash out to work them and she had multiple finds as the birds had scattered on both sides of the road.  Jack and Rigby were the last brace and they each had a grouse and a woodcock during a good hour run.  On the way back, we found another brood along the road and this time Bertha got multiple finds.  By the time we got out of the woods and got to the restaurant in town it was too late for breakfast and we had to settle for the Friday lunch special -- Lobster rolls.  Yep, you should have been here today!