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Hunting with the Yellow Dogs
11-09-18
This is the last weekend of muzzleloader deer season in NH. This is also going to be the last weekend I run the dogs before the pumpkin army hits the woods for rifle deer season starting 11-14-18. I haven't written much or taken many pictures but Belle and Gracie have both been on top of their game since bird season opened October 1.
Belle has been a woodcock machine moving almost fifty. Six came home. Going to give her one more go tomorrow. Hope the little russet fellows haven't flown the coop south yet.
Some notes from a trip with Belle to NH Great North Woods last month.
"About 1630 on Friday while ferrying a load of rocks to fill in a hole above a culvert I chanced upon a hunter. He told me where he came from and where he was going. He still had a mile and a half to the gate. I asked him how he planned to get back to his vehicle. He said hitch hike. (Only in northern NH toting a shotgun). There was no way I was going to leave him at this hour and I told him I would bring him back to his vehicle. It took two loads of stones to fill the hole. He helped me with both loads and to show his appreciation for the ride lent me a couple of covers.
While Belle and I were checking the roads Friday I spied some young aspen growth about fifty yards inside the wood line. I parked, walked about a quarter mile down the road and we entered the woods. It was like a gift from God. Belle moved two grouse and a woodcock in our short hike.
I thanked him for the location of his hunting spots and told him I would prefer to come back here tomorrow and investigate. He asked if he could join me. Due to the back country wildness of this piece I was glad to invite him. You break your ankle in this piece and it may be days before you are discovered.
The Map my Tracks app said we hunted 4.11 miles in three hours and eight minutes. We moved over double digit grouse and woodcock. To be honest we lost count. In one section of the most scenic and desirable young forest dominated by young aspen, alders and suck your boot black silty mud we moved six grouse.
Can you believe we left with a pocket full of shotgun hulls and empty game bags?
It was my best day in the uplands in years. Belle earned her Grouse Commander Veteran Heritage Badge and I need to go back to shooting school 101."
Gracie has been a work in process. She possesses the most hunt I've ever had in my labs. It has tended to get her in trouble. Gracie is carrying the scrapes and cuts to show it. She is not like Belle who floats through the woods, a bull dozer might be a better description. In one woodcock cover where the ground cover is raspberries I had to pull Gracie because she looked more like a prize fighter who had a few bad rounds. Those thorns turned her from yellow to red. But that didn't faze her. Seriously nothing has fazed this dog. Gracie has a strong foundation. The mortar has dried tight but my carpenter skills on which to build the house above the ground needs help. I would like to thank Irishwhistler for his guidance.
This is Carlton Brook's Great Bay Gracie on a solo hunt with her first woodcock on her 10 month old birthday. She has been a challenge in our home environment but to hunt behind her is such a pure joy! I love this dog!
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Last hunt before the pumkin army
Took Belle one last time 11-10 to a coveted cover a forester showed me this fall before the pumpkin army invasion of deer hunters invade the woods 11-14.
We visited this cover four other times this fall. Between Gracie and Belle they skied two dozen woodcock and a brace of grouse. One woodcock came home. The cover is only about fifteen acres but is dominated with aspen. It is premier upland bird habitat and located about a mile in on conservation land. Due to its distance from the main road and the age of the young forests we never encountered or saw presence of other hunters.
Belle was hell on the woodcock. She skied six and one grouse. Two woodcock came home.
Soon it will be December and time for stick season grouse. I am so addicted to their whirl of wings.