Bird Dogs Afield host Paul Fuller is the gun dog columnist for Northwoods Sporting Journal. The Journal has granted permission to re-print Paul’s articles. Thank you Northwoods Sporting Journal.
Cold Weather Grouse
Grouse fever is a difficult itch to cure. As October fades away, we look for more and more opportunities to feed our fever. My wife, Susan, shorthairs Dillon and Dena and I extended our season with a one thousand mile trip to Kapuskasing, Ontario and a mid-November trip to Southern West Virginia. Here’s our story.
Kap River Outfitters (www.kapriveroutfitters.ca) is our destination in Kapuskasing, Ontario. We made this trip three years ago, however, we went in late September and encountered 80 degree days and very thick cover since no leaves had yet dropped. This year we decided a later trip would be better.
Well, not quite. We went for a three day hunt. The first day we had a hard cold rain. The dogs often looked at us with that “you’ve got to be kidding stare.” We were wet and cold all day long. On the good side, however, we had about a dozen flushes and Susan got three nice “on the wing” kills. Considering the weather, it was a good day for us.
Unfortunately, the next two days were snow and cold. Hot coffee in the truck was very comforting. We searched out new logging roads and twice we had to turn back due to washouts. A combination of keeping warm in the truck and blowing snow kept our flush numbers down the last two days but we did manage to find a few birds. The last day we decided to go far and deep and, at one point, we were only about ten miles from the tree line. If we continued to hike North, we would have eventually reached Hudson Bay.
Ontario is a fish and game rich province. Unfortunately, we’ve visited Kapuskasing either too early or too late. Grouse numbers are very good in this area and, hopefully, we’ll return in the future during better weather.
Our next November trip was to Southern West Virginia for our first ever Appalachia grouse hunt. Susan and I have wanted to do this trip for several years and finally decided it was time. When we first planned the trip this past July, I mentioned to Susan that, traveling south, we will most likely have pleasant 40 degree weather for our hunting days. How about 12 degrees at night and a high of 20 during the day? And…a little snow.
Not to be deterred, we ventured out with great gusto. For years I’ve heard about how poor the grouse numbers are in the Appalachia range. Habitat continued to decline and predator numbers were high. Much to our delight, we had a very good first day. We had ten flushes by noon. And, they were all in the grapes. For us Northern hunters, we may encounter a few grapes here or there; with the vine usually about head high. Not in Appalachia…grape vines are often 3” in diameter and climb to 100 feet. The birds are high in the trees and flush from the trees before a hunter gets very close. This feeding pattern also leaves little opportunity for a pointing dog.
The other popular food source we discovered was the Hawthorne tree. These are not shrubs; they’re large trees. And, they’re full of berries. Although the birds were most often in the trees and provided little opportunity for dog work, the occasion bird was eating berries that had dropped to the ground, which gave us a few points.
For those thinking about a West Virginia trip, I would offer one suggestion. You must be in very good physical condition. The mountains are often straight up and down. Several times I crawled up a mountain and slid down. It was very hard work. Be prepared!
Although October is our crème-de-la crème month for bird hunting, November still offers excellent opportunities for good times afield. Just hope for warmer weather than what we experienced this year!
Paul Fuller is host of Bird Dogs Afield TV, which may be seen in the Greater Boston area on WBIN (Comcast Ch. 18) Fox 21 in Duluth, MN and Fox 23 in Portland beginning in November and running through December. Previous TV broadcast episodes, and dozens of training and hunting videos and Paul’s previous Sporting Journal columns may be seen or read on Paul’s website which is www.birddogsafield.com. Paul may be contacted at paul@birddogsafield.com.