First shot. Underneath him.

Second shot. Underneath him. The grouse slipped behind the pine and gained distance. I leaned back to keep him over the barrel.

Third shot. I thought he shook in the air but he kept going. He banked to the left of an old cedar tree.

I stood in the icy mud in disbelief. Then berated myself. Easy shots in grouse hunting are rare. Like fat-free-bacon-that-actually-tastes-good sort of rare. I was pissed.

Excuses spilled out of my face. Then four-letter shots of encouragement for the next bird.

I walked to the spot where I saw him last. I kicked at the mud. Dejected. I was just about to move on under that big old cedar. Then the grouse exploded from the branches about 20 feet from my head. Ok. That one surprised me.

I drew a bead and followed him to the forest floor. Zeus finished the retrieve.

I stood in the icy mud in disbelief. Then congratulated myself. Like I was saying, easy shots happen mostly for expert grouse hunters. I enjoy the challenge of making easy shots look very difficult. Yeah. That’s right. Or…umm…something like that.

Every shot has a story. It just depends how you tell it. I think it would be cool to start 2013 by swapping some stories. Leave a comment or share a link to your latest #ShotStory.

Happy New Year!

Making it look easy. Haha.

Zeus working the woods

Jim and his grouse

Most feather-chasers laugh when I say I’m hitting the northern Michigan woods for the grouse and woodcock openers. They tell me they don’t hunt until the leaves are down. The forest is too thick. The odds are stacked against hunters. They tell me they don’t waste the time.

I know the truth. They used to hit those woods when they were younger. When they had dogs that could run all day. When just a few motrin would put their knees back in brush pants instead of under ice packs. I know because I’m not as young as I used to be. These days it just makes sense to wait until the woods aren’t so mad you’re there.

But I can’t wait. I can’t sit at home when there’s birds to hunt.

It’s a good hurt.

So I push on. Dragging my brother and my buddies through the thorns and briars. Where spider webs cling to my face and aspen branches whip my ears. Where my old dog pulls new tricks. Where woodcock spring to air with that unmistakeable chirp.

The only place you can hear that heart-stopping sound of a grouse flush.  That’s what makes it all worth it.

The First Fall Colors

Grousey Cover in the Manistee National Forest

The Prize

“Dear Zeus,
I want to start by saying happy 10th birthday. On July 25, 2002 you became part of our family. Since that day you have demonstrated loyalty, obedience and love for us every waking moment. Your talents in the art of waterfowl and upland game retrieving has brought joy to all who have had the privileged to hunt along side of you. Your overall mellow personality and love for people is unlike any other dog I have met. In a world filled with worries about work, school and money you remind us of the little things in life that should be cherished. A ride in the truck, a walk through the woods, a nap in the club house and a sunset from the blind. We find our best qualities in you. You have celebrated some of our biggest accomplishments in life, yet helped us through our greatest defeats without saying a word. You are the truest example of what man’s best friend should be. Congratulations on reaching the decade mark and may the next ten years be filled with “get dem birds”, blinky balls, chippies and club house napping. Love you BigBoi.”

Sincerely,

Jimmy Thrubis

Thanks for the heartfelt words brother. I’m looking forward to another season with the old boy. Almost as much as he’s looking forward to tasting all those feathers.

Here are just a few of Zeus’s finer moments. Here’s to hoping for many more.

NoDak 2009

Z’s First Swan

Z’s First Snow Goose

Wake-up Call

Grouse Hunting

Long Retrieve

King of the Road

Last Call

Happy Boy

Located near Dexter, MI, BT Joe’s is a shooting preserve and sporting clays course with good prices and a comfortable feel. Bruce runs the place. A friendly down-to-earth dude who splits his time between raising birds, maintaining clay launchers and about a thousand other things. It was my first trip to BT Joe’s so Bruce gave me the low down while he lit a fire in the potbelly stove. Outside the cabin Zeus and Tugboat harassed the cage full of birds bungee-tied to the back rack of the quad. Chukars, quail and pheasants. Our targets for the day. We signed some paperwork and headed out into the bright December morning.

We wound through the sporting clays course. Dodging mud puddles veiled in a thin layer of ice. The grass was frosted and folded over. The frozen mud was sharp and glittering in the sun. When the trail opened up to the field my jeans got a little tighter in the front.

A little 40 acre slice of South Dakota. Corn rows. Mixed with grassland. Mixed with sorghum. I wasn’t in a rut anymore.

Colleen joined Dusty and I with her fancy camera. As the proud mama of yellow-pup she was determined to document his adventure. I’ve never hunted or fished with my very own camera crew before and the results were great. Colleen snapped the awesome pics included below.

The first bird in the pouch was a big rooster that Tug flushed from standing corn. Then a quick crossing shot put feathers in my vest. My first (ever) Chukar. Then Zeus flushed a quail right at Colleen who got a great pic of the bird in flight.

A short break. A few pics. Back to work. Zeus got birdy near a big pile of rocks. We surrounded the area and Z made eye contact. His back stiffened. He crouched and started to stalk the pheasant. The bird exploded into the air and flew right past me. I turned, shouldered the gun and watched the bird fold-up on it’s way to the snow. By the time Tug got there the pheasant had burrowed into the grass vanishing without a trace. Tug’s first instinct was to search with his eyes. Made sense to me. He watched it drop. When that didn’t work he switched on his nose working the area over in a hurry. Suddenly, he reared back and dove into a pile of ice covered weeds. A short struggle later and he powered out of the cover with that pheasant like an old pro.

We ended up with 10 or 11 birds. A mixed bag of pheasants, bobwhites, chukars and a Tennessee red quail. Every bird flew high and hard making this trip feel more like a wild hunt. We paid about $140 for 12 birds which really is very reasonable. The field is a good size to work for a few hours but it isn’t huge. It’s perfect for a small group of hunters or training/running a couple dogs.

See what the place is all about at their website: http://www.btjoes.com/

I need to mention that I didn’t receive any compensation for writing this post by Bruce or BT Joe’s. I enjoyed the experience and decided to share. Simple as that.

Hunter, Photographer & Jr Retriever

Doin' Work

Action Shot

I think Zeus is enjoying himself

Back at it

Hold...Hold.....

The Birds

We just spent the last five hours pushing the thickest, nastiest, thorniest, marshiest cover without a ruffed grouse in the truck to show for it. Our legs were sore. Our hands were covered in mud, tiny cuts and dried blood. Now this little bastard is flashing his shit not even ten feet from the hood of my Silverardo.

My brother crept out of the passenger door to settle the score. The bird flew a hundred yards into an aspen thicket. I hopped out of the truck to help Jim track down that bird but hardly got a word out of my mouth before all hell broke loose.

A covey of hens, the audience of the courting dance, burst into the air with a thunderous flush. I called the shot for my brother. Who didn’t have a shell in the chamber. His ammo slipped from his hands all over the ground. He managed to get one shot off but didn’t connect. I parked the truck, grabbed my gun and let Zeus get to work.

It was only 4:30 but the early winter dusk gave the woods an ominous darkness. Zeus was birdy. We struggled to pace him. I keep an eye on the truck so we didn’t get turned around and lost. December in Northern Michigan is not the place for a surprise overnight camp-out.

Twenty minutes later I was shivering. My sweat soaked clothes grabbed the chill out of the air trapping it under my shirt. Zeus was running wild through the trees. The birds must have scattered leaving a confusing maze of scent trails to follow. I admitted defeat.

I called Zeus back but he didn’t show. I shouted again. Nothing. For a second I thought he was lost. Then I heard the wings.

A grouse exploded to the air. It was every bit of a 45 yard shot through the trees. I swung through, shot twice and still can’t believe I hit it.

We hiked back to the road in the dwindling light. Laughing that we worked all day to see 6 birds. Then saw 5 just driving the two-tracks on our way home. That’s huntin.

About 100 yards from the truck Zeus switched on. His tail swinging in that tell-tale circle. Another bird was nearby. It was Jim’s chance.

The dog lunged into the brush. The grouse ripped through the air dodging left and right. Jim’s shot blew-up a branch. The grouse sailed off into the woods.

The next morning looked more like winter. Fresh snow muffled our steps and kept the birds roosted up. The first bird caught me off guard. It knocked snow on my hat as it flushed from a pine tree 5 feet above my head. The second one held for a moment. I only caught a glimpse of his tail-feathers before the Benelli barked. I thought for sure I missed it.

Until Zeus trotted out of the thorn bushes with that bird in his mouth.

Every grouse in my vest is a trophy. I was lucky enough to get three. I got to watch Zeus put years of experience to work flushing at least 16 birds in 12 hours. I witnessed the lakes freezing up. Watched the first flakes of the season. And I’m left counting the hours until I can get back up there and do it all over again.

December Afternoon

Ponds Freezing Up

Zeus and I at Work

Sun in the Aspens

Sundown

Looking Tough

Me and the Boy

Me & Zeus with a Grouse

One of the Trophies

Bird #3 at Sundown

This legendary concoction is known as the Bacon Log. It’s the combination of 2 lbs of bacon, 2 lbs of sausage, your favorite dry rub and some BBQ sauce.

Start by weaving slices of bacon together on a cookie sheet. Smash the sausage into a thin layer on top of the weave. Cook and crumble more bacon on the sausage and smother it with BBQ sauce.

Roll up the sausage layer to form the inside of the log. Then wrap it with the bacon weave and apply your favorite dry rub. Place it in the fridge. Go grouse hunting.

To create an appetite large enough to contend with the heart-attack inducing log, hike through the woods with your favorite shotgun in hand. A well experienced grouse dog is vital at this point. If you happen to park the truck near a small stand of aspen, be ready for a flushing grouse as soon as your lab jumps out of the truck.

Check along hill tops and focus on the edges where pines and aspen converge. A few birds can be found on the side of the hill sheltered from the wind enjoying the buds of aspen and beech trees. After a few hours and three thundering flushes return to the truck.

If you missed the only good shot you had all day, return to the cabin and drown your sorrows in a few glasses of scotch. Place the Bacon Log in the smoker at 225 degrees. Sit around for a couple hours, drink more scotch and joke around with your buddies.

Smother the log with BBQ sauce. Leave it in the smoker for another 10-15 minutes. Slice and enjoy.

A decent drawing landing us in the flooded corn in Fish Point on Saturday morning. In the 45 minutes it took us to set up we constantly had birds overhead. I could hardly see them against the black clouds but you could almost feel the air pushed off the bottoms of their wings. Curious to get a good look at the flock, I pointed my 1 million candle-watt spot light into the air. HUNDREDS of birds flared from the beam. I was convinced this was going to be an awesome hunt until shooting time began. With the gun loaded, the sky emptied. Late-season educated mallards know how to handle the managed areas. They eat at night and pour into the refuge to rest all day. We even watched mallards fly in from the bay over the roads avoiding hunters on their way to the safe-zone.

Out of four guys we managed to knock down a pair of buffies, including this nice drake, out of a flock of about 10. It was great to have Zeus back from the IR. He tracked down both of those wounded birds. Buffs are tough little bastards and tried diving to escape. Zeus went completely underwater about a dozen times before coming up with those ducks. He was a little cold for the rest of the morning but his tail never stopped wagging. His drive never ceases to amaze me. From the flooded corn fields we put on some orange and found a grassy plot which looked likely for pheasants. We flushed one huge hen out of some thick cover but didn’t see a single rooster.

After lunch we headed out to the big water out of Bay Port. We motored our canoes to a rocky point just outside of the marina. I had just finished setting the spread when Dusty noticed that Zeus was bleeding pretty bad. He cut one of his pads while pheasant hunting and really opened it up on the rocks on the island. My first aid kit was a mile away in the truck. Geno saved the day with a few gauze pads and a self-adhesive bandage, which I will always carry from now on. When I made a long shot on a redhead, Zeus didn’t hesistate to get that bandage wet. Unfortunately the duck dove never to be seen again.

After the hunt we had a few beers and some great pizza the Riverside Bar in Caseville. We made plans to head back to Fish Point in the morning to see if some new birds had moved in during the day. Hopefully these ducks wouldn’t be so wise to the ways of the refuge.

The wind was whipping as we pushed the canoes through the marsh in the dark. A single duck jumped out the water as we approached the blind. In the dim light I could see his slender neck. I hit him with the spotlight. It was a fully plumed drake Pintail, a wall-hanging trophy for sure. Unfortunately, that was the closest I’d be to a duck the rest of the weekend. We sat in the blind watching thousands of ducks circle the refuge for the next 2 1/2 hours but never fired a shot.

The blind was nice to block the wind and keep Zeus up out of the water. But limited cover made us stick out like a CEO in Wal-Mart. We took the action shot above just to give you the idea of what it might have looked like when a big flock of mallards set into the spread. Come on. It was cold. We had to do something to keep our spirits up. I packed the truck and headed to Alpena for Deer Camp. Of course, on the way, I saw a big fat rooster pheasant along the side of M-25 on the way to Bay City. Ain’t that the way it always goes.

From This–

To This–

Man, deer hunting is boring. This was my view from 6:30 am-5:30 pm and I didn’t see a single deer. The most exciting moment of the day was a mouse dropping off the ceiling of the blind and landing on my arm. It scared the crap out of me. But the adrenaline rush was enough to keep me awake for most of the morning.

So I didn’t get a limit of ducks or a trophy whitetail. But I had a great time with some of my favorite hunting buddies, watched Zeus punish some ducks on new water and put over 600 miles on the truck without leaving the state.

I can’t wait until Sunday when I attempt to track down some divers on big waters in Southeast Michigan.

The weather on Saturday absolutely sucked. Northwest winds at 20-30 mph and drizzling rain made the grouse hestiant to fly. Instead, they ran zig-zag patterns through the brush in a constant attempt to get behind us. Making matters worse, the rain washed out scent trails making it hard for Zeus to track these little speedsters. Determined to the make the most of our day at Lost Lake Woods Club Zeus and I employed the help of my beautiful wife to put some birds in the truck.

Our three-pronged plan of attack put pressure on the birds making their eradic running habits a little more predicatble. We located dense stands of 5 to 10 year old aspen mixed with small pines adjacent to logging trails and two-tracks. Zeus and I dove into the dense cover causing the birds to run back to the trails to get behind us. With Erika on the trail the birds ducked back into the woods seeking refuge in brush-piles and pines. My job was to keep up with Zeus and rendezvous at potential hiding spots to make the birds flush. It sounds simple but that ass-kicking terrain is making me sweat just thinking about it.

This technique put the first bird of the season in my game vest. Zeus got birdy, meaning his entire body goes into fast-forward. He charged around and picked up speed as he chased the bird toward Erika. He busted out of the cover, onto the trail, then made a hard right turn back into the woods. I knew he was going to get this bird up. I spotted a brush pile only 40 yards away and figured that’s where the grouse was heading. I had to get there. Quickly. I took the shell out of the chamber and ran. Briars ripped at the back of my hands. Aspen branches slapped my face and bounced off my glasses. Zeus closed in just as I got there, bird-crazed, his tail wagging in full circles. Just as I put the shell back in the gun my veteran bird-dog jumped into the brush. The grouse thundered into the air and flew right at me. I bent my knees, swung the shotgun over my head and fired. The bird crashed to the ground not even 20 feet away as feathers rained down on my hat.

We finished the day pushing through pines along the edge of marshes which produced our second grouse. And this pair of young raccoons which Zeus treed like an experienced Coonhound.

Sunday morning we teamed up with the fishing addicted author of the awesome blog Angling Obsession and his yellow lab Berk. It’s hard to get this dude out of Salmon waters this time of year but he’s always willing to lend a hand if feathers are involved…so he can tie more flies. We headed out to the Huron National Forest to work creek bottoms and acorn-filled stands of oaks mixed with young maples, aspen and beech trees.

There were other hunters in the area so we abandoned the easily accessable trails. We worked dense cover walking about 75-100 yards apart with the dogs running between us. We covered a lot of ground. We found a couple beech trees shredded by black bears, some buck rubs/scrapes and flushed a few woodcock.

The timberdoodles were hiding along the edge of creek bottoms in young aspen and beech trees. Like the grouse, these birds waiting for us to walk past then flushed-up behind us. I managed to connect with one to keep us from getting shut-out. We headed back to the trail to find the truck. We weren’t on the track for 100 yards before Berk flushed the only grouse we saw all day.

Early season upland hunting is tough work so team-up. Great dog work and heart-pounding flushes are just too exciting to keep to yourself. Besides, bragging will be more fun when your hunting buddies actually witness you gunning down a grouse in flight. Good luck this weekend and stay focused on my favorite upland motto: Flush ‘em and Crush ‘em.