"Old friends aren't made overnight." ~ Saint-Exupery
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| Al and Geoff, Namekagon River |
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
October is the height of Fall Colors and also Ruffed Grouse and Woodcock season here in NW Wisconsin. Every year, Al Cave and his wife come to visit. Al and I hunt the wily birds and Lisa and Ann have fun together. We never really have a lot of luck bagging birds, but we have fun - especially working with my dogs. The story is the same this year. I did get some fairly nice video I'm about to share with you.
As usual, if hunting stories offend you, please go read something else.
There is a Fire Break trail along Loon Creek up here that everyone knows about and it always has birds. I told this short story to Al as we walk up to a bramble cover that Rowdy and Rory have bounced birds out of before. As always, you can click on these videos to make the bigger and better resolution.
Its a good setup for what happened immediately after this.
I sent Rory to look into that same bramble cover and dern if he didn't bounce up the first Woodcock I've seen this year. Al made a great shot.
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| Al follows through, Rory Chases |
As happens many times, we didn't need Rory to retrieve this bird, it's laying right there at our feet. But...I haven't spent all those hours working with Rory to get Obedient Fetch drilled in to miss a chance to retrieve a freshly killed bird. Especially a Woodcock, because Rory really needs more familiarity with the Timberdoodles.
So, this next video is a couple of minutes of Keystone Cops because Rory really did need some training in Woodcocks. Please skip over this unless your are really interested in seeing dog training foibles...
Al bagged the Woodcock and we continued on up the Fire Break. I really love this little piece of Burnett County, WI. It's really pretty. Rory goes out and bounces up another Grouse. I have to wait for my shot after the bird passes Al and I totally missed it. But we sent Rory out to look anyway.
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| Muzzle Discipline? |
I have no more stories to tell from that Fire Road and Ann drove us over to another little forest two track not far. There's a little corner where I frequently see birds sunning and sure enough, Rory bounced up another one. I'm pretty proud of how obedient Rory was in the run up to this.
A bunch of family kids came up that night and we all climbed aboard the Poontoon Boat. A sunset cruise and dashed hopes to see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.
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| Ham Lake Sunset Cruise |
On that note, I remain,
Dad/Geoff
ps, Found the comet tonight!
