Too Busy Hunting

Alex Rikert going in on one of Frankie's points this morning.

Steve Groy and Alex Rickert wait for Tony to send out a woodcock.  Alex got this one.

Yesterday we started the day with four of us hunting -- Tony, me, and Mr. & Mrs. Carney. The 100 Bird Cover came up a little short today as we only moved 37 woodcock with Mo (Joe McCarl's dog) pointing many of them.  Then we got mixed up with the Big Thudd and a couple of his internet buddies -- Jeff from southern New Hampshire and Alex Rickert from Montana.  We split up for a hunt with Jeff and Lloyd going with me while I ran Jack and ALex and Timmy went with Tony to see the Little Thuddster go. There seemed to have been some confusion over when to shoot as the grouse Little Thuddy pointed escaped with out a shot.   We went up high with Jack and he had two grouse finds in tough windy conditions and Lloyd knocked one down.  We then took The Rig to another spot where we moved some grouse and a woodcock -- Alex shot one of each over points.  Then it was The Missile's turn -- only her second outing of the season -- and she had a nice find on a woodcock and stopped where some grouse had just gotten up and one landed in clear view in a tree.  Alex was given papal dispensation from Tony to shoot the bird and he walked towards it just as it flew he snagged a foot in a branch and almost fell.  The grouse needless to say flew away without a scratch.  the final hunt of the day was in the home cover where we moved a half dozen woodcock and a 2 grouse most of which were pointed but the cover was thick and we didn't get any good shots.

This morning we went back to the 100 Bird Cover with Steve Groy and Renzo who seemed a little baffled by the quantity of woodcock.  we moved 33 of the little bogsuckers -- he pointed a few -- and Lloyd knocked down 1.  It really is a miserable place to shoot.  LJ ran second and had a half dozen finds on 8 woodcock and 2 grouse.  The woodcock twice came up in pairs and Steve and Alex each got one.  Frankie ran in the Cemetery and Alex got two woodcock over three finds.   Gracie got a dry cover and we didn't move any birds.  Then Trash ran in a little corner where we moved a couple woodcock and a pair of grouse with one woodcock in the bag.   Alex then had to head out to his next hunting appointment in Maine.  We hunted one more woodcock flight cover that only had two woodcock one of which was killed.  However we moved six grouse.  It's hard to keep track with that many birds in the air but the total for the day was somewhere around 48 woodcock and 11 grouse.