The Gadabout: Friendship ...... Day 1

"A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair." ~ Samuel Johnson

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones All,

I have been putting off this Gadabout for a few months because – well, I don’t really know how to tie the three days together. So, what I’m going to do is just show a couple of pictures of the first two days with quick descriptions. The last day was more “Gadabouty”.

By now you are probably asking, “Geoff, what the deuce are you babbling about?” Well, you should.

Al, my roommate back at the Trade School in the 70s is amongst my oldest friends. Having retired, we have established a yearly tradition. Every year in late October, Al and his wife Lisa drive over from Bay City to spend a couple of days at the Wisco Cabin. Late October is when Grouse and Woodcock Season is at full roar. Al and I spend a couple of days stalking the wily Grouse with Rowdy. Both years so far, we have not exactly put a ding in the game bird population, but we have a good time.

I have learned a lot about the grouse habitats around North Burnett County. Which means that I can put Rowdy in a place that almost always has birds. Rowdy has really improved at finding birds. So, we flushed lots of birds, just didn’t bag many. Grouse are like that.

To the pictures.

On the first day, Ann and Lisa drove Al and I around in the Ranger. This allowed us to walk out a hunt and get picked up without having to backtrack our walk. This is a great thing for my aging carcass. We started off by going to a nice short walk over on Loon Creek. The creek at this point flows out of Briggs Lake over towards the Minerva Lake Chain. We got this nice picture.


Loon Creek looking towards Briggs Lake

We flailed around unsuccessfully for a couple more walks and finally Al got a bird not far on the other side of the creek from that picture above.


Al and Rowdy and the Grouse.

I made everyone form up for a picture at the back of the Ranger. Rowdy mugged for the camera.


Rowdy gives Ann the Grouse.

Roughly a mile east of there is nice little trail that runs the crest of a hill down into the Loon Creek basin. I really had high hopes for that hunt, but we saw nothing.


There are birds out there, laughing.

As we drove back up the crest we stopped and got these pictures. Logging companies really cleaned out this forest about a year ago. In about 8 years, when the popple stands grow up, it’ll be great grouse cover.