The spot

It's embarrassing, really. I have a pretty good hunting spot for pheasants. It's a short drive from my home. Unlike a lot places where you hunt pheasants, it's pretty to look at. And it holds a lot of birds. This place, however, gets pounded. It is hunted hard. I'll pull in the turn off at 10 AM on Wednesday and there will often be two or three other trucks there. I think to myself "who gets to go bird hunting at 10 AM on a Wednesday?", then I remind myself that I am one of those people.

Anyway, most of the hunters leave the lot and walk on the trail into the fields. To the left of the trail, there is a vast expanse of grasses and mixed cover. Most guys focus their efforts there. To the right of the trail, there is a swamp. Nobody goes to the swamp. Except me. And the roosters. In fact, nearly every time we've hunted the swamp, we've put up a rooster. It's no more than 100 yards from the parking area and 15 or 20 yards from the main trail. It is uncanny how often this area produces birds. They are almost always in the same spot, a thick patch of "cover within the cover". Now here's the real embarrassing part: I've never hit one of these swamp roosters. It's almost like I don't believe there will actually be one there, again. The scenario that unfolds reminds of the movie "Groundhog's Day": Whit gets birdy and then goes on point. I start to move in, doubting there could actually be another rooster there, that a bunch of other guys and dogs walked by, only a few yards from the trail. Then the thing flushes, startles me and I miss like a rank amateur. For all I know, it could be the same rooster every time, a mythic swamp rooster, capable of dodging a hot load of #6 shot. On the other hand, I could just be a mediocre wingshooter. The score so far this season is swamp rooster 2, Mike zero. Last season I think I went 0-4 against the swamp rooster. If this keeps up, I might start rooting for the bird.

My wife mentioned to one of her girlfriends that I was out bird hunting on a recent morning. Her friend responded, "Oh, my ex-husband used to do that from time to time. I never understood why he would want to get up at the crack of dawn and then go lay in a field, hoping for some birds to fly by". My wife responded, "that's not how Mike does it. The way he hunts birds is more like practicing an art form". I'll keep her.

Reunion

I've known Matt for a pretty long time. We first met in kindergarten and became fast friends. My family moved to the other side of town the following year. Imagine my surprise, when as a newly minted second grader the following year, the new kid in the class was my old friend Matt. His parents had moved within bicycling distance of our new neighborhood. From that point on, we were just about inseparable. We did a lot of typical kid stuff, but one of our favorite activities was "playing guns". There was an empty woodlot near his house where we built bunkers, machine gun nests and staged juvenille military campaigns.

Matt will be the first one to tell you that things did not go well during his adolescence. At first, I tried to be the supportive best friend, but as his troubles grew deeper, we grew further apart. By our early 20's we had lost touch with each other entirely.

Nearly a decade and a half later, we were re-connected by the social networking phenomenon. At first, I was just relieved to learned that after many troubled years, Matt had landed on his feet. Turns out he got pretty good at landing on his feet. In the depth of his troubles, Matt enlisted in the Army. He served in the airborne infantry, and after several years, left honorably, a changed man. He married a young woman that first caught his eye in high school. He held down a respectable job and was close to finishing his college degree.

Improbably, our paths crossed again. Matt took a new job, hoping to relocate closer to family. He ended up in Madison, Wisconsin, less than thirty minutes from me. We met for coffee a couple times after he moved. After so long, I think we both wanted to test the waters and approached things cautiously. Perhaps we needn't have. After all that time, hurt on both sides, we picked we up where we left off.

Matt and I both shared a love of the outdoors as kids, and in the pre-political correctness era, a boyish fascination with guns. Turns out guns would end up playing a substantial role in our lives, Matt as a serviceman and now sport shooter, and me as broken birdhunting addict.

I invited Matt to come with me pheasant hunting. I knew he wouldn't be all that interested in hunting, but thought he might enjoy the hike. I took him to one of my favorite spots. Unlike most terrain that holds pheasants, it is hilly an pleasant to look at. This time of year, much of the ground cover turns a golden hue, framed by the tree-lined hills, which were nearing their peak colors. If anything, we'd have a nice hike on a gorgeous fall day.

After busting cover for over an hour with nothing to show for it, I decided to take a little break and actually walk along an established trail. I was pleased with the way my dog Whit was quatering, covering the edges of the trail. Regardless, I think even the most dedicated birddogger starts to lose a little faith in the pup if you aren't finding any birds. It was about that time that Whit found religion and got on a bird. There was a small game trail off the main thoroughfare that caught her interest. She pointed briefly, and then began a low, cat-like crawl. Each footstep seemed to fall more deliberately than the last, until she finally froze into a point. It was clear that the bird was on the move, as this sequence repeated itself several times. We made our way down the game trail, a jaunt of about 75 yards. The trail then came to a small clearing. Several things tend to happen at clearings like this. Sometimes, the bird will loose its nerve and flush. That didn't happend. Other times, they will hunker down at the end of the cover, which can make for some nice shooting. Often, they just keep running. Thankfuly, this bird took the second best option: it ran across the clearing and into the closest patch of thick cover, where it sat. It wasn't fooling Whit. She made right for the tangle and went on point. The bird had had enough and flushed, offering a relatively easy quatering-to-the-right shot. I missed cleanly with both barrels. We watched it fly, Matt at a slightly better vantage point than I. We both lost track of the bird as it dipped below a small rise. We followed it and were greeted by acres upon acres of unbroken, chest high cover. I knew the bird was as good as gone, but we tried anyway. We never found any sign of the bird.

After many years, Matt and I were forging a new bond, with similar constituents to when we were kids: guns and the outdoors. I'm glad to have my oldest friend back.

The old and new

The thing about hunting is that you are almost always looking for new places to do it. Today, I hunted the "home covert", my woodcock hot spot from last year. We put up two birds, only one of which had to worry about dodging my shot string, which it did nicely. Coverts that are golden one year my be barren the next. That's why most the time I drive anywhere I am also scouting for land to hunt.

After picking the through the home covert, I went on to explore an area I scouted last spring. After high-stepping through marsh grass, loosing a boot in a sink a hole and taking a tumble in a mud wallow, I once again began to question why I do this sort of thing. There were no birds to speak of and just a lot of misery for me and the dog.

Yesterday, I hunted an entirely new area with a new friend. After about 3 hours of boots on the ground, we put up exactly one woodcock. At least I don't have to take credit for the miss. We still drove home happy. I spent the day feeling like I was walking through one of those paintings that idealizes hunting in the fall. It was ideal, except for the no birds in the bag part.

Timing is everything

September 29th. The date had been on my calendar for a while. It would be the first day I would try to hunt woodcock this year and the official start of my upland hunting season.

It was about 42 degrees out when I woke up, with a light frost and fog heavy in the air. Just about perfect weather for hunting. Well, then I helped get the kids off to school and loaded the gear to go. I hit the woods at about 8:30 AM. The frost was gone, the sun was up and the fog burned off. It was a hell of nice morning, but far from ideal hunting conditions. The window of really excellent weather only lasted about 90 minutes.

I was hunting the home covert today, where I had quite a bit of luck during the flights last year and moved some resident birds outside of the peak times. Being September, the undergrowth was still quite thick. More than once the dog and I just about bounced off impossibly thick tangles that seemed to say "you shall not pass!".

Whit had one solid point, but it was a non-productive. I don't doubt there was bird there, was being the appropriate form of the verb. I think my eagerness to get the season going we hunted less-than-ideal cover too early in the season under too warm conditions. We'll let it rest for a couple weeks and try again.

Michael McIntosh passed away on August 14th. Michael was an English professor, with an expertise in Shakespeare, who became a noted gun writer. He published over a dozen books and has been a regular contributor to major sporting magazines. He has the reputation of a true gentleman and took a genuine interest in his fans.

I never knew "Mac", but like many of his fans, I felt like I did from his writings. I know he liked fine guns, not-so-fine but classic guns. He liked fine drinks as well, and was often seen smoking his pipe. He gave his readers that he lived life on his own terms, and apparently, he died that way, too.

According to fellow writer Gary Capelletti, McIntosh was suffering from pneomonia and was not doing well. He decided to remove his oxygen mask so he could enjoy his pipe. He died after that.

In one of his books, McIntosh remarks that "God the Father shoots a Purdey hammergun". Well, Michael, I hope you find out for certain.

Godspeed, Michael McIntosh.

The impressions we make

It wasn't exactly an auspicious start to our hunt. My wife's uncle Steve was visiting town, and I had told him I would take him pheasant hunting. Now, Steve is from Kansas, which is one of the premier pheasant hunting states in the union. I live in Wisconsin. On average, hunters harvest about on third as many pheasants in Wisconsin as they do in Kansas. Kansas is usually is ranked somewhere in the top 3 in pheasant hunting destinations, whereas Wisconsin doesn't make the list. Steve also grew up hunting pheasant and quail, and I was a relative newcomer. I tried to set the expectations low.

I was taking him to one of my "hot spots". It never held a ton of birds, but I could usually count on getting a couple up. We didn't have a lot of time to hunt, but this spot was only about 35 minutes from my home. We pulled into the gravel parking lot accompanied by the staccato whines of Whit, my Weimaraner. Gravel roads mean one thing to her and one thing only: bird hunting, and she was ready to go. We went around to the back of the truck to unload when I realized I left both hunting vests, loaded with shells, on the floor of my garage. We didn't have a single shell between us. The nearest place to buy shells was about 20 minutes away, and the clock on our hunting time was ticking away. We raced to the store, bought two boxes of shells (one 12 gauge, one 20 gauge) and a cheap vest to carry them in. Finally, we were back at the hunting spot and ready to have at it.

We worked a wide feel with a thick cover of trees on one side. This section usually held a bird or two. When I hunt, I usually alternate watching the dog and looking out ahead, either for birds blowing out of the cover or our next objective. Well, about 100 yards down the field, I saw a rooster pheasant and his lady run out of the cover and into the next the big field. My dog never seemed to get wind of them and we never figured out where they went.

Near the apex of our hunt, the turn around point where the swamp becomes impassable, Whit finally pinned a bird in a clump of small trees. Steve posted on Whit's right, while I worked around from the left, hoping to flush the bird in Steve's direction and give him a fair shot. Whit stayed steady and the bird flushed, yet somehow managed a near vertical take off. It was a bit like a woodcock flushing, except about 6 times the size. The flush gave Steve and I both a safe shot, and we both took it, and missed. Things were not shaping up well.

We headed back to the truck. I wasn't counting on seeing any more birds that day. There is a long, linear row of brush and small trees towards the parking lot. When we first approached this stretch of cover, Whit got very birdy. She made a quick point, then stealthily crawled forward. Another quick point and then she was stalking again, like a lioness trying to get within pouncing distance of an antelope. Generally, this means one thing: there is a rooster pheasant in the cover, and it is on the move. The brush patch was rather long. There was a chance the bird would turn on the afterburners and run out the other end. It could also make it to the far end and flush out of range. I reckoned the odds were a least as good the it would get to the end of the row and then hunker down, hoping we would pass by, rather than risk exposing itself. If the bird cooperated, chances were good for another point for the dog and the opportunity to redeem ourselves from our poor shooting.

About that time, a woman walked around the far end the line of brush. She was decked out in North Face gear and walking a leashed golden retriever. I broke open my shotgun, cradled it in my left arm, and smiled and waved. I called Whit back to me and turned towards the parking lot.

That hunt was nearly two years ago. I got to thinking about it again after reading Mark Parman's excellent new book " A grouse hunter's almanac". In it he describes some less-than-ideal encounters with both hunters and non-hunters in the field. I thought about how my encounter with this woman could have gone differently. We were there first. The land is public and open to hunter and non-hunter alike. I could have shouted for her to get the hell out of our way. Chances are she would have listened to two armed men. Sadly, I'm afraid that is how some my hunting brethren may have responded. Finding others in our favorite spots does not always bring out the best in us. Yet when I'm in the field, I always think of myself as the public face of hunting. Percentage wise, the number of hunters in the U.S. is pretty small, even though the hunting industry has a pretty big economic impact. Dedicated bird hunters like myself are fewer still in number. We need to do our best to stay in the public's good graces.

I may not have achieved anything by showing deference to the dog walker. She may have still been intimidated and scared by the two of us. Non-hunters and people who don't shoot don't always react well to the sight of people openly carrying guns, even it if it on well-marked public hunting land. My hope would be that she would at least remember us as courteous. I don't suspect she'll spread the word about the two polite hunters she met, but could you imagine the conversations she would have with girlfriends if we were not? Public relations wise, it would have been far worse.

These reflections also got me thinking about the false-machismo portrayed on may hunting TV shows and some magazines. It seems to be all about the tough guy with gun, bagging the biggest buck, showing up other hunters. I find these yahoos hard to take. Let's face it, that's not what being a man is really about. Hunting has helped me understand what it means to be a man, and it certainly doesn't look much like the Bone Collector or Buckmaster.

Upland hunting continues to interest me because it requires the acquisition of so many skills: training and understanding a birddog, recognizing likely habitat for game birds, figuring out game bird behavior under a variety of conditions, and lastly, but not least, safely and effectively handling a firearm. Then there is the individual code of ethics that many upland hunters follow: no shooting birds on the ground or out of trees, shooting less than your limit on certain birds (woodcock in particularly), not over hunting your best spots, and sharing your sport with others. In the process, I have developed a deep appreciation for the land, the game, the seasons and the pursuit of excellence. I'd like to think these things have made me a better man, not the knock-down power of the gun I shoot, the size of the truck I drive to the woods nor how many head of game I kill.

At the heart of true hunter/sportsman, there is a gentleness that is hard to explain. We care greatly about our dogs. We marvel at their skill, not just how cute they looked dressed for the holidays. Our bond with them is intense because we work as a team. We deeply love the game we pursue. There is a sweet sadness to holding a wild game bird, recently killed, in your hands. I can't tell you how many times I've read about hunters stroking the bird's feathers, marveling at their beauty and giving thanks to the game. We appreciate the gift of life and the reality of death. We love the land and care to conserve it. These are our best characteristics as hunters, and the ones that should be our face to the public, not the silly braggart with the biggest gun.