Timberdoodle

"The Supermarket is all that's left of the hunt." ~  George Carlin

Gentle Reader,

Normally, I write these things targeted at someone I love.  Used to be Mother, now I reckon it’s Ann.  However, this one is totally for me so I can recall and enjoy in the future.  It’s about hunting, shooting and Rowdy.  You’ve been warned.

Woodcocks are remarkably silly looking birds that migrate through Wisconsin every year.  They summer up in Canada and Winter in the southern US.  So, every spring and fall they pass through the cabin area for roughly a week or so - usually right ahead of freezing weather and the first snow.  They thrive on the moist soil under youngish popple stands that harbor huge earthworm colonies.  

   

They migrate at night and fly roughly a distance of 30 miles or so every night they migrate.  On a side note, some folks call them "Timberdoodles".  Rowdy has no opinion on that.

Way back in 2011, a ‘straight-line wind storm’ blew through Burnett County and knocked down tens of thousands of mature trees, many of them on our property and the neighbors.  In nature, these windrows and snags would dry out, burn naturally and leave meadows that would fill in with popples as time progressed.  Avoiding the fire hazard, many of our neighbors had lumber companies come in to log out the dead trees for what profit could be realized.  Logging also results in the a new tree cycle. 

Eight-year-old popples that are interspersed with more mature woods are prime Woodcock and Ruffed Grouse habitat.  Thus, the forests surrounding the cabin hit prime bird season this year and I hear it was the best Woodcock season many seasoned hunters can recall. It certainly was for Rowdy and I.  For an entire week, we flushed over 20 birds and bagged seven of them.   Two Ruffed Grouse also.  

Moving on to wingshooting.  Wingshooting is a totally different discipline and mindset from being a good rifle shot.  You have no concern over trigger squeeze – just slap the trigger when the picture is right.  I strive to keep both eyes open for depth perception and look at the bird.  I move my eyes to the lead point, when the shotgun hits my shoulder and my cheek hits the stock, everything is lined up with where you are looking and you just shoot.  Mounting the gun is a subconscious process that you have to have practiced a lot with dry fire and clay shooting.  

Note, I’m not saying I’m good at this.  I’m just saying that when I’m at my meager best, I don’t remember the process.  I just remember looking at the bird, confirming that it’s safe to shoot and then the bird is down.

The times I miss are when I make it a conscious process that requires thought.  

In this, it is like golf.  And making a good jump shot in basketball – back when I was young and could jump.  You get in the zone and it just happens.  Thinking just screws you all up.  It’s like Iceman said:  “…there’s no time to think.  If you think, you’re dead.”

With that background, I’m going to tell some stories about when I was in the zone, Rowdy found a bird and everything came together. 

Though I started off talking about Woodcocks, I find I’m gonna talk about grouse first.  Sue me.   

We bagged two grouse this year.  The first was out on the path on the Namekagon Peninsula in late October. The Namekagon River basin is held up by the DNR to be one of Wisconsin’s totally remote wilderness areas.  I agree.  In this particular spot, there are no dwellings within miles, it was late fall, cool and just a lovely place to be.  Ann was behind me, Rowdy roughly 20 yards in front.  Nice young popple stand, yellow leaves still hanging, intermixed with oaks with some dark brown leaves still up.  Most of the foliage was on the ground, however and it was much easier to get a good sight-line on a bird than it had been two weeks ago.  

  

Suddenly Rowdy jounced forward, there came the unmistakable whir of a grouse flushing, and the bird popped straight up in front of us trying to roost in the branches of a large oak.  I visually locked on the bird, mounted and fired and Rowdy was on the dead grouse and then on the way back to me within seconds.  Nice job, heeling, holding and giving to hand.   A really nice memory.  

It was the first grouse I’d heard or seen since one sighting in Aug.  Before that we’d heard lots of drumming in the spring, I’d marked the locations, but the dearth of sightings since then had caused me to begin to suspect that the Grousepocalypse theory of West Nile Virus might be coming true.  

We did not see any more grouse that hike, but we found the kayaking/canoeing camp ground landing on the trail about a quarter mile later.

I think the second grouse story is a lot more fun.  Our neighbors across the street to the east from the cabin manage their land for deer hunting.  It’s fortunate that for the most part, deer habitat is also upland game bird habitat.  Out in the center of the property is nice little – well, 'puddle' is too small and 'pond' is too large.  Call it a pool.  The pool is surrounded roughly by a 30-yard ring of scrub oak and young popples.  Rowdy treed a bear in this area back in the spring and I hadn’t sent him in there since then.  But now the leaves were down, I could see better and I was comfortable with him hunting in this nice little zoo exhibit / grouse drumming ground.

North of this pool forest is a big newly cleared area that they plant soybean in for cover and deer bait. They have just built a very nice enclosed deer stand with sliding windows and a propane heating system on a wooden frame.  The whole construct thrusts roughly ten feet in the air.  Around this clearing is a narrow ring of blackberry brambles and scrub oak.

Rowdy hates going into blackberry brambles.  I don’t make him do it because frankly, the thorns are at his eye level and I agree with him that brambles suck. 

There is a narrow ATV trail between this ringed clearing and woodsy pool area and I was walking that trail.  I had told Rowdy to go hunt in the pool woodsy area and he was beating around in there.  I was only catching intermittent glimpses of him. Suddenly, I hear him running, a grouse flushes, whirring, appearing to my left.  It's roughly 20 yards away out of the cover, slightly rising and flying fast to the right across the narrow trail I'm on. 

Ruffed Grouse are really pretty when they are flying and this one is close enough that I can enjoy it in the blur of recall. It's got his neck stuck out, his triangular tail spread, his feet folded up and the wings are a blur.  It vaguely looks like a fighter jet.  I already had the gun half mounted as I heard the whir, I knew the backstop was clear – I was worried about shooting the nice deer stand – and I subconsciously tracked and fired right before he went out of view behind the scrub oak on the right of the trail.  Some feathers fly off, the grouse went down in the brambly, oak scrub area right next to the deer stand, but was still beating its wings as it descended.  I’d only wounded it. 

  

Rowdy burst out, but did not smell the wounded bird.  If there is a gunshot, he gets very excited and he wanted to find the bird.  I let him beat about for a few minutes but it became apparent he had no idea where the bird was. 

So, I beeped him and called “here”.  He came, but was looking at me like “Reff, let me get that bird!”  I heeled him up, noted the wind direction and we heeled over to downwind of where I thought the bird was.  I could see he had gotten the nose for the bird and sent him on a “Find it!”  

He took off into the brambles like they weren’t there.  Within seconds, I could see him bouncing up and down through the thorny mess, chasing the wounded grouse.   They burst into the clearing, I heard a yip, some running doggy footsteps then nothing.  

I made my way into the clearing to find Rowdy neck deep in a wood pile on the edge of the clearing, it's detritus from the clearing bush hog.  It was obvious the grouse had hidden in the wood pile and feathers were flying up as Rowdy tried to yank it out.  I called him off, heeled him up and sat him.  I was afraid he’d tear the bird up and wreck the meat.  I reached in, grabbed the bird, wrang its neck, tossed it over on the ground for Rowdy to complete the fetch and deliver it.  He was very proud of himself.  

The seven woodcocks were a lot more fun.

I took an hour or so that first day to realize that the woodcock migration was in full force.   I had just rounded the main intersection of ATV trails on the way to the clay range when one, then another woodcock flushed up.  Followed very quickly by a grouse.  Rowdy flushed them on the run, no point.  I totally missed all three.  

The land owners have a very nice little sporting clay, amateur trap range set on a little hill.  At the top of the hill, they have recently put in another deer stand.  This one has a storage closet built in under it where they store the clay flinger and a propane heating system.  Immediately behind the stand the hill flattens out and there is an extensive scrub oak, mature popple forest.  On the last day we hunted, Rowdy pointed and I shot a woodcock just off the base of this deer stand.  On either side of the range is a younger popple forest that is a common place to see birds.  Rowdy flushed a lot of birds out there but all too far away for me to shoot at.    

Rowdy was out in the middle of that forest, roughly 25 yards away when he froze.  I saw this blurry, cloud of feathers fly straight up near where he had stopped.  Good backstop, I mounted, tracked, fired and thought I missed.  Rowdy bounded over, grabbed something and came running to me with our first woodcock in his mouth.  Even though I hadn’t sent him to fetch, I forgave him that break in discipline. 

A side note about woodcock lore.  Experienced hunters say dogs really don’t like the taste of a woodcock.  I found this interesting, since we are talking about dogs who eat poop and suchlike, but it appears to be true.  Rowdy dropped that bird and picked it back up about 3 times before he came to me and heeled.  This is really unnatural Rowdy behavior.  This would continue with all the Woodcocks we bagged.  He really didn’t like holding them in his mouth. The wood-lore is they taste peppery, but I can’t find anything on the internet to back that up.  

The next day we only got one bird.  It was at the end of a two-hour session; I got several shots but missed.  We were on the ATV trail at the extreme northwest corner of the property.  This is only roughly 75 yards or so from our cabin.  It sits up on top of a hill and in the winter with leaves down you can see the cabin quite clearly.   

I was tired and thinking about whether to just beat through the brush over to the cabin or walk the roughly 400-yard circuitous route that the trail out to the road and down to the cabin would entail.  I was ignoring Rowdy as I pondered this.

When I looked back at Rowdy, I understood for the very first time that I was looking at him pointing.  He had been pointing before, but this was the first time it really sank in.  There is a large popple tree to my immediate left maybe 10 yards away.  Rowdy is roughly 10 yards on the other side of it.  He’s crouched into a semi sit, and staring at something near the base of the tree.   I don’t know how long he’d been like that, but I’d been standing there thinking and resting for several minutes so it had to have been for a while.  

Now, if this were to happen tomorrow, I’d tell him, “Sit, Stay!” and I’d start walking toward him to flush the unseen bird.  Because I hadn’t given a moment of thought to what to do in this case, I blurted out "fetch!”  He lunged at where he was looking, a woodcock took flight in a blur rising up and slightly right.  I tracked, mounted, shot and the bird fell maybe 15 yards away.  I was astonished.  

Rowdy made the best fetch and delivery he’s ever done, but I could have walked over and picked it up easily.  We walked home on the ATV trail in companionable silence to clean the bird.  

This was on a Tuesday.  We would hunt every day until Friday.  Rowdy would point out 5 more woodcocks before we left for home. All the successful shots would be the same blur of recall.  I remember seeing the bird fly, locking onto it visually, some vague unconscious shooting mechanics and then watch Rowdy fetch and deliver the bird.   Two up by the clay range again, one near the central trail and two in the brambles to the immediate east of the owner’s cabin complex.

 

It was quite simply, the best week we’ve ever had together.  I’ll treasure it forever.  

On that note, I remain,

Dad / Geoff

Doggy Serendipity

Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.  ~ Lawrence Block

Gentle Readers,

This is another dog story.  Rowdy went all serendipitous this fall and I’m going to try to describe it.  I’ll ramble a bit, hang with me.

Bird dogs come in two basic varieties.  Hunting retrievers and pointers.  Rowdy by virtue of his Golden Retriever and Standard Poodle parents is a retriever.  The retrievers de-emphasize quarry location and emphasize the retrieve.  Especially if we are discussing water fowling where the human strongly desires to avoid immersion in the cold, smelly swamp. 

Pointers emphasize the hunt itself.  Generations of breeding and training have resulted in dogs that freeze when they sense a bird.  For extra style points, they can strike the cliched raised front leg straight-tail pose but that’s not important.  What’s important is that they get as close to the bird as their instinct and training allow without flushing it and face toward it.  

The hunter’s job is to note when the pointer has stopped quartering and started pointing.  The hunter then uses the dog’s point, the wind, the landscape and their experience to walk to where the bird probably is and then the hunter flushes the bird.  The well-trained pointer holds the point until released to retrieve the bird or continue the hunt if there is a miss.   

Hunters with pointers can relax and watch the dog work waiting for the point. 

Hunters with retrievers have to remain constantly on edge to take the shot because the retrievers blindly quarter within gun range of the hunter and bluntly flush the bird. Which is how Rowdy and I have been hunting until October this year rolled around.

A little aside about dogs, breeding and intelligence.  Standard Poodles, Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers score very high on the doggy intelligence scale.  The Labs though, are bred and trained for focus, intensity and enthusiasm.  When you send a Lab on a retrieve, they are going to go to the mark and retrieve with single minded fervor.  If they are quartering for birds, that is what they do.  No distractions. 

Rowdy is different.  He’s really smart, but he’s also a late maturing doodle.  He’s goofy at times, focuses on the wrong thing often and notices a lot of what is going on around him.  I am constantly calling him off of squirrels, deer and - once a skunk.  Which he still smells like when he gets wet.  (If you ever find yourself in need of deskunkifaction, here’s a recipe.) 

If I fire a shotgun near him, he’s focused on where the bird went.  He loves him some gunshots. 

Fireworks and thunder are different.  He’s decided that those are the focus of evil in the world. 

I’ve seen him stop in the middle of a water retrieve to ogle a frog.  

What I’m saying is Rowdy is a bit of a free thinker.

Finally, here’s the serendipity I promised.  Out of nowhere, he started pointing birds this fall.  I’ve seen him do it now around 20 times, it's not a one-off.  If the bird doesn’t flush, he stops, freezes and focuses on it.  His eyes dart back and forth from me to the bird as if to say: “Reff, it’s right there!  Shoot it!”   He has without any attempt at training on my part voluntarily moved out of the retriever circle on the Pointer/Retriever Venn Diagram and into the intersection between them.  I like to think it is a measurement of his intelligence and eagerness to work with me. But I could be all hubristic on this....

At risk of going all Jack London dog novel on you, it is a great gift from the best dog I’ve ever had. 

On that note, I remain,

Dad/Geoff

Ps, no, I don’t haven any pictures of it happening.  I was still so surprised by the whole development, I totally forgot to get the phone out.

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